Long Night, Tough Luck
Summary: The real reason why Youngbae hasn't finished his second solo album...
A/N: Wild speculation. Actually, this happened to me. Except I've changed the characters to the BB boys. IRL, the characters who sparked this are totally NOT ONE FRACTION as hot as the boys, nor do they know each other. Suffice to say, I woke up royally pissed.
Youngbae hasn't been in front of the computer for more than ten minutes when the phone begins to jangle and buzz on the desk beside him.
"Yeoboseyo," he slides the glowing bar image on the screen. "Wassup, hyung?"
"YOUNGBAEBAE!" He winces - if it had been remotely higher-pitched it would have been a bona fide squeal, but this is Big Seunghyun and he doesn't... squeal.
"Yah, I'm like, at the bar, and I finished two bottles today. All by myself," there's a sheen of unmistakable pride in his tone, interrupted only by the burp that resounds down the line. "And tonight, I tell you, it's a hell of a party... you should be here. You know, I wanna tell you what happened on set today... some really funny shit went down and you just hafta..."
"Okay..." Youngbae sandwiches the phone between an ear and a shoulder and starts clicking around the files in his folder. The older man rattles on, drawling lazy syllables round chopped-up, incomplete expressions that he punctuates with gravelly sniggers to himself, seemingly oblivious that Youngbae has started playing back some of the unfinished sound files that he intends to splice together.
"Ania? Yah, isn't it... Listen, you punk," Seunghyun stops short, somehow catching on that Youngbae isn't paying full attention.
"I'm listening, hyung - what was so funny today?"
"Ah, I was doing that long series of lines, you know the one?"
"Uh huh..."
"You're listening to music," Seunghyun complains petulantly.
"No, I'll stop, sorry hyung." Youngbae reluctantly clicks 'pause'.
"And then PD hyung came and started heckling me about infrastructure, and accessibility," Seunghyun continues. "And you know how there are infrastructure type friends, and the other kind..."
"I'm sorry hyung, I'm listening real carefully but I don't get what you're saying at all..."
"I told you to listen! Anyway I'm leaving the bar now, you should come out here, come look for me, ya know?"
"Um right. You have filming in the morning, hyung, and I have work to do. You should go home and get some sleep."
"I said come out! Or, or, I'll go look for you... where are you?"
"In the studio, hyung. You can come here if you want, I guess."
"Aish, this punk... Fuck, I don't know where I am. I think... the nearest subway station is... hold on." A long pause. "It's Sinsa. Sinsa? Where's Sinsa?"
"Hyung, I'm at the studio. I'm 5 minutes from our dorm. Sinsadong isn't next door."
"I'm lost, Baebae..." pouts the voice down the line.
Youngbae isn't sure whether to laugh or roll his eyes. "Hyung, you're like, in Gangnam. Isn't that like, one of your favourite hangouts? And... why isn't Byeongyeong hyung with you?"
"I don't know... I don't know what I'm doing, maybe I should take the subway back... how do I take the subway to the studio?"
The idle clicking of the mouse slows to a complete standstill while the other hand flies up to cradle the phone better.
"What? No - are you crazy? No, please don't take the subway. Call Byeongyeong hyung, I'm sure he can go get you and drive you home."
"Byeongyeong hyung is a real asshole. Subway! I'm in the station already, Bae..." Seunghyun is starting to sound seriously spaced-out. "Ah, wait..."
Youngbae can feel his eyebrows gaining altitude with every second, overhearing Seunghyun talking to someone about cards and faregates.
"Ah I don't have one of those T-money things, Bae..."
"Hyung, please - just take a cab, okay?"
The overgrown child slurs back as if he hasn't heard. "Come out, Bae, come look for me, I'll just park myself here and wait for you... I'm... outside... an exit. I'm counting on you, you won't let me down, right? Let's take the subway together."
Youngbae sighs and closes his eyes against the palm of his hand. "Look, hyung, forget the studio. I don't know where you are... just go home, take a nice warm shower and go to bed. Okay?"
"Mphff, home. How do I go home from here?"
"Geez, you should know that better than me, hyung..."
A throaty laugh. "I don't know Bae... I don't know... maybe I should just nap here... it'll be like old times."
"You're not a trainee anymore, hyung, you're gonna like, spark a stampede or something if you're not careful. You could get hurt. People could get hurt."
Grunts and giggles mean only one thing - nothing is getting through to the rapper.
"Just go home, hyung," Bae voices wearily. "Put yourself on a damned cab and go home."
"You and me, we're not friends, Bae," mutters Seunghyun, and hangs up.
Youngbae pulls the sleek glass bar from his ear and stares at the screen with an odd mixture of incredulity and resignation. A lingering uneasiness settles in the pit of his stomach, but Seunghyun goes drinking practically everyday he can. "It's my way of unwinding," he protests whenever he's told to cut back. This happened frequently enough that he would get back home safely somehow, and remember nothing the next day. Youngbae isn't about to ditch his work for this.
Still, he decides to text Seunghyun, just in case.
Hyung, go home. Please.
Youngbae sighs and carries on clicking around aimlessly for another fifteen minutes, keeping an ear out for the soft tinkle of the message tone.
Still no reply. He glances at the clock. Shit, that meandering conversation with Seunghyun took an entire hour. He gives his soundfiles a baleful once-over. Nothing's getting done today, he concludes ruefully. May as well go home and continue tomorrow.
Youngbae surprises himself by being ready for bed much earlier than he'd expected, preparing to turn in for the night in an unsually empty house. Well, he thanks God for small mercies when he receives them, he tells himself. Seunghyun calls to inform him that he's reached home "just fine, thank you very much", and despite all the stinging snark in his tone, Youngbae decides that he probably won't remember it tomorrow and so there's no point pursuing a grudge of a drunk man.
The sleep he thinks he's earned is slapped, cold in the face, by a blinking phone blaring a ringtone he doesn't recognise. It's his own mobile, but he can't remember the song title now for the life of him. The screen yells JIYONG at him in the darkness. Youngbae groans. Jiyong knows better than to call him at this hour. He turns the phone over and mutes it, trying to catch the last strands of drowsiness that the light from the phone screen has chased away.
Five missed calls and barely two minutes later, the doorbell rings. And rings again. And then launches into a full-on attack with a continuous loop of autotuned dingdong-ing.
Youngbae wants to swear. Whoever is at the door probably knows the passcode - he can't fathom why anybody would need to ring the bell. But ring he does, and after the missed call, he suspects he knows who it is.
After what must be the 37th "dingdongdingdongdingdong" Youngbae finally relents and rolls out of bed to open the door. In stumbles an inebriated Jiyong, just as he expected.
"I'm sorry," Ji slurred, not the least apologetically. "Where's Ri? I lost him."
Youngbae refuses to comment on the sorry state of matters - Tom and Jerry going out to club together would be a bad idea, no matter how many times they're told so and refuse to believe it. He promises himself that he will strangle Ri the next time he saw him. He turns his back on Jiyong swaying in the hallway, not giving two hoots how he is going to clean up and get to bed. Jiyong is Jiyong after all, and he's anal enough by himself without needing further help.
Sleep claims Youngbae instantaneously, and he knows this because the next thing that registers is Boss whining fit to kill outside his bedroom, begging to be let in. He cracks an eye open to see the bedside clock proclaiming 5 fucking 45 in the dim light.
"Shut up, Boss, seriously!"
The mutt refuses to take 'no' for an answer, and Youngbae wonders very briefly whose dog Boss really is - aren't dogs supposed to be exactly like their owners? Boss is behaving like Jiyong. Or Seungri. Left with no choice, he gets out of bed to let Boss in and promptly returns.
The last thought he has before closing his exhausted eyes again is that there's no fucking way he's gonna be up at 7am to get to the studio and work on anything before the afternoon meeting. No way.
A/N: Wild speculation. Actually, this happened to me. Except I've changed the characters to the BB boys. IRL, the characters who sparked this are totally NOT ONE FRACTION as hot as the boys, nor do they know each other. Suffice to say, I woke up royally pissed.
Youngbae hasn't been in front of the computer for more than ten minutes when the phone begins to jangle and buzz on the desk beside him.
"Yeoboseyo," he slides the glowing bar image on the screen. "Wassup, hyung?"
"YOUNGBAEBAE!" He winces - if it had been remotely higher-pitched it would have been a bona fide squeal, but this is Big Seunghyun and he doesn't... squeal.
"Yah, I'm like, at the bar, and I finished two bottles today. All by myself," there's a sheen of unmistakable pride in his tone, interrupted only by the burp that resounds down the line. "And tonight, I tell you, it's a hell of a party... you should be here. You know, I wanna tell you what happened on set today... some really funny shit went down and you just hafta..."
"Okay..." Youngbae sandwiches the phone between an ear and a shoulder and starts clicking around the files in his folder. The older man rattles on, drawling lazy syllables round chopped-up, incomplete expressions that he punctuates with gravelly sniggers to himself, seemingly oblivious that Youngbae has started playing back some of the unfinished sound files that he intends to splice together.
"Ania? Yah, isn't it... Listen, you punk," Seunghyun stops short, somehow catching on that Youngbae isn't paying full attention.
"I'm listening, hyung - what was so funny today?"
"Ah, I was doing that long series of lines, you know the one?"
"Uh huh..."
"You're listening to music," Seunghyun complains petulantly.
"No, I'll stop, sorry hyung." Youngbae reluctantly clicks 'pause'.
"And then PD hyung came and started heckling me about infrastructure, and accessibility," Seunghyun continues. "And you know how there are infrastructure type friends, and the other kind..."
"I'm sorry hyung, I'm listening real carefully but I don't get what you're saying at all..."
"I told you to listen! Anyway I'm leaving the bar now, you should come out here, come look for me, ya know?"
"Um right. You have filming in the morning, hyung, and I have work to do. You should go home and get some sleep."
"I said come out! Or, or, I'll go look for you... where are you?"
"In the studio, hyung. You can come here if you want, I guess."
"Aish, this punk... Fuck, I don't know where I am. I think... the nearest subway station is... hold on." A long pause. "It's Sinsa. Sinsa? Where's Sinsa?"
"Hyung, I'm at the studio. I'm 5 minutes from our dorm. Sinsadong isn't next door."
"I'm lost, Baebae..." pouts the voice down the line.
Youngbae isn't sure whether to laugh or roll his eyes. "Hyung, you're like, in Gangnam. Isn't that like, one of your favourite hangouts? And... why isn't Byeongyeong hyung with you?"
"I don't know... I don't know what I'm doing, maybe I should take the subway back... how do I take the subway to the studio?"
The idle clicking of the mouse slows to a complete standstill while the other hand flies up to cradle the phone better.
"What? No - are you crazy? No, please don't take the subway. Call Byeongyeong hyung, I'm sure he can go get you and drive you home."
"Byeongyeong hyung is a real asshole. Subway! I'm in the station already, Bae..." Seunghyun is starting to sound seriously spaced-out. "Ah, wait..."
Youngbae can feel his eyebrows gaining altitude with every second, overhearing Seunghyun talking to someone about cards and faregates.
"Ah I don't have one of those T-money things, Bae..."
"Hyung, please - just take a cab, okay?"
The overgrown child slurs back as if he hasn't heard. "Come out, Bae, come look for me, I'll just park myself here and wait for you... I'm... outside... an exit. I'm counting on you, you won't let me down, right? Let's take the subway together."
Youngbae sighs and closes his eyes against the palm of his hand. "Look, hyung, forget the studio. I don't know where you are... just go home, take a nice warm shower and go to bed. Okay?"
"Mphff, home. How do I go home from here?"
"Geez, you should know that better than me, hyung..."
A throaty laugh. "I don't know Bae... I don't know... maybe I should just nap here... it'll be like old times."
"You're not a trainee anymore, hyung, you're gonna like, spark a stampede or something if you're not careful. You could get hurt. People could get hurt."
Grunts and giggles mean only one thing - nothing is getting through to the rapper.
"Just go home, hyung," Bae voices wearily. "Put yourself on a damned cab and go home."
"You and me, we're not friends, Bae," mutters Seunghyun, and hangs up.
Youngbae pulls the sleek glass bar from his ear and stares at the screen with an odd mixture of incredulity and resignation. A lingering uneasiness settles in the pit of his stomach, but Seunghyun goes drinking practically everyday he can. "It's my way of unwinding," he protests whenever he's told to cut back. This happened frequently enough that he would get back home safely somehow, and remember nothing the next day. Youngbae isn't about to ditch his work for this.
Still, he decides to text Seunghyun, just in case.
Hyung, go home. Please.
Youngbae sighs and carries on clicking around aimlessly for another fifteen minutes, keeping an ear out for the soft tinkle of the message tone.
Still no reply. He glances at the clock. Shit, that meandering conversation with Seunghyun took an entire hour. He gives his soundfiles a baleful once-over. Nothing's getting done today, he concludes ruefully. May as well go home and continue tomorrow.
Youngbae surprises himself by being ready for bed much earlier than he'd expected, preparing to turn in for the night in an unsually empty house. Well, he thanks God for small mercies when he receives them, he tells himself. Seunghyun calls to inform him that he's reached home "just fine, thank you very much", and despite all the stinging snark in his tone, Youngbae decides that he probably won't remember it tomorrow and so there's no point pursuing a grudge of a drunk man.
The sleep he thinks he's earned is slapped, cold in the face, by a blinking phone blaring a ringtone he doesn't recognise. It's his own mobile, but he can't remember the song title now for the life of him. The screen yells JIYONG at him in the darkness. Youngbae groans. Jiyong knows better than to call him at this hour. He turns the phone over and mutes it, trying to catch the last strands of drowsiness that the light from the phone screen has chased away.
Five missed calls and barely two minutes later, the doorbell rings. And rings again. And then launches into a full-on attack with a continuous loop of autotuned dingdong-ing.
Youngbae wants to swear. Whoever is at the door probably knows the passcode - he can't fathom why anybody would need to ring the bell. But ring he does, and after the missed call, he suspects he knows who it is.
After what must be the 37th "dingdongdingdongdingdong" Youngbae finally relents and rolls out of bed to open the door. In stumbles an inebriated Jiyong, just as he expected.
"I'm sorry," Ji slurred, not the least apologetically. "Where's Ri? I lost him."
Youngbae refuses to comment on the sorry state of matters - Tom and Jerry going out to club together would be a bad idea, no matter how many times they're told so and refuse to believe it. He promises himself that he will strangle Ri the next time he saw him. He turns his back on Jiyong swaying in the hallway, not giving two hoots how he is going to clean up and get to bed. Jiyong is Jiyong after all, and he's anal enough by himself without needing further help.
Sleep claims Youngbae instantaneously, and he knows this because the next thing that registers is Boss whining fit to kill outside his bedroom, begging to be let in. He cracks an eye open to see the bedside clock proclaiming 5 fucking 45 in the dim light.
"Shut up, Boss, seriously!"
The mutt refuses to take 'no' for an answer, and Youngbae wonders very briefly whose dog Boss really is - aren't dogs supposed to be exactly like their owners? Boss is behaving like Jiyong. Or Seungri. Left with no choice, he gets out of bed to let Boss in and promptly returns.
The last thought he has before closing his exhausted eyes again is that there's no fucking way he's gonna be up at 7am to get to the studio and work on anything before the afternoon meeting. No way.