for galmaegi
Title: sing one for the old times
Recipient: galmaegi
Group & Pairing: Winner, Seungyoon/Taehyun
Rating: PG
Summary: Kang Seungyoon gets signed to YG Entertainment, and Nam Taehyun decides to quit music.
Kang Seungyoon gets signed to YG Entertainment, and Nam Taehyun decides to quit music.
He’s in Hongdae when the news breaks. They have a show next weekend, just a few streets away, and Seungyoon has been panicking. Neither of them have written anything worthwhile since their last show. Taehyun doesn’t mind, but Seungyoon thinks that it somehow ruins their credibility if they’re caught playing the same songs. Taehyun has told him, more than once, that they don’t have any credibility to be lost in the first place.
But: “That’s not the point, Taehyun,” and then, somewhat more fervently, “It’s about the audience, it’s about the music”. Eventually, Seungyoon’s cliches have a way of wearing even Taehyun down.
Taehyun is in some trendy coffee shop, nursing a double Americano and writer’s block. His notebook is filled with lyrics hastily scribbled down and just as hastily crossed out. He’s twisting around the same old love song, trying to fashion it into something new, something different, but to his consternation it’s just as bland and colorless as always. The college girls sitting next to him might recognize him, but he’s not really sure and he’s too shy to find out. He writes that down, and then crosses it out three, four, five times, feeling like an ass. He glances over at the girls. They catch him looking and giggle.
His phone buzzes. He ignores it: it’s either Seungyoon asking about his progress, or Mino asking about the rent. He isn’t up for either.
“Laughing girls,” he writes down, trying to image the words filtered through Seungyoon’s low, reedy voice. “Black and bitter coffee.”
His phone buzzes again, and then three more times. He finally picks up his phone, annoyed.
(1 missed call)
Kang Seungyoon (Work): Please call me before you talk to anyone else
Kang Seungyoon (Work): I'll explain everything
Taehyun stares at the message. Before he can figure out what’s happening, his phone vibrates rapidly in his hand.
Song Mino: dude did u hear
Song Mino: !!!!!!!! wtf
He’s linked Taehyun to the relevant Naver article. There are relevant Naver articles, in this strange new world Taehyun hasn’t quite realized that he now resides in. This isn’t his world, of course, but his partner’s. His ex-partner, some higher functioning part of his brain corrects him. His phone is buzzing. He can’t hear his thoughts.
“KANG SEUNGYOON OF SUPERSTAR K2 SIGNS WITH YG ENTERTAINMENT,” the headline reads, and then, beneath it, “Kang: It’s the biggest honor of my life.”
Taehyun shuts his phone, and leaves the coffee shop.
They were never that popular. Seungyoon’s audition had changed everything, of course. Now they had fans, just a few, but enough that they had to appoint a moderator for their fanboards, instead of just letting Taehyun ban people when he was drunk.
But before, when it was Kang Seungyoon and Nam Taehyun, random guys with guitars, not Kang Seungyoon, singer, idol, star (and his sometimes writing partner Nam Something) - no one had ever really noticed them. They drew crowds when they busked, but that was mainly just tourists stopping to Instagram the local culture. No one had followed them. No one had waited outside of their shows. More often than not, Taehyun was recognized for being Minho’s roommate, instead of his opening act.
Taehyun had never minded. He liked anonymity. It allowed his music be formless, a nebulous stretched-out force beholden only to the range of Seungyoon’s voice, rather than their fans’ whims. He called himself an artist. Seungyoon and Minho laughed at him, but he believed in the self-imposed title. He wanted to sing. He wanted to create.
He’d thought, maybe stupidly, that Seungyoon had felt the same.
Minho is cooking something horrible when Taehyun gets home. He slinks into the living room, trying to become invisible as he curls up on the couch. He squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want Minho’s pity, which he knows will overflow if he lets it.
His head is still buzzing, along with his phone. Seungyoon has called him five times since the news broke. Friends have been texting him nonstop, asking him if he’s okay, asking him why he didn’t sign with Seungyoon, asking him if he needs a new partner. A trendy, trashy blog has offered to put one of his songs on the front page in exchange for a quote.
Taehyun throws his phone across the room, but the buzzing only gets louder. He groans. Something hot presses against his skin, and he cracks his eyes open.
“Tough break, kid,” Minho says, smoothing the washcloth across his face like an absentminded mother. Taehyun bats his hand away. Minho laughs genuinely, and flicks the spot in between his eyebrows.
“I’m making dinner,” he says, standing up and drifting towards the kitchen. “It’s shit, but you’ll eat it.”
“I’m not hungry,” Taehyun responds pathetically, burrowing his face into the cushions. Minho just snorts.
He doesn’t bring it up until after they’ve started drinking, and Taehyun is thankful for that. They drink a lot, in the tradition of their friendship, and for once Minho doesn’t try to stop Taehyun when his words start to slur.
For the first time today, about the time he finishes his fifth bottle, Taehyun feels a little less. “Not less sad,” he explains, “just like the part of me that could have been hurt doesn’t matter so much right now.” He pauses, and then grabs another beer. He hates being at a loss for words.
Minho considers him. He is far less drunk than Taehyun. Taehyun is resentful. “Did he say anything to you,” he asks finally. “Anything at all?”
Taehyun shakes his head ‘no’. “I know they taped the reunion last week, which is why we didn’t do that show in Dongdaemun, but afterward he just seemed… normal. I even asked him about it, I asked him if anything happened because I was expecting, we were all expecting…” He smiles, grotesquely. “I guess Seungyoon is better at lying than I thought.” He’s finding that he’s exceptionally good at being bitter.
Minho is suddenly too sharp for the alcohol, too sharp for Taehyun’s mood. “Don’t say shit like that,” he says. “You know Seungyoon wouldn’t intentionally fuck you over. Don’t say shit like that, Taehyun.”
“I don’t really know what Seungyoon would do, I guess,” Taehyun says. His throat is inexplicably closing up. His eyes are hot, and so he buries his head in his knees before Minho can see and pity. He is a coward.
He’s silenced Minho, somehow, or maybe there isn’t really anything left to say. His phone chimes incessantly in the other room, until Minho stands and turns it off with a heavy sigh. The buzzing in Taehyun’s head disappears, and all that’s left behind is an unforgiving, unending silence.
Taehyun had to force him to audition in the first place. Seungyoon didn’t want to, but Taehyun insisted.
It was half a joke at first, but “What if,” he told Seungyoon, “you win, and you get famous, and some bigshot company wants to sign you and you get a fuckton of money?”
He had cursed Seungyoon out for not immediately correcting him, “Sign us”. At the time they had both laughed, at the idea of Kang Seungyoon winning, at the idea of Kang Seungyoon even getting an audition.
Kang Seungyoon was the number one search term on Daum day one, and from there it just kept going.
Seungyoon texts him 10 times the next day, then 12 more the next. They go unopened.
Taehyun holes up in their apartment. He hordes bags of chips and scours the internet for more news about Seungyoon. It’s the same article, with that same fucking picture from the day he was eliminated, his eyes kind of red, his shoulders kind of hunched. He remembers Seungyoon that night, shaking his head with a smile too brittle to last much longer; “It’ll be alright,” he’d said, almost as drunk as Taehyun is now. Fuck them, though. Fuck them.”
Taehyun reads every article, over and over again. He savors every minute detail in a horrible, self-castigating sort of way. Minho eventually kicks him out, citing his greasy skin and his growing aversion to sunlight. “You can be pissed about Seungyoon all you want,” he says, “but you cannot become a fucking vampire.”
He avoids his usual haunts for fear of Seungyoon tracking him down. Instead he drifts through the city, lingering especially by the river. He’s acting like the spurned lead of a melodrama, and he feels like one too.
Two girls approach him and tell him how sorry they are about what went down with Seungyoon-ssi. He smiles, and nods, and signs their mixtapes.
He tries to write. His friends tell him it will be theraputic, that the best art comes from pain, or some hippie bullshit. It doesn’t help Taehyun. If he had been blocked before the news broke, now it’s as if there was never anything there in the first place. He sings, he composes, he writes, he draws, but everything he makes is hollow and lifeless, not even grotesque enough to be interesting. He’s disgusted with what he creates, and with himself for even trying.
Seungyoon stops texting.
ARENA: Has it been different? I know it's only been a few weeks-
KANG SEUNGYOON: Yeah, that's the question everyone's been asking me... And like you said, it's just been a few weeks. I'm sure that once I finally debut it's going to be, you know, a completely different world. But right now I'm just so focused on composing, on learning the choreography, all that stuff. I can't really focus on anything else.
ARENA: How does that feel?
KANG SEUNGYOON: It's very... isolating. I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but.. Yeah, it's been very lonely.
Seungyoon debuts in July 2013. Taehyun catches a glimpse of his first performance before Minho guiltily changes the channel. Seungyoon looks arrogant, proud, confident - everything he never was with Taehyun. Taehyun goes into his bedroom and slams the door shut.
Taehyun works with Minho, works with himself, works alone. It’s all trash, despite the lies his friends tell him. His compositions are at first too heavy, a slow and thudding adagio, but by the next measure drift away, having become sparse, light, and formless. It starts to make him angry - not just the writer’s block, but music itself. He feels bitter when he looks at their old songs, angry at himself for wasting his talent, angry at someone else, for leaving him with nothing but his own voice, as small and lifeless as it is. He can’t write without hearing, in his head, another person’s voice.
Ashamed, he stops writing.
He busks in Insadong and performs flash concerts by Hongik. The songs are old, but no one notices. He’s as famous as he’s always been, which is not much, except now he’s got the dull sheen of ‘Kang Seungyoon’s former - former partner, friend, everything. It gets him more listeners and more tips.
Seungyoon wins his first award within three weeks. He thanks YG and Teddy and his mother, and all of his friends back home. Taehyun doesn’t watch.
It’s November now, and no one listens to Taehyun. Not that he particularly has anything for them to hear. Music hasn’t left him, but it only appears now in a voice that isn’t his own. His old material has run out, and it’s getting too cold to busk for tourists anymore. Minho keeps bugging him about this show he and some friends are putting on, but he doesn’t see the point. The only songs he has are for two voices, and even he doesn’t want to hear them anymore.
Seungyoon emails him a few times, but after the first they all go to spam. Their mutual friends tell him that Seungyoon has been moping around a lot, and Taehyun feels a vicious stab of triumph before it all recedes again into dull apathy.
“He asks about you a lot,” Seunghoon tells him. They’re out in Hongdae, trying to buy a present for Taehyun’s mom. Seunghoon has been their friend since art school, and doesn’t pick sides. This makes him the default messenger and rumor monger. “He’s pretty shaken up about everything.”
“Too bad,” Taehyun says, trying on an air of indifference. He puts on a hat, and eyes himself critically. “It’s very romantic, though, isn’t it? Being famous and sad.”
“Don’t act like that.” Seunghoon frowns at Taehyun. He’s becoming earnest now, which Taehyun hates. “I’m serious, he’s really upset about how everything happened. He didn’t mean it to change so quickly, and you didn’t give him a chance to explain-”
“What would his explanation be, if I gave him the chance?” Taehyun asks, his voice too bright. “Did he tell you why he signed? Was it the money? I bet it was the money.” He’s brittle, his whole body is brittle, and Seunghoon is just looking at him with those eyes, so full of pity and purity. “Don’t talk to me about it,” he says gruffly, turning back to the mirror.
Seunghoon doesn’t say anything for a second, and that makes it worse. “Have you bought his CD?” he says, finally.
Taehyun looks at him in the mirror, too surprised to be angry. “What?” he says, forgetting to fake composure for a moment. “No, why would I?”
Seunghoon narrows his eyes. “Don’t be a dick, Taehyun, you know that you want to hear it.”
Taehyun does, and that makes it worse. He’s heard about Seungyoon’s debut - the fastest album YG has put out in years, and maybe one of the best. Seungyoon is rumored to sweep the end of the year awards shows. He knows Minho has a copy, which he keeps carefully hidden away as though he’s scared Taehyun will do something drastic should he see it. He’s heard snippets playing when he goes shopping, but he just wears headphones everywhere he goes now, which gives him the added bonus of looking aloof and unapproachable.
He’s silent, and Seunghoon makes a little humming sound. Taehyun hates it. “I can get you a copy, if you want.”
“No!” Taehyun says, a little too forcefully. The clerk glares at him and makes a shusshing motion with his hands. Taehyun leans in close to Seungyoon and lowers his voice. “Don’t do that, don’t tell Seungyoon I asked about him, just - don’t.” He leans back, his cheeks reddening a little at his sudden outburst. “Please, Seunghoon. I don’t want this.”
Seunghoon looks at him again, his expression inscrutable. Taehyun feels his cheeks burn hotter, and is ashamed. “Fine,” says Seunghoon after another long, terrible pause. “Fine, Taehyun. But if you ever - get over yourself, or something, whatever, buy a copy. He wants you to. I want you to.” He closes his eyes, and sighs. “I’m sorry for getting heated. That hat looks horrible.”
Taehyun doesn’t buy the CD until mid-January. He hadn’t been meaning to. He had long since filed the conversation with Seunghoon under ‘mortifying moments I never want to relive again’, and ignored any of his attempts to bring up the topic since with icy silence. Pettiness, in Nam Taehyun’s hands, could be an art form.
He’s at the store for Minho - the Harmonics have their first label release, and Minho making him buying as many copies as he can to support them. He’s got a stack of five in hand when he approaches the counter, and is already dreading the awkward conversation he’s going to have with the clerk.
Seungyoon’s CD kiosk is right by the counter, completely unavoidable. It’s a colorful, oversized display, well-stocked despite the CD having been out for three months already. He’s heard about its success, but he hadn’t quite realized until now, staring up at a literal monument to his friend’s triumph, how outclassed he’s become.
It’s the first time he’s seen Seungyoon’s face in half a year.
Nothing shifts inside of him. His stomach doesn’t become warm; his heart doesn’t clench and stutter. The world doesn’t suddenly, inexplicably grow mute. He breathes normally.
He wants, though, in this moment, more than anything else in the world, to hear Seungyoon’s voice, singing the songs Taehyun has written for him.
They met accidentally.
Taehyun wasn’t supposed to be a singer. He’d taken some classes in his first year of art school, but the music director was an asshole with lecherous eyes, and falsetto hurt his voice. Anyway, music was for the assholes from Busan and Gwangju who came to Seoul just for the idol auditions. Nam Taehyun wasn’t like that. He was going to be a poet, and he was going to be a painter, and he was going to be an artist.
That changed one day, in winter or the edge of spring. He’d left his notebook in the apartment, in between classes and his shift at Caffebene. A poem had been scribbling around in his brain for the last three hours, and he was itching to pin it down on paper before it got away.
There was sound coming from his apartment, and he scowled as he fished his keys out of his bag. Minho wasn’t supposed to be home right now, which must mean he was skipping his own work shift, which meant they would be late on utilities next week. He would have to beg his mom for an extension, and she never liked that.
Frowning, he pushed open the door to his apartment. “Minho, you lazy fuck, what do you think you’re doing-”
He stopped in the threshold as if an invisible barrier had been drawn up. He recognized, suddenly, the sound from inside the apartment. The voice wasn’t Minho’s - it was too good for his roommmate’s raspy, awkward range. It was unfamiliar, but at the same time intensely, personally familiar. A strange trick was being played on his brain: the words were familiar, but the voice (that voice) which sang them was entirely unfamiliar. At the same time, though, it sounded entirely right; this unknown person sang Taehyun’s own words as if he had written them, unknowingly, for a stranger.
Taehyun peered around the corner, transfixed. His heart was pounding, because of the singer or the home invasion, he would never be sure. He must have been too loud, or too fast, because suddenly, far too soon, the music stopped. “Oh,” the voice said, instead.
The man in his living room stared at Taehyun, startled. Taehyun stared back. The silence, a perversion of the music it replaced, was almost too much to bear.
"That's mine," he said, finally, pointing at the notebook the man held in his hands. He realized immediately after he said it how inefficient it sounded. "What you're singing. It's mine."
"This is beautiful," said the man with the voice. He looked flustered, but excited. "I'm so sorry for going through your notebook, but - I’m Kang Seungyoon, you must be Minho’s roommate. We work together. He ran downstairs - I’m sorry, you write really beautiful songs. I write, sometimes, but it all comes out really flat and overdone. This is gorgeous. I’m so sorry."
"It's a poem," Taehyun said. That wasn’t the point. He knew that wasn’t the point. It hit him, in that moment, that he could have gone his entire life without hearing this man singing. "It's - not a song, it's a poem."
Seungyoon regarded him with a slight, bashful smile. “Oh, I'm sorry. It's a beautiful poem, then." He stooped, looking at Taehyun and chewing his lip. "Do you want to work together sometime?” It all comes out in a rush, as if he's forcing himself not to stop. "We could write poetry. Or make music. We could sing a duet."
He hadn’t wanted to write songs, until he realized what they could sound like with Kang Seungyoon singing them. Seungyoon looked at him, nervous, shifting. Taehyun felt himself, against all odds, smiling.
"Music. Let's do that."
It’s there, laid out in the album. It’s waiting for him, as it has been for months and months if he hadn’t been too prideful to see it. In his album notes, for the world to see, Seungyoon has written his apology.
It’s in the album notes, unobtrusive unless you know what to look for. Taehyun’s eyes, trained as they are in the art of Seungyoon, sees them instantly, laid out in every song, in every measure, in every note. The music curls around itself, gentle and thundering. In the sheet music Taehyun can hear in the transcribed music the bones of songs they as a team had been working on, and the melodies which lay at the heart of Seungyoon’s musical self.
There is the normal arrangement, clean and crisp, just as Seungyoon sings them. Transposed above them in a light gray font, cold and dreary, is a second series of notes. A higher voice range; the accompanying harmony. At the top of each song, in the same light gray font, is Seungyoon’s scratchy handwriting.
“For a duet.”
He doesn’t try to play the songs. He listens to the CD, though, and remembers why Seungyoon made him want to make music, all those years ago. Seungyoon is good. Seungyoon is brilliant. He’s known that all along, though.
He starts writing. Slowly, gently, short bursts of faltering color. He sings impromptu accompaniments for Minho’s apartment freestyles. He plays piano for Seunghoon’s dance recital. One day he looks down and realizes he’s written a song, for his own voice. He tries it out, tentative, and doesn’t recognize the sounds that he makes. It’s the first song he’s written for himself. It reads like a poem, and it sings like music.
He does a few appearances, here and there. Sometimes with Minho, sometimes with other friends, and then finally, alone. His - their - old songs have grown new again in the interim, and he finds that this time he can bend them to his own voice. They sing, for him.
He agrees to perform at Minho’s showcase the night before it happens. Minho smiles instead of grumbling about the inconvenience. He hasn’t mentioned Taehyun’s brightness, or the sudden bursts of music coming from his room. Taehyun has caught Minho watching him with half-concerned, half-happy eyes. He’s been worried, Taehyun knows, and he quietly loves him for it.
He’s never really fit in with Minho’s crowd - Royal Class is too jovial for Taehyun’s own misanthropic tastes - but he’s surprised, even touched at how excited they all are to see him again. Bomi ruffles his hair, and Jungbok asks, with an unexpected earnestness, if he’d be interested in collaborating soon. Taehyun laughs and nods and says he’s flattered, thank you, of course. Jiseok tells him, half-nervously, that he bought Seungyoon’s album and really enjoyed it. Taehyun finds himself nodding in agreement, “Yeah, I thought he really outdid himself.” He’s laughing, and maybe a little happy, even, standing here backstage for the first time in a year. He finds himself itching for the lights to dim.
The lights dim.
Taehyun takes the stage.
“This is for my partner, Kang Seungyoon. As a very, very late ‘thank you’.” Taehyun smiles, brilliant against the dark. “I hope you like it.”
When he sings Seungyoon’s song, he imagines two voices, wrapped around each other, a twisting, beautiful harmony that glistens in his mind.
He finds, though, that his own sounds just as good alone.
Someone uploads a fan camera the next day. It's inelegantly titled 'NAMSONG KANG SEUNGYOON PARTNER NEW SOLO LIVE!!!'. It’s the number one video on Daum that week, and the week after that, and again.
Seungyoon calls him a few weeks later. It’s late at night, around three AM. Taehyun and Minho are still up, hopped up on Ambien and writing the most obnoxious instrumental track they can find, so that they can switch it out at Seunghoon’s next music recital. Minho is downloading dog keyboard effects when Taehyun’s cellphone buzzes. He glances at the caller ID, and his jaw clenches.
“I gotta take this,” he says. Minho, absorbed in crude effects, nods without looking up.
Taehyun slides onto the balcony, shutting the door behind him. He stares at the phone for a second, and a world in which he doesn’t pick up flashes before his eyes, unbidden. It’s a world made for a bitter sort of longing. Taehyun has unknowingly grown accustomed to living here these last few months. He’s tired, he realizes suddenly. He wants to leave.
“Hey,” he says. Seoul is spread out before him, a glittering and terrifying void. He imagines, somewhere in the sprawl, a pulse stuttering, and then quickening, at the sound of his voice.
“Hey,” says Seungyoon. His voice is rich, deeper than Taehyun remembers. He sounds tired, and achingly real.
They pause, the silence both awkward and familiar. Words spring up and then die: I’m sorry, how are you, did you hear, I saw, I miss you, you. He’s twenty thousand places at once, but is centered by the realization that, somewhere out there, Seungyoon feels the exact same way. A song begin to unfold in his mind.
Seungyoon says, in a rehearsed rush: “Do you want to meet up sometime? To hang out. Or… make music.”
It’s the last thing Taehyun expected to hear, but the only thing that makes sense. There are a million things to say, wounds to heal, things to consider, but at the uncertainty in Seungyoon’s voice, the hope and promise stirring in his own gut, he can only think of one response.
“Where?”
The only person to see their reunion performance is a tourist, puttering around Insadong in the early morning air. She watches them as they fumble through the harmony, and doesn’t leave when they have to stop once, twice, three times, to figure out who should take the high part and who should take the low. When their first song ends she applauds dutifully, and tells them, in faltering Korean, that their music is beautiful. Seungyoon and Taehyun smile at her, and then at each other. Taehyun’s chest, body, heart is warm.
“We’re Kang Seungyoon and Nam Taehyun,” Seungyoon tells her in English, his voice proud. “We sing together.”
Taehyun is laughing, fiercely, brilliantly, and finds that he can’t stop.
Recipient: galmaegi
Group & Pairing: Winner, Seungyoon/Taehyun
Rating: PG
Summary: Kang Seungyoon gets signed to YG Entertainment, and Nam Taehyun decides to quit music.
Kang Seungyoon gets signed to YG Entertainment, and Nam Taehyun decides to quit music.
He’s in Hongdae when the news breaks. They have a show next weekend, just a few streets away, and Seungyoon has been panicking. Neither of them have written anything worthwhile since their last show. Taehyun doesn’t mind, but Seungyoon thinks that it somehow ruins their credibility if they’re caught playing the same songs. Taehyun has told him, more than once, that they don’t have any credibility to be lost in the first place.
But: “That’s not the point, Taehyun,” and then, somewhat more fervently, “It’s about the audience, it’s about the music”. Eventually, Seungyoon’s cliches have a way of wearing even Taehyun down.
Taehyun is in some trendy coffee shop, nursing a double Americano and writer’s block. His notebook is filled with lyrics hastily scribbled down and just as hastily crossed out. He’s twisting around the same old love song, trying to fashion it into something new, something different, but to his consternation it’s just as bland and colorless as always. The college girls sitting next to him might recognize him, but he’s not really sure and he’s too shy to find out. He writes that down, and then crosses it out three, four, five times, feeling like an ass. He glances over at the girls. They catch him looking and giggle.
His phone buzzes. He ignores it: it’s either Seungyoon asking about his progress, or Mino asking about the rent. He isn’t up for either.
“Laughing girls,” he writes down, trying to image the words filtered through Seungyoon’s low, reedy voice. “Black and bitter coffee.”
His phone buzzes again, and then three more times. He finally picks up his phone, annoyed.
(1 missed call)
Kang Seungyoon (Work): Please call me before you talk to anyone else
Kang Seungyoon (Work): I'll explain everything
Taehyun stares at the message. Before he can figure out what’s happening, his phone vibrates rapidly in his hand.
Song Mino: dude did u hear
Song Mino: !!!!!!!! wtf
He’s linked Taehyun to the relevant Naver article. There are relevant Naver articles, in this strange new world Taehyun hasn’t quite realized that he now resides in. This isn’t his world, of course, but his partner’s. His ex-partner, some higher functioning part of his brain corrects him. His phone is buzzing. He can’t hear his thoughts.
“KANG SEUNGYOON OF SUPERSTAR K2 SIGNS WITH YG ENTERTAINMENT,” the headline reads, and then, beneath it, “Kang: It’s the biggest honor of my life.”
Taehyun shuts his phone, and leaves the coffee shop.
They were never that popular. Seungyoon’s audition had changed everything, of course. Now they had fans, just a few, but enough that they had to appoint a moderator for their fanboards, instead of just letting Taehyun ban people when he was drunk.
But before, when it was Kang Seungyoon and Nam Taehyun, random guys with guitars, not Kang Seungyoon, singer, idol, star (and his sometimes writing partner Nam Something) - no one had ever really noticed them. They drew crowds when they busked, but that was mainly just tourists stopping to Instagram the local culture. No one had followed them. No one had waited outside of their shows. More often than not, Taehyun was recognized for being Minho’s roommate, instead of his opening act.
Taehyun had never minded. He liked anonymity. It allowed his music be formless, a nebulous stretched-out force beholden only to the range of Seungyoon’s voice, rather than their fans’ whims. He called himself an artist. Seungyoon and Minho laughed at him, but he believed in the self-imposed title. He wanted to sing. He wanted to create.
He’d thought, maybe stupidly, that Seungyoon had felt the same.
Minho is cooking something horrible when Taehyun gets home. He slinks into the living room, trying to become invisible as he curls up on the couch. He squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want Minho’s pity, which he knows will overflow if he lets it.
His head is still buzzing, along with his phone. Seungyoon has called him five times since the news broke. Friends have been texting him nonstop, asking him if he’s okay, asking him why he didn’t sign with Seungyoon, asking him if he needs a new partner. A trendy, trashy blog has offered to put one of his songs on the front page in exchange for a quote.
Taehyun throws his phone across the room, but the buzzing only gets louder. He groans. Something hot presses against his skin, and he cracks his eyes open.
“Tough break, kid,” Minho says, smoothing the washcloth across his face like an absentminded mother. Taehyun bats his hand away. Minho laughs genuinely, and flicks the spot in between his eyebrows.
“I’m making dinner,” he says, standing up and drifting towards the kitchen. “It’s shit, but you’ll eat it.”
“I’m not hungry,” Taehyun responds pathetically, burrowing his face into the cushions. Minho just snorts.
He doesn’t bring it up until after they’ve started drinking, and Taehyun is thankful for that. They drink a lot, in the tradition of their friendship, and for once Minho doesn’t try to stop Taehyun when his words start to slur.
For the first time today, about the time he finishes his fifth bottle, Taehyun feels a little less. “Not less sad,” he explains, “just like the part of me that could have been hurt doesn’t matter so much right now.” He pauses, and then grabs another beer. He hates being at a loss for words.
Minho considers him. He is far less drunk than Taehyun. Taehyun is resentful. “Did he say anything to you,” he asks finally. “Anything at all?”
Taehyun shakes his head ‘no’. “I know they taped the reunion last week, which is why we didn’t do that show in Dongdaemun, but afterward he just seemed… normal. I even asked him about it, I asked him if anything happened because I was expecting, we were all expecting…” He smiles, grotesquely. “I guess Seungyoon is better at lying than I thought.” He’s finding that he’s exceptionally good at being bitter.
Minho is suddenly too sharp for the alcohol, too sharp for Taehyun’s mood. “Don’t say shit like that,” he says. “You know Seungyoon wouldn’t intentionally fuck you over. Don’t say shit like that, Taehyun.”
“I don’t really know what Seungyoon would do, I guess,” Taehyun says. His throat is inexplicably closing up. His eyes are hot, and so he buries his head in his knees before Minho can see and pity. He is a coward.
He’s silenced Minho, somehow, or maybe there isn’t really anything left to say. His phone chimes incessantly in the other room, until Minho stands and turns it off with a heavy sigh. The buzzing in Taehyun’s head disappears, and all that’s left behind is an unforgiving, unending silence.
Taehyun had to force him to audition in the first place. Seungyoon didn’t want to, but Taehyun insisted.
It was half a joke at first, but “What if,” he told Seungyoon, “you win, and you get famous, and some bigshot company wants to sign you and you get a fuckton of money?”
He had cursed Seungyoon out for not immediately correcting him, “Sign us”. At the time they had both laughed, at the idea of Kang Seungyoon winning, at the idea of Kang Seungyoon even getting an audition.
Kang Seungyoon was the number one search term on Daum day one, and from there it just kept going.
Seungyoon texts him 10 times the next day, then 12 more the next. They go unopened.
Taehyun holes up in their apartment. He hordes bags of chips and scours the internet for more news about Seungyoon. It’s the same article, with that same fucking picture from the day he was eliminated, his eyes kind of red, his shoulders kind of hunched. He remembers Seungyoon that night, shaking his head with a smile too brittle to last much longer; “It’ll be alright,” he’d said, almost as drunk as Taehyun is now. Fuck them, though. Fuck them.”
Taehyun reads every article, over and over again. He savors every minute detail in a horrible, self-castigating sort of way. Minho eventually kicks him out, citing his greasy skin and his growing aversion to sunlight. “You can be pissed about Seungyoon all you want,” he says, “but you cannot become a fucking vampire.”
He avoids his usual haunts for fear of Seungyoon tracking him down. Instead he drifts through the city, lingering especially by the river. He’s acting like the spurned lead of a melodrama, and he feels like one too.
Two girls approach him and tell him how sorry they are about what went down with Seungyoon-ssi. He smiles, and nods, and signs their mixtapes.
He tries to write. His friends tell him it will be theraputic, that the best art comes from pain, or some hippie bullshit. It doesn’t help Taehyun. If he had been blocked before the news broke, now it’s as if there was never anything there in the first place. He sings, he composes, he writes, he draws, but everything he makes is hollow and lifeless, not even grotesque enough to be interesting. He’s disgusted with what he creates, and with himself for even trying.
Seungyoon stops texting.
ARENA: Has it been different? I know it's only been a few weeks-
KANG SEUNGYOON: Yeah, that's the question everyone's been asking me... And like you said, it's just been a few weeks. I'm sure that once I finally debut it's going to be, you know, a completely different world. But right now I'm just so focused on composing, on learning the choreography, all that stuff. I can't really focus on anything else.
ARENA: How does that feel?
KANG SEUNGYOON: It's very... isolating. I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but.. Yeah, it's been very lonely.
Seungyoon debuts in July 2013. Taehyun catches a glimpse of his first performance before Minho guiltily changes the channel. Seungyoon looks arrogant, proud, confident - everything he never was with Taehyun. Taehyun goes into his bedroom and slams the door shut.
Taehyun works with Minho, works with himself, works alone. It’s all trash, despite the lies his friends tell him. His compositions are at first too heavy, a slow and thudding adagio, but by the next measure drift away, having become sparse, light, and formless. It starts to make him angry - not just the writer’s block, but music itself. He feels bitter when he looks at their old songs, angry at himself for wasting his talent, angry at someone else, for leaving him with nothing but his own voice, as small and lifeless as it is. He can’t write without hearing, in his head, another person’s voice.
Ashamed, he stops writing.
He busks in Insadong and performs flash concerts by Hongik. The songs are old, but no one notices. He’s as famous as he’s always been, which is not much, except now he’s got the dull sheen of ‘Kang Seungyoon’s former - former partner, friend, everything. It gets him more listeners and more tips.
Seungyoon wins his first award within three weeks. He thanks YG and Teddy and his mother, and all of his friends back home. Taehyun doesn’t watch.
It’s November now, and no one listens to Taehyun. Not that he particularly has anything for them to hear. Music hasn’t left him, but it only appears now in a voice that isn’t his own. His old material has run out, and it’s getting too cold to busk for tourists anymore. Minho keeps bugging him about this show he and some friends are putting on, but he doesn’t see the point. The only songs he has are for two voices, and even he doesn’t want to hear them anymore.
Seungyoon emails him a few times, but after the first they all go to spam. Their mutual friends tell him that Seungyoon has been moping around a lot, and Taehyun feels a vicious stab of triumph before it all recedes again into dull apathy.
“He asks about you a lot,” Seunghoon tells him. They’re out in Hongdae, trying to buy a present for Taehyun’s mom. Seunghoon has been their friend since art school, and doesn’t pick sides. This makes him the default messenger and rumor monger. “He’s pretty shaken up about everything.”
“Too bad,” Taehyun says, trying on an air of indifference. He puts on a hat, and eyes himself critically. “It’s very romantic, though, isn’t it? Being famous and sad.”
“Don’t act like that.” Seunghoon frowns at Taehyun. He’s becoming earnest now, which Taehyun hates. “I’m serious, he’s really upset about how everything happened. He didn’t mean it to change so quickly, and you didn’t give him a chance to explain-”
“What would his explanation be, if I gave him the chance?” Taehyun asks, his voice too bright. “Did he tell you why he signed? Was it the money? I bet it was the money.” He’s brittle, his whole body is brittle, and Seunghoon is just looking at him with those eyes, so full of pity and purity. “Don’t talk to me about it,” he says gruffly, turning back to the mirror.
Seunghoon doesn’t say anything for a second, and that makes it worse. “Have you bought his CD?” he says, finally.
Taehyun looks at him in the mirror, too surprised to be angry. “What?” he says, forgetting to fake composure for a moment. “No, why would I?”
Seunghoon narrows his eyes. “Don’t be a dick, Taehyun, you know that you want to hear it.”
Taehyun does, and that makes it worse. He’s heard about Seungyoon’s debut - the fastest album YG has put out in years, and maybe one of the best. Seungyoon is rumored to sweep the end of the year awards shows. He knows Minho has a copy, which he keeps carefully hidden away as though he’s scared Taehyun will do something drastic should he see it. He’s heard snippets playing when he goes shopping, but he just wears headphones everywhere he goes now, which gives him the added bonus of looking aloof and unapproachable.
He’s silent, and Seunghoon makes a little humming sound. Taehyun hates it. “I can get you a copy, if you want.”
“No!” Taehyun says, a little too forcefully. The clerk glares at him and makes a shusshing motion with his hands. Taehyun leans in close to Seungyoon and lowers his voice. “Don’t do that, don’t tell Seungyoon I asked about him, just - don’t.” He leans back, his cheeks reddening a little at his sudden outburst. “Please, Seunghoon. I don’t want this.”
Seunghoon looks at him again, his expression inscrutable. Taehyun feels his cheeks burn hotter, and is ashamed. “Fine,” says Seunghoon after another long, terrible pause. “Fine, Taehyun. But if you ever - get over yourself, or something, whatever, buy a copy. He wants you to. I want you to.” He closes his eyes, and sighs. “I’m sorry for getting heated. That hat looks horrible.”
Taehyun doesn’t buy the CD until mid-January. He hadn’t been meaning to. He had long since filed the conversation with Seunghoon under ‘mortifying moments I never want to relive again’, and ignored any of his attempts to bring up the topic since with icy silence. Pettiness, in Nam Taehyun’s hands, could be an art form.
He’s at the store for Minho - the Harmonics have their first label release, and Minho making him buying as many copies as he can to support them. He’s got a stack of five in hand when he approaches the counter, and is already dreading the awkward conversation he’s going to have with the clerk.
Seungyoon’s CD kiosk is right by the counter, completely unavoidable. It’s a colorful, oversized display, well-stocked despite the CD having been out for three months already. He’s heard about its success, but he hadn’t quite realized until now, staring up at a literal monument to his friend’s triumph, how outclassed he’s become.
It’s the first time he’s seen Seungyoon’s face in half a year.
Nothing shifts inside of him. His stomach doesn’t become warm; his heart doesn’t clench and stutter. The world doesn’t suddenly, inexplicably grow mute. He breathes normally.
He wants, though, in this moment, more than anything else in the world, to hear Seungyoon’s voice, singing the songs Taehyun has written for him.
They met accidentally.
Taehyun wasn’t supposed to be a singer. He’d taken some classes in his first year of art school, but the music director was an asshole with lecherous eyes, and falsetto hurt his voice. Anyway, music was for the assholes from Busan and Gwangju who came to Seoul just for the idol auditions. Nam Taehyun wasn’t like that. He was going to be a poet, and he was going to be a painter, and he was going to be an artist.
That changed one day, in winter or the edge of spring. He’d left his notebook in the apartment, in between classes and his shift at Caffebene. A poem had been scribbling around in his brain for the last three hours, and he was itching to pin it down on paper before it got away.
There was sound coming from his apartment, and he scowled as he fished his keys out of his bag. Minho wasn’t supposed to be home right now, which must mean he was skipping his own work shift, which meant they would be late on utilities next week. He would have to beg his mom for an extension, and she never liked that.
Frowning, he pushed open the door to his apartment. “Minho, you lazy fuck, what do you think you’re doing-”
He stopped in the threshold as if an invisible barrier had been drawn up. He recognized, suddenly, the sound from inside the apartment. The voice wasn’t Minho’s - it was too good for his roommmate’s raspy, awkward range. It was unfamiliar, but at the same time intensely, personally familiar. A strange trick was being played on his brain: the words were familiar, but the voice (that voice) which sang them was entirely unfamiliar. At the same time, though, it sounded entirely right; this unknown person sang Taehyun’s own words as if he had written them, unknowingly, for a stranger.
Taehyun peered around the corner, transfixed. His heart was pounding, because of the singer or the home invasion, he would never be sure. He must have been too loud, or too fast, because suddenly, far too soon, the music stopped. “Oh,” the voice said, instead.
The man in his living room stared at Taehyun, startled. Taehyun stared back. The silence, a perversion of the music it replaced, was almost too much to bear.
"That's mine," he said, finally, pointing at the notebook the man held in his hands. He realized immediately after he said it how inefficient it sounded. "What you're singing. It's mine."
"This is beautiful," said the man with the voice. He looked flustered, but excited. "I'm so sorry for going through your notebook, but - I’m Kang Seungyoon, you must be Minho’s roommate. We work together. He ran downstairs - I’m sorry, you write really beautiful songs. I write, sometimes, but it all comes out really flat and overdone. This is gorgeous. I’m so sorry."
"It's a poem," Taehyun said. That wasn’t the point. He knew that wasn’t the point. It hit him, in that moment, that he could have gone his entire life without hearing this man singing. "It's - not a song, it's a poem."
Seungyoon regarded him with a slight, bashful smile. “Oh, I'm sorry. It's a beautiful poem, then." He stooped, looking at Taehyun and chewing his lip. "Do you want to work together sometime?” It all comes out in a rush, as if he's forcing himself not to stop. "We could write poetry. Or make music. We could sing a duet."
He hadn’t wanted to write songs, until he realized what they could sound like with Kang Seungyoon singing them. Seungyoon looked at him, nervous, shifting. Taehyun felt himself, against all odds, smiling.
"Music. Let's do that."
It’s there, laid out in the album. It’s waiting for him, as it has been for months and months if he hadn’t been too prideful to see it. In his album notes, for the world to see, Seungyoon has written his apology.
It’s in the album notes, unobtrusive unless you know what to look for. Taehyun’s eyes, trained as they are in the art of Seungyoon, sees them instantly, laid out in every song, in every measure, in every note. The music curls around itself, gentle and thundering. In the sheet music Taehyun can hear in the transcribed music the bones of songs they as a team had been working on, and the melodies which lay at the heart of Seungyoon’s musical self.
There is the normal arrangement, clean and crisp, just as Seungyoon sings them. Transposed above them in a light gray font, cold and dreary, is a second series of notes. A higher voice range; the accompanying harmony. At the top of each song, in the same light gray font, is Seungyoon’s scratchy handwriting.
“For a duet.”
He doesn’t try to play the songs. He listens to the CD, though, and remembers why Seungyoon made him want to make music, all those years ago. Seungyoon is good. Seungyoon is brilliant. He’s known that all along, though.
He starts writing. Slowly, gently, short bursts of faltering color. He sings impromptu accompaniments for Minho’s apartment freestyles. He plays piano for Seunghoon’s dance recital. One day he looks down and realizes he’s written a song, for his own voice. He tries it out, tentative, and doesn’t recognize the sounds that he makes. It’s the first song he’s written for himself. It reads like a poem, and it sings like music.
He does a few appearances, here and there. Sometimes with Minho, sometimes with other friends, and then finally, alone. His - their - old songs have grown new again in the interim, and he finds that this time he can bend them to his own voice. They sing, for him.
He agrees to perform at Minho’s showcase the night before it happens. Minho smiles instead of grumbling about the inconvenience. He hasn’t mentioned Taehyun’s brightness, or the sudden bursts of music coming from his room. Taehyun has caught Minho watching him with half-concerned, half-happy eyes. He’s been worried, Taehyun knows, and he quietly loves him for it.
He’s never really fit in with Minho’s crowd - Royal Class is too jovial for Taehyun’s own misanthropic tastes - but he’s surprised, even touched at how excited they all are to see him again. Bomi ruffles his hair, and Jungbok asks, with an unexpected earnestness, if he’d be interested in collaborating soon. Taehyun laughs and nods and says he’s flattered, thank you, of course. Jiseok tells him, half-nervously, that he bought Seungyoon’s album and really enjoyed it. Taehyun finds himself nodding in agreement, “Yeah, I thought he really outdid himself.” He’s laughing, and maybe a little happy, even, standing here backstage for the first time in a year. He finds himself itching for the lights to dim.
The lights dim.
Taehyun takes the stage.
“This is for my partner, Kang Seungyoon. As a very, very late ‘thank you’.” Taehyun smiles, brilliant against the dark. “I hope you like it.”
When he sings Seungyoon’s song, he imagines two voices, wrapped around each other, a twisting, beautiful harmony that glistens in his mind.
He finds, though, that his own sounds just as good alone.
Someone uploads a fan camera the next day. It's inelegantly titled 'NAMSONG KANG SEUNGYOON PARTNER NEW SOLO LIVE!!!'. It’s the number one video on Daum that week, and the week after that, and again.
Seungyoon calls him a few weeks later. It’s late at night, around three AM. Taehyun and Minho are still up, hopped up on Ambien and writing the most obnoxious instrumental track they can find, so that they can switch it out at Seunghoon’s next music recital. Minho is downloading dog keyboard effects when Taehyun’s cellphone buzzes. He glances at the caller ID, and his jaw clenches.
“I gotta take this,” he says. Minho, absorbed in crude effects, nods without looking up.
Taehyun slides onto the balcony, shutting the door behind him. He stares at the phone for a second, and a world in which he doesn’t pick up flashes before his eyes, unbidden. It’s a world made for a bitter sort of longing. Taehyun has unknowingly grown accustomed to living here these last few months. He’s tired, he realizes suddenly. He wants to leave.
“Hey,” he says. Seoul is spread out before him, a glittering and terrifying void. He imagines, somewhere in the sprawl, a pulse stuttering, and then quickening, at the sound of his voice.
“Hey,” says Seungyoon. His voice is rich, deeper than Taehyun remembers. He sounds tired, and achingly real.
They pause, the silence both awkward and familiar. Words spring up and then die: I’m sorry, how are you, did you hear, I saw, I miss you, you. He’s twenty thousand places at once, but is centered by the realization that, somewhere out there, Seungyoon feels the exact same way. A song begin to unfold in his mind.
Seungyoon says, in a rehearsed rush: “Do you want to meet up sometime? To hang out. Or… make music.”
It’s the last thing Taehyun expected to hear, but the only thing that makes sense. There are a million things to say, wounds to heal, things to consider, but at the uncertainty in Seungyoon’s voice, the hope and promise stirring in his own gut, he can only think of one response.
“Where?”
The only person to see their reunion performance is a tourist, puttering around Insadong in the early morning air. She watches them as they fumble through the harmony, and doesn’t leave when they have to stop once, twice, three times, to figure out who should take the high part and who should take the low. When their first song ends she applauds dutifully, and tells them, in faltering Korean, that their music is beautiful. Seungyoon and Taehyun smile at her, and then at each other. Taehyun’s chest, body, heart is warm.
“We’re Kang Seungyoon and Nam Taehyun,” Seungyoon tells her in English, his voice proud. “We sing together.”
Taehyun is laughing, fiercely, brilliantly, and finds that he can’t stop.