a promise (onew/luna)
a promise (i of i)
onew/luna, romance (sort of?), pg-13. au. 1,853 words.
jinki thinks maybe a part of his heart belongs to the circus.
notes: i started writing this late-november last year and i haven't so much as looked at it since mid-december, so i have no idea if it was actually finished or not. i'm just going to say it is. *shrug*
Jinki thinks maybe a part of his heart belongs to the circus.
There was something about the circus Jinki just loved. It all seemed so magical, so surreal. Even as he grew older and his friends lost interest and seemingly forgot, he was still fascinated; drawn in by the acts, the lights, the smoke, the animals, and the atmosphere-he loved it all. It was that one slice of childishness he knew he may just never give up.
The first time he went to the circus, he was six years old (he thinks, but he's not entirely sure). He'd heard all the stories from his older cousins about the trapeze artists, the tightrope walkers, the ringmaster, the clowns, and he could barely contain his excitement, hopping from one foot to the other as they queued up for tickets. He craned his neck as he hopped, trying to view the top of the huge red and yellow tent.
At one stage, he recalled thinking how could a tent possibly be this large? What if it falls? but his fears were soon forgotten once the show began.
’Ladies and gentlemen--’
Jinki was captivated. eyes darting from one side of the tent to the other, watching the audience, the performers, studying every little detail of the trapeze above and wondering just how someone could hang off of that and swing without falling.
The sand felt strange, scratchy underfoot as she crossed the ring. It was so unlike the sand at the beach, and she wondered just how it was expected to make a fall any less painful. It didn’t really matter, though-the net covered the majority of the ring-so she shook her head and rolled her sweats up to her knees (it got awfully stuffy in the tent at times) and made her way up the ladder, calloused hands protesting as she grasped each rung.
Like always, she played what she needed to do over in her head, envisioning herself executing the move with precision and her partner doing the same. If she could visualise it, she could do it.
Shame the same didn’t always apply to the newest member of their act-a catcher by the name of Jonghyun. He was also her partner on the static trapeze. There, he wasn’t a problem, but as a catcher he had his work cut out for him. On more than one occasion, she had just barely slipped through his hands and this particular rehearsal had been much the same.
She gripped the bar with one hand and grasped one of the support cables in her other to steady herself as she waited for the signal. This was the last rehearsal before their first show and she’d be damned if she let him perform to any standard below perfect.
Jinki felt a little out of place, but contented nonetheless as he listened to a mother scold a group of excited children-“put your shoes back on; I don’t want you standing on glass”-and breathed in the familiar scent of cotton candy, popcorn, and motor oil.
Next to the popcorn vendor was a cheery-looking man playing upbeat ditties (on what appeared to be a banjo) in an attempt to set the mood for the performance later that night. He had his case set out in front of him (presumably for tips), so Jinki scrounged through his pockets for any loose change, smiling sheepishly when all he came up with was a few hundred won coins.
Jinki deposited the coins and weaved his way through the small crowd of children, crossing the oval to reach an old, wooden playground. It was relatively bare-only a swing set and slide (which had been yellow at one stage, he recalled, but was now dull, patchy silver due to years of use) left standing after the onslaught of vandalism throughout the years-but it was better than nothing, he thought. He sat himself on the swing and stared up at the patch of sky above the tent.
The lighting surrounding the tent considerably dulled the view of the night sky, but it was a fair trade in Jinki's eyes; to give up the view of something that would probably never go away-or would at least be there the following night - in favour of something that was here for “one night only>”.
He was toeing the tanbark idly when he was jolted from his thoughts:
‘Is this swing taken?’
The words were accompanied with a quiet laugh as she sat herself down, not even waiting for a reply. Jinki looked up at her -noting the flyers in her hand and the spectacular makeup (fake eyelashes at all) and concluded that she must have been part of the show-but quickly returned his eyes to watch his feet scuff up the dirt and tanbark when she glanced at him, too.
‘Here to watch the show?’ she asked. Briefly, he considered lying because, really, what kind of self-respecting twenty-one year old visits a circus alone? It would be understandable if he had a girlfriend, a sibling, a cousin, or even-god forbid-a child of his own, but all he had was himself.
He nodded, eyes fixated on his feet. She didn’t say anything for a while and Jinki thought maybe she hadn’t seen him nod, so he lifted his eyes from the ground and was met with her eyes boring into his, a smile dancing on her features.
‘I’m lame, I know.’
Her laughter rang in his ears as he watched her make her way back across the oval to the tent.
‘By the way,’ she shouted, turning back around to face him once she was a good forty meters away, ‘I don’t think you’re lame.’
Her name, as he learned later, was Luna and she was a trapeze artist-a main in both the static and flying trapeze acts, which he could only imagine to be entirely exhausting; performing both in just a few short hours.
After the show, he sat on the swing again, ignoring the mosquitoes that were sure to be eating away at his arms as the lights were switched off one-by-one. He felt as though he were intruding on some kind of secret affair as he watched them pack up. It was done under the cover of nightfall, and by the morning, there would be no evidence left (save a few popcorn buckets and maybe a fairy floss stick) to indicate that the circus had ever been there to begin with.
It was chilly outside, the crisp air blowing in from the coast, which was why it surprised him when she showed up again. She had let her hair down after the show, blonde waves falling around her shoulders haphazardly, and her once-perfect makeup was smudged a little around her eyes. Her red dress fell just short of her knees and her feet were bare, causing him to wince as she made her way across the playground-he could almost feel the tanbark digging in to the soles of her feet-but she didn’t seem bothered by any of this. Not the imperfections (perfection, Jinki's mind corrected; beauty), nor the pain.
She didn’t say anything as she sat down; just watched with him. He thought maybe she was waiting for him to talk and get the conversation going, until he realised she didn’t at all seem the type. If she had something to say, she seemed like the type who would just say it-no false pretenses, no bullshit, no waiting for the right moment. If it was important, it would be said. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t.
Of course, he could have been entirely wrong about her and she could very well have been waiting for him to speak, so when the last of the lights had been turned off and packed up, he asked her:
‘Where are you guys heading off to next?’
‘Gwangju, I think-or thereabouts,’ she had said, gaze steady on the trucks and workers and tent some hundred meters away. Nothing more was said for a while until Jinki spoke again.
‘Are you planning on coming back here?’-because that’s the way they (the circuses) usually work, Jinki learned; it’s a sort of round-about process, one with not much variety. They travel the country and eventually end up back where they start: perform, rinse, and repeat.
She fingered the straps of her dress idly, mulling over her answer.
‘The circus is, yes.’
Jinki remembered once (when he was about eight), the ringmaster asked for a helper and Jinki couldn’t have been more excited, throwing his hand up in the air with a little too much enthusiasm. Someone strong and brave he had said not two seconds later, and Jinki's smile faded instantly and he dropped his arm back down to his side, pretending he’d never even put his hand up in the first place.
It was just his luck to be chosen anyway, and much to his horror, a gentle push in the back from his father sealed his fate.
Jinki watched as the clouds parted slowly, revealing the moon in all its glory.
Jinki watched, listened as shouts erupted from the other side of the oval. He watched as a plume of smoke made its way up above the semi-erected tent. He watched all of this with mild fascination until the scent hit his nostrils and he realised-wait, that can’t be right.
Luna showed up not long after; red dress ripped, still bare-footed, and hair matted with something Jinki thinks may have been blood. He doesn’t question her.
‘Jinki,’ he lowered his eyes as she spoke his name, the word not seeming quite right from her mouth. ‘Jinki,’ she says, ‘please just take me away. Just for tonight. I need to get away.’
Jinki sees Luna in a whole different light after that.
She took a shower after they made their way to Jinki's house. Her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail and all traces of makeup were gone, and that’s when he truly saw her.
There were bruises running along the right side of her jaw, and another just above her collarbone. There’s a large, unsightly scar that runs from just behind her ear, right down to meet that bruise at her collarbone-and Jinki thinks she couldn’t have been more beautiful.
When he reaches out to run his thumb along her jaw line, she doesn’t flinch away.
In the morning, he asks if she has to leave.
She tells him some intricate story about love and red string and fires and it all makes sense, so he doesn’t question it. She pulls a piece of wool from her pocket (he doesn’t ask where she got it from) and ties it around his index finger before she leaves.
‘A promise,’ she tells him.
Jinki thinks-not long after the convoy of trucks makes its way past his house the following afternoon-that maybe Luna is the part of his heart that belongs to the circus.
But with any luck, she’d bring it back next year.
a/n: i feel like i haven't written/posted shinee in forever probably because i haven't so i dug through my harddrives for shinee fics, and this was all i came up with that could be posted without much effort. XD
onew/luna, romance (sort of?), pg-13. au. 1,853 words.
jinki thinks maybe a part of his heart belongs to the circus.
notes: i started writing this late-november last year and i haven't so much as looked at it since mid-december, so i have no idea if it was actually finished or not. i'm just going to say it is. *shrug*
Jinki thinks maybe a part of his heart belongs to the circus.
There was something about the circus Jinki just loved. It all seemed so magical, so surreal. Even as he grew older and his friends lost interest and seemingly forgot, he was still fascinated; drawn in by the acts, the lights, the smoke, the animals, and the atmosphere-he loved it all. It was that one slice of childishness he knew he may just never give up.
The first time he went to the circus, he was six years old (he thinks, but he's not entirely sure). He'd heard all the stories from his older cousins about the trapeze artists, the tightrope walkers, the ringmaster, the clowns, and he could barely contain his excitement, hopping from one foot to the other as they queued up for tickets. He craned his neck as he hopped, trying to view the top of the huge red and yellow tent.
At one stage, he recalled thinking how could a tent possibly be this large? What if it falls? but his fears were soon forgotten once the show began.
’Ladies and gentlemen--’
Jinki was captivated. eyes darting from one side of the tent to the other, watching the audience, the performers, studying every little detail of the trapeze above and wondering just how someone could hang off of that and swing without falling.
The sand felt strange, scratchy underfoot as she crossed the ring. It was so unlike the sand at the beach, and she wondered just how it was expected to make a fall any less painful. It didn’t really matter, though-the net covered the majority of the ring-so she shook her head and rolled her sweats up to her knees (it got awfully stuffy in the tent at times) and made her way up the ladder, calloused hands protesting as she grasped each rung.
Like always, she played what she needed to do over in her head, envisioning herself executing the move with precision and her partner doing the same. If she could visualise it, she could do it.
Shame the same didn’t always apply to the newest member of their act-a catcher by the name of Jonghyun. He was also her partner on the static trapeze. There, he wasn’t a problem, but as a catcher he had his work cut out for him. On more than one occasion, she had just barely slipped through his hands and this particular rehearsal had been much the same.
She gripped the bar with one hand and grasped one of the support cables in her other to steady herself as she waited for the signal. This was the last rehearsal before their first show and she’d be damned if she let him perform to any standard below perfect.
Jinki felt a little out of place, but contented nonetheless as he listened to a mother scold a group of excited children-“put your shoes back on; I don’t want you standing on glass”-and breathed in the familiar scent of cotton candy, popcorn, and motor oil.
Next to the popcorn vendor was a cheery-looking man playing upbeat ditties (on what appeared to be a banjo) in an attempt to set the mood for the performance later that night. He had his case set out in front of him (presumably for tips), so Jinki scrounged through his pockets for any loose change, smiling sheepishly when all he came up with was a few hundred won coins.
Jinki deposited the coins and weaved his way through the small crowd of children, crossing the oval to reach an old, wooden playground. It was relatively bare-only a swing set and slide (which had been yellow at one stage, he recalled, but was now dull, patchy silver due to years of use) left standing after the onslaught of vandalism throughout the years-but it was better than nothing, he thought. He sat himself on the swing and stared up at the patch of sky above the tent.
The lighting surrounding the tent considerably dulled the view of the night sky, but it was a fair trade in Jinki's eyes; to give up the view of something that would probably never go away-or would at least be there the following night - in favour of something that was here for “one night only>”.
He was toeing the tanbark idly when he was jolted from his thoughts:
‘Is this swing taken?’
The words were accompanied with a quiet laugh as she sat herself down, not even waiting for a reply. Jinki looked up at her -noting the flyers in her hand and the spectacular makeup (fake eyelashes at all) and concluded that she must have been part of the show-but quickly returned his eyes to watch his feet scuff up the dirt and tanbark when she glanced at him, too.
‘Here to watch the show?’ she asked. Briefly, he considered lying because, really, what kind of self-respecting twenty-one year old visits a circus alone? It would be understandable if he had a girlfriend, a sibling, a cousin, or even-god forbid-a child of his own, but all he had was himself.
He nodded, eyes fixated on his feet. She didn’t say anything for a while and Jinki thought maybe she hadn’t seen him nod, so he lifted his eyes from the ground and was met with her eyes boring into his, a smile dancing on her features.
‘I’m lame, I know.’
Her laughter rang in his ears as he watched her make her way back across the oval to the tent.
‘By the way,’ she shouted, turning back around to face him once she was a good forty meters away, ‘I don’t think you’re lame.’
Her name, as he learned later, was Luna and she was a trapeze artist-a main in both the static and flying trapeze acts, which he could only imagine to be entirely exhausting; performing both in just a few short hours.
After the show, he sat on the swing again, ignoring the mosquitoes that were sure to be eating away at his arms as the lights were switched off one-by-one. He felt as though he were intruding on some kind of secret affair as he watched them pack up. It was done under the cover of nightfall, and by the morning, there would be no evidence left (save a few popcorn buckets and maybe a fairy floss stick) to indicate that the circus had ever been there to begin with.
It was chilly outside, the crisp air blowing in from the coast, which was why it surprised him when she showed up again. She had let her hair down after the show, blonde waves falling around her shoulders haphazardly, and her once-perfect makeup was smudged a little around her eyes. Her red dress fell just short of her knees and her feet were bare, causing him to wince as she made her way across the playground-he could almost feel the tanbark digging in to the soles of her feet-but she didn’t seem bothered by any of this. Not the imperfections (perfection, Jinki's mind corrected; beauty), nor the pain.
She didn’t say anything as she sat down; just watched with him. He thought maybe she was waiting for him to talk and get the conversation going, until he realised she didn’t at all seem the type. If she had something to say, she seemed like the type who would just say it-no false pretenses, no bullshit, no waiting for the right moment. If it was important, it would be said. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t.
Of course, he could have been entirely wrong about her and she could very well have been waiting for him to speak, so when the last of the lights had been turned off and packed up, he asked her:
‘Where are you guys heading off to next?’
‘Gwangju, I think-or thereabouts,’ she had said, gaze steady on the trucks and workers and tent some hundred meters away. Nothing more was said for a while until Jinki spoke again.
‘Are you planning on coming back here?’-because that’s the way they (the circuses) usually work, Jinki learned; it’s a sort of round-about process, one with not much variety. They travel the country and eventually end up back where they start: perform, rinse, and repeat.
She fingered the straps of her dress idly, mulling over her answer.
‘The circus is, yes.’
Jinki remembered once (when he was about eight), the ringmaster asked for a helper and Jinki couldn’t have been more excited, throwing his hand up in the air with a little too much enthusiasm. Someone strong and brave he had said not two seconds later, and Jinki's smile faded instantly and he dropped his arm back down to his side, pretending he’d never even put his hand up in the first place.
It was just his luck to be chosen anyway, and much to his horror, a gentle push in the back from his father sealed his fate.
Jinki watched as the clouds parted slowly, revealing the moon in all its glory.
Jinki watched, listened as shouts erupted from the other side of the oval. He watched as a plume of smoke made its way up above the semi-erected tent. He watched all of this with mild fascination until the scent hit his nostrils and he realised-wait, that can’t be right.
Luna showed up not long after; red dress ripped, still bare-footed, and hair matted with something Jinki thinks may have been blood. He doesn’t question her.
‘Jinki,’ he lowered his eyes as she spoke his name, the word not seeming quite right from her mouth. ‘Jinki,’ she says, ‘please just take me away. Just for tonight. I need to get away.’
Jinki sees Luna in a whole different light after that.
She took a shower after they made their way to Jinki's house. Her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail and all traces of makeup were gone, and that’s when he truly saw her.
There were bruises running along the right side of her jaw, and another just above her collarbone. There’s a large, unsightly scar that runs from just behind her ear, right down to meet that bruise at her collarbone-and Jinki thinks she couldn’t have been more beautiful.
When he reaches out to run his thumb along her jaw line, she doesn’t flinch away.
In the morning, he asks if she has to leave.
She tells him some intricate story about love and red string and fires and it all makes sense, so he doesn’t question it. She pulls a piece of wool from her pocket (he doesn’t ask where she got it from) and ties it around his index finger before she leaves.
‘A promise,’ she tells him.
Jinki thinks-not long after the convoy of trucks makes its way past his house the following afternoon-that maybe Luna is the part of his heart that belongs to the circus.
But with any luck, she’d bring it back next year.
a/n: i feel like i haven't written/posted shinee in forever probably because i haven't so i dug through my harddrives for shinee fics, and this was all i came up with that could be posted without much effort. XD