SHINee Duets 2013: hazellicious & meridianslair
Title: Aphasia
Authors: hazellicious & meridianslair
Pairing: Minho/Taemin
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Authors’ Notes: Meri: I’ve always looked up to Haze and her writing. I’m so glad I got to be able to work with her on this fic. She had such a fantastic yet complex idea for this story and I’m happy I could help her bring it to life! Love you, Haze~
No amount of soccer training could have ever prepared him for something like this. Minho had started running through the city, hoping no one would recognize him or that he wouldn’t run into her. He took corners that he normally wouldn’t take and went past places he had never even heard of before just to get away, but too soon after stopping and leaning against a brick wall, a light came up behind him.
”It’s about time we found you,” the light flickered, sending the message to his transmitter along with STOP signals that strained his entire body, “It’s time to return home now.”
Minho could feel his heart beating out his chest, his whole body unwilling to move, but if he didn’t move now he was definitely done for. He could hear it going through his head, ”Try anything funny and you’ll definitely pay for it.” Instead of listening to the signals, he took his backpack off and swung it at the light. The white light turned to red as he smashed it to the ground with his hands and feet until the light completely dimmed.
He quickly threw his backpack on again and continued to run, knowing that any minute she could have plenty more out looking for him. Why was he stupid enough to act nice to her anyway? Oh right, Yuri’s father was one of the sponsors for their soccer team. She seemed like a nice girl at first, but since he and Jonghyun had made the “no relationships” rule when they got into the big leagues, he refused all of her offers for a date politely. Minho should’ve known with how persistent she was getting lately that she’d try something, but he didn’t think too much about it.
Before he even made it to the door of his apartment, Jonghyun pulled him in and shoved the backpack in his hands, signaling his emotions so fast he could only catch, “Yuri… experiment… you… run,” before he was pushed back out. Minho did as his friend told him, without question, but he was still a bit confused about the situation. But now, after seeing the trackers being used on him, he realized what it possibly meant.
Minho ignored the pain in his legs as he ran into a small forest, thinking that the wilderness may slow any other trackers down. Avoiding stepping on tree branches was near difficult, especially now that it was night, so he ran faster. He closed his eyes and concentrated on just running until he felt the familiar hard asphalt under his shoes. Opening them he could see a lamp post in the distance along with a small house with what looked no lights on and no car in the driveway.
Changing his pace to a slow one, he came up to the house and listened for any signals coming from inside, but there was a small light illuminating that he could see now that he was closer. ”Maybe they just left a light on,” Minho reasoned before bringing his hand to the door handle. Twisting it gently, he did a sigh of relief that it was unlocked.
Opening the door, he was shocked to find a boy on the floor, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. The boy held a strange machine in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, along with a bulky piece of eye equipment wrapped around his head, messing up the hair on his head. Minho quickly closed the door behind him and waved frantically, signaling to the boy that he meant no harm.
The boy only frowned and pointed to the side of his neck, where there was supposed to be a transmitter but instead were scars. The boy was also making noises coming from out of his mouth, but Minho only stared. He’d never seen anyone without a transmitter before since he swore it was against the law. And what was he doing with his mouth? It was all too strange to him.
When the boy stood up, Minho backed up towards the door. But instead of attacking Minho, he looked around the room for something before pulling up a journal and a pen from behind a pile of books on the floor. The boy jotted something down on the paper before handing it to Minho, crossing his arms over his chest.
Minho took the materials with hesitation, but read it nonetheless. ”And who do you think you are, entering my home?”
It’s a good thing the boy wasn’t wearing a transmitter or else he would have realized how scared and embarrassed Minho was. Not only was he afraid that Yuri’s trackers would find him, but afraid the rebel in front of him may just kill him. Minho quickly wrote something down and handed it back to the boy, closely reading his face.
”My name is Choi Minho and I am hiding from someone who is after to me.
I’m very sorry, I thought no one was inside, so I came in.
The boy eyed him for a moment, before writing something else and held it up for Minho to see.
”I will let you stay here, strange one, but in return you must take out your transmitter.”
After reading it, Minho immediately put his hand over his transmitter and gave the boy a look of desperation. The boy only shook his head and dropped the book, prying Minho’s hand away from the transmitter on his neck. He was definitely scared at this point. He needed somewhere to hide for the time being, but why did this kid want his transmitter off? And why was he the one being called “strange one” when it was obviously the other way around?
Minho had to admit, though, the boy’s hands were not laced with malice as he touched his transmitter. Only because of that reason did he let the boy toy with it, stilling his movements as he leaned against the door. He felt a slight tingle run down his body before there was a sharp pain along with a ‘click’ coming from his neck. The boy stepped back with a smile and handed Minho back his transmitter.
Fingers closing around the device - much like a tiny chip wrapped in a thin layer of transparent silicone, but with the power of receiving and sending signals over great distances and affecting the human brain to interpret them - Minho stared at the boy quizzically. His mind felt empty as he was no longer aware of the people in the city.
“Keep it.” was scribbled under the previous messages but Minho barely comprehended the words. For the very first time in his life, he was alone in his own head, and it felt a bit scary.
The boy stood on his tippy toes, invading Minho’s personal space while the man struggled to focus in this newfound solitude. He was fascinated by every flicker of Minho’s eyelids, the quickening breathing and uncharacteristically slumped shoulders and he observed for a while, without Minho even registering this course of events, before drawing back to his journal.
He had sworn to avoid all contact with the foolish humans occupying most of the city’s grounds, no, most of the world, unless it was under the rebels’ terms. But this stranger needed help, he was desperate enough to allow his transmitter to be removed. The boy closed his notebook and traced the letters pressed to the cover, their motto, with the tip of his finger - I am human. I am not a machine.
With a sigh, the boy found the page on which their previous conversation had taken place on, and after a glance at Minho - the man was still caught up in the throes of confusion - he wrote a few lines.
”I think you could use a rest, strange one.
You can stay here.
Follow me.”
His steps echoed somewhere under Minho’s skull and the weird boy boldly grabbed him by the
hand to lead him once it became obvious that Minho wasn’t going to cooperate. The walls of the small room Minho was taken to were covered with rows and rows of books and besides an old-fashioned couch pushed up against the bookshelves, it lacked furniture.
Minho listened to the blood rushing through his veins while his host fumbled around, pulling out quilts and linens and fluffing up a pillow. Then, the boy stepped aside with a grin and gestured to the makeshift bed proudly. The man obeyed without thinking, a shiver shooting down his spine as he tried to signal a thank you before realizing that it was impossible.
As Minho sat down on the cushions, the boy left without a backwards glance, the door falling shut after him. The silence that followed was deafening. After a moment of straining himself to catch a noise, a sound that would indicate that the world he knew outside this house still existed, Minho exhaled slowly. His boots dropped on the floor with a satisfying thunk and Minho sank into the blankets.
Sleep came easy to him on that night.
-
Minho woke to the smell of aged wood, yellowed paper and dust. He rested well, better than he ever had in his posh apartment, and disoriented, it took him awhile to understand that it was because of the lack of buzzing from his transmitter.
His neck felt swollen and hot around the place where the disk used to be but luckily it didn’t hurt. The idea of being on unknown territory without any means of calling for help scared him, but Minho decided to trust his soccer reflexes - his host seemed much too skinny and unthreatening to put up a fight anyway.
After straightening his clothes, Minho opened a door, only to find himself back in the main room,
the one he’d so rudely barged into on the previous night. The owner of the house was nowhere in sight so Minho took his time to study the various objects scattered around on the mismatching shelves and desks. There was a selection of electronic parts and tools on the floor, graphite sketches consisting of lines, graphs and unintelligible notes tacked to the walls.
“Good. Morning.” a voice suddenly said, startling Minho, who had been trying to make sense of a model for something that was apparently supposed to create a lasting illusion of clothes around a person so people would never have to bother dressing themselves again. They would be naked. All the time.
Minho clutched at his chest, turning around to face the boy grinning at him. He was wearing another weird headpiece, a thick black band around his head which was attached to a wire going down to a remote-like controller on the boy’s left upper arm. It reminded Minho of the headsets they used for listening to music.
“Hello.”
The boy was still smiling, his mouth didn’t move, but the sound had definitely come from his direction. Minho furrowed his brows, legitimately bewildered, as he’d only heard human voices on ancient recordings.
Amused by his reaction, the boy dove for a scrap of paper and a pencil, huddling over a table as he wrote.
”This is my latest invention.
It has sensors around the language areas of my brain which are connected to an audio dictionary, it’s not complete, whi only up to the letter M.
But I can kind of say things with it.
Not names.
And I can’t use tenses or turn nouns.
But it’s something.”
Minho was stupefied and shamelessly staring at the inventor. He accepted the torn sheet of a notebook the boy passed over to him and jotted down his only semi-intelligent thought. “What is your name?”
The boy tilted his head to the side as if contemplating whether Minho deserved to know that bit of information about him or not. Then he exhaled heavily, pretty features set in a hesitant frown.
“Taemin.”
It dawned to Minho then, that the rebel was as wary of him as he was of the boy. He gave a cautious smile, reminding himself to be grateful for the shelter he’d been provided. The device around Taemin’s head crackled and the boy relaxed somewhat, brushing a few overgrown strands of his fringe out of his eyes.
“Coffee.” the voice that Minho now knew was emitted by the set of miniature speakers on Taemin’s body declared rather than asked, but Minho nodded in response anyway.
-
Minho couldn’t help but twitch his nose at the unusual smell of food before him. The waffles in front of him looked normal, with what looked like the same syrup and butter, but the smell caught him off guard. He could tell that Taemin was watching his every move, looking to see if Minho would take a bite. Minho wasn’t purposefully trying to be rude by not eating the food Taemin had made for them, but he was wondering if the boy had decided to poison him rather than murder him in his sleep and bloody the floors.
Taemin reached out for a notepad.
”Have you never eaten it before?”
It took Minho a moment to shake his head in response, temporarily forgetting his transmitter had been removed.
Taemin wrote again.
”Then eat.”
Taemin looked away from Minho and placed his pencil back onto the notepad before returning to his own food, forking it into his mouth happily. Watching the display, Minho had to admit that his stomach felt as though it was eating itself in desperation to find food. Swallowing, he gained the courage to cut the waffles and bring a piece close to his mouth. His tongue poked out and tasted some of the syrup dripping off, the sweet taste overwhelming him. Seconds later the entire piece was in his mouth, slowly chewing it as to determine whether or not he enjoyed it. There was definitely more flavor which was strange, but Minho couldn’t say he didn’t like it. Even though it was such a normal food, it was possibly one of the best things he had ever tasted.
Minho quickly began cutting more pieces, scarfing them down until the only thing on his plate was syrup residue. He looked up to see Taemin making a strange noise behind his hand while writing something on the notepad again.
”I should have known that you’ve never had real food before. You sure are an odd one.”
Minho rolled his eyes at the last comment and moved the notepad closer to him, writing a response in curiosity.
”What do you mean by real food, and what was the noise you just made now?”
The other jotted down a response and pushed it back towards Minho.
”It was a laugh, something you do when you find something funny.
If the government can control your voice do you really think they wouldn’t control other aspects of your life, like food for example?
It was obvious that Taemin knew so much more than he did, even about his own life. Taemin’s response made a shiver run down his spine, whether it was because of fear or something else he did not know.
-
Minho was what most would call bored out of their minds. He hadn’t been outside in at least two days, it was hard to tell what time of day it was with how little light found it’s way into the house and how much he slept just to pass the time, and it beginning to take a toll on his normally active body. Minho was currently on the couch with his face plastered against a pillow, watching Taemin work on the same invention. He tried busying himself with some of the books Taemin had, but he was never a reader to begin with. With all of this time on his hands he began to think about his life and what would happen now that he was gone. Would he ever be able to return? What would happen if they actually found him?
Minho stared hard at the boy in front of him. What would they do to Taemin?
He stretched his hand out and grabbed one of the notebooks and wrote something down for the other. Slowly peeling himself off the couch, Minho sat down next to Taemin and placed the notebook on the desk where he could read it.
”What do you think will happen to us if they do happen to find me?”
Taemin glanced at what Minho wrote and slowly put his tools down. Taemin looked into Minho’s eyes before picking up the pencil to respond to the other’s question.
”They will take us far, far away...
They will probably destroy everything here as well.”
Minho’s fingers tapped on the wooden desk, looking around the room for a moment while Taemin stared intently at the contraption in front of them.
”I apologize for prying, but how did you even get this place?
You haven’t even left the house either.
What do you do other than study and work on things like this?”
Taemin read Minho’s questions and let out a big breath of air. His shoulders slumped as he took the pencil and began to write again.
”I inherited the place from my parents.
I’m nowhere as rebellious against the government as they were.
They had so much more knowledge and taught so many people, trying to start a movement to change the world we live in today, but...
They were discovered before anything big happened and were taken far away by the government, never to be seen again.
The government didn’t know about this place, so I fled before they could find me.
As for money, I have enough for basic needs, but for how long I do not know.”
Minho was sorry he asked. It was all a lot clearer now though, but now he worried about what could happen to them. No doubt someone was still looking for him and possibly for Taemin as well if the government knew he existed. With what he knew now though he could probably never go back willingly to such a horrible place, even if he could see his loved ones again.
Minho asked the boy one final question.
”Are you afraid of what might happen?
Taemin replied.
”Yes.”
-
Three days later and Minho had grown used to being alone with his thoughts. His wrist hurt from filling page after page of the paperback Taemin had lent him with memories and ideas that seemed important enough to tell the boy.
A fragile friendship was quick to form between them, as Taemin had dreamed of having someone to keep him company without having any expectations and Minho was simply fascinated by what the boy could construct out of bolts and threads of wire.
Taemin was all too happy to put his everyday activities aside and focus solely on Minho, overcoming his fear of the cityfolk. It came out that he didn’t really leave his house much, as groceries were brought to him by an old friend and he spent his days with the books his father had left him, only leaving to attend the so-called rebel’s meetings. The removal of the transmitter, as Minho learned, was the first thing Taemin’s group of acquaintances demanded upon feeling threatened, as people would often feel dizzy and lost after it was taken out, which gave the rebels a chance to flee. Despite his age - Taemin was a few years younger than Minho - the boy could easily stun scholars and scientists alike with his knowledge about the world before the Third World War and neurological processes associated to speech. Yet he knew little about the current events and happenings, having cut himself off the social network.
The reason behind Minho’s escape both shocked and disgusted him. Taemin had heard of ways to affect the brain to change a person’s behavioral patterns and cure pathologies, but the fact that physical attraction, lust, could be generated and controlled with the help of electrical impulses, was just inhumane. Taemin locked his front door that evening, after Minho told him about Yuri, that girl who was powerful, rich and selfish enough to make someone go through such a risky process just for the sake of gaining their affection.
They learned a lot from each other and with every passing hour, Minho’s views about the society he had grown up in changed. To his surprise, the books Taemin owned weren’t forbidden, but it made sense for the government to disencourage curiosity by making the information free and available, while unnecessary and difficult to handle. He also found out, that it was common for toddlers to have their vocal cords medically paralyzed for about a year or two, so even if there was someone to teach them, it was impossible for children to learn how to speak.
After a while, Minho was fully accustomed to deciphering Taemin’s chicken scratch and Taemin no longer flinched away when Minho leaned in to read over his shoulder.
They developed an easy routine of waking up when the sun was high above the horizon and finding something edible, then scouring through the boxes of things from the previous centuries that Taemin’s parents had collected, all while wordlessly poking fun at each other.
Taemin knew of a system of gestures called the body language and they spent a whole night fruitlessly searching the books for clues on how it might work.
What had seemed like an alternative universe, an attic full of spiderwebs and grime, dangerously unsanitary and nothing like the light high-ceiled air conditioned rooms Minho was used to, became more of a home to him than his spotlessly clean apartment ever was. He had a feeling this had something to do with the way Taemin smiled at him.
“Look.”
The boy was using his headset again, even though the voice in the audio vocabulary belonged to a middle-aged woman so it sounded rather ridiculous.
“I. Find,” pause, “cassette.”
Minho dropped the stack of letters he had been examining and stumbled over a pile of rubbish on his way to the boy. Inside the box there was actually a whole heap of different cassettes in colorful plastic cases, more than Minho had ever seen in his life. Taemin was fidgeting with excitement, laughing and nudging Minho to take it down to the workroom. The man rolled his eyes good-naturedly, a warmth spreading all through his body when their hands brushed. He couldn’t say no and not only because Taemin was doing him a favor by letting him stay.
“How come you didn’t find these earlier?” Minho wrote in the notebook later, ignoring the cramping of his overworked fingers.
Taemin fumbled with the wires of his headset before taking the device off completely and resting it on his desk. On his way to pick up the cassette player, Taemin read Minho’s question, standing close enough for the man to smell his hair.
“I haven’t really spent much time up there.
It seemed too sacred.”
”Why sacred?” Minho replied quickly, but Taemin had already turned to rummage through one of the cabinets, a flimsy shirt stretching over his back. Minho admired the view for a few seconds before getting back to sorting the tapes as Taemin had asked him to.
Most of the cassettes had music from the 1990’s on them and it was sad that they had no examples of the songs people listened to after cassettes were no longer used, since fragile cds and dvds, not to mention computer files since the WWIII doubled as a cyber war, were destroyed in the post-war madness.
He was so caught up in entertaining himself with the titles of the tracks - some of them were really cheesy and nonsensical - that he didn’t notice Taemin sliding up to him before the boy was crouching over his notebook. The boy left just as suddenly, grabbing a wrench to fix up the radio.
”The things up there were my father’s prized possessions.
I’m not half the man he was.
But it felt like it was time to look around.”
Even if Minho could’ve sent out a signal, or speak like the people from the previous century did, he wouldn’t have known what to say. An emotion resembling glee bubbled in his chest as he wondered whether his presence had an influence on Taemin. If only he could leave a mark as deep as the one the boy had imprinted on Minho.
Taemin waved his arms triumphantly, calling Minho over to him and the man randomly picked a cassette before complying. They shoved it into the slot and stood by after pressing ‘play,’ a static noise filling the room.
A few moments later, a slow tune started playing. It was nothing like the high quality music Minho was used to hearing, cracky in places and and slowing down at random intervals but he mirrored
Taemin’s grin nonetheless. Then, a voice joined the instruments, shyly at first, but then gaining confidence and belting out a heart-shattering melody. Minho couldn’t make out the lyrics as they were buried under piano motifs and crackling sounds, but it didn’t really matter because he had never heard anyone sing.
He didn’t realize how engrossed he was in the music until Taemin touched his hand, eyebrows raised. The boy’s eyes sparkled with mischief as he crossed the distance between them, slender fingers giving Minho’s shoulder a squeeze.
Minho was a hundred percent positive that his expression betrayed his disbelief, judging by the playful smirk on Taemin’s lips. He got the point easily enough and wound his arms around the boy’s middle, suppressing a gasp at the body warmth seeping through his clothes. Taemin took the first step, sparing Minho a timid smile before hiding his face in Minho’s neck, breathing deeply.
They swayed to the beat, not even stopping when the song ended and a new one came on.
Keeping his sweaty palms on Taemin’s waist, Minho found himself wishing, for the first time, that Taemin was one of them. That they could exchange signals and Minho could let him know how much the time they spent together meant to him. That he could whisk Taemin off his feet and carry him off to the sunset, screw the “no relationship” rule, Jonghyun could be single by himself.
Taemin rested some of his weight on Minho and the man would’ve thought he was falling asleep if it wasn’t for the precise footwork. He could hardly believe it had been a whole week since he escaped from his own home, seven days since he met a boy he still found strange, but endearingly so.
The little house tucked away on a mostly abandoned street had become a wormhole to Minho, a sanctuary where time and space had no meaning. He sighed during a soulful falsetto, troubling himself with thoughts of his team, his friends and fans who he guessed must be sick with worry. He couldn’t even imagine all the rumours going around about his abrupt disappearance, especially if people sighted his mad dash out of the building that night.
He had to take responsibility in order not to disappoint his coach and the people that believed in him. He couldn’t hide forever even if the possibility of Yuri using her money to do the procedure on him was still real.
But for one more day, he allowed himself to stay, tightening his hold around Taemin as another song faded out. Another day, in their paradise of written messages, silly inventions and mystery objects from the past.
A single day in silence.
Authors: hazellicious & meridianslair
Pairing: Minho/Taemin
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Authors’ Notes: Meri: I’ve always looked up to Haze and her writing. I’m so glad I got to be able to work with her on this fic. She had such a fantastic yet complex idea for this story and I’m happy I could help her bring it to life! Love you, Haze~
No amount of soccer training could have ever prepared him for something like this. Minho had started running through the city, hoping no one would recognize him or that he wouldn’t run into her. He took corners that he normally wouldn’t take and went past places he had never even heard of before just to get away, but too soon after stopping and leaning against a brick wall, a light came up behind him.
”It’s about time we found you,” the light flickered, sending the message to his transmitter along with STOP signals that strained his entire body, “It’s time to return home now.”
Minho could feel his heart beating out his chest, his whole body unwilling to move, but if he didn’t move now he was definitely done for. He could hear it going through his head, ”Try anything funny and you’ll definitely pay for it.” Instead of listening to the signals, he took his backpack off and swung it at the light. The white light turned to red as he smashed it to the ground with his hands and feet until the light completely dimmed.
He quickly threw his backpack on again and continued to run, knowing that any minute she could have plenty more out looking for him. Why was he stupid enough to act nice to her anyway? Oh right, Yuri’s father was one of the sponsors for their soccer team. She seemed like a nice girl at first, but since he and Jonghyun had made the “no relationships” rule when they got into the big leagues, he refused all of her offers for a date politely. Minho should’ve known with how persistent she was getting lately that she’d try something, but he didn’t think too much about it.
Before he even made it to the door of his apartment, Jonghyun pulled him in and shoved the backpack in his hands, signaling his emotions so fast he could only catch, “Yuri… experiment… you… run,” before he was pushed back out. Minho did as his friend told him, without question, but he was still a bit confused about the situation. But now, after seeing the trackers being used on him, he realized what it possibly meant.
Minho ignored the pain in his legs as he ran into a small forest, thinking that the wilderness may slow any other trackers down. Avoiding stepping on tree branches was near difficult, especially now that it was night, so he ran faster. He closed his eyes and concentrated on just running until he felt the familiar hard asphalt under his shoes. Opening them he could see a lamp post in the distance along with a small house with what looked no lights on and no car in the driveway.
Changing his pace to a slow one, he came up to the house and listened for any signals coming from inside, but there was a small light illuminating that he could see now that he was closer. ”Maybe they just left a light on,” Minho reasoned before bringing his hand to the door handle. Twisting it gently, he did a sigh of relief that it was unlocked.
Opening the door, he was shocked to find a boy on the floor, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. The boy held a strange machine in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, along with a bulky piece of eye equipment wrapped around his head, messing up the hair on his head. Minho quickly closed the door behind him and waved frantically, signaling to the boy that he meant no harm.
The boy only frowned and pointed to the side of his neck, where there was supposed to be a transmitter but instead were scars. The boy was also making noises coming from out of his mouth, but Minho only stared. He’d never seen anyone without a transmitter before since he swore it was against the law. And what was he doing with his mouth? It was all too strange to him.
When the boy stood up, Minho backed up towards the door. But instead of attacking Minho, he looked around the room for something before pulling up a journal and a pen from behind a pile of books on the floor. The boy jotted something down on the paper before handing it to Minho, crossing his arms over his chest.
Minho took the materials with hesitation, but read it nonetheless. ”And who do you think you are, entering my home?”
It’s a good thing the boy wasn’t wearing a transmitter or else he would have realized how scared and embarrassed Minho was. Not only was he afraid that Yuri’s trackers would find him, but afraid the rebel in front of him may just kill him. Minho quickly wrote something down and handed it back to the boy, closely reading his face.
”My name is Choi Minho and I am hiding from someone who is after to me.
I’m very sorry, I thought no one was inside, so I came in.
The boy eyed him for a moment, before writing something else and held it up for Minho to see.
”I will let you stay here, strange one, but in return you must take out your transmitter.”
After reading it, Minho immediately put his hand over his transmitter and gave the boy a look of desperation. The boy only shook his head and dropped the book, prying Minho’s hand away from the transmitter on his neck. He was definitely scared at this point. He needed somewhere to hide for the time being, but why did this kid want his transmitter off? And why was he the one being called “strange one” when it was obviously the other way around?
Minho had to admit, though, the boy’s hands were not laced with malice as he touched his transmitter. Only because of that reason did he let the boy toy with it, stilling his movements as he leaned against the door. He felt a slight tingle run down his body before there was a sharp pain along with a ‘click’ coming from his neck. The boy stepped back with a smile and handed Minho back his transmitter.
Fingers closing around the device - much like a tiny chip wrapped in a thin layer of transparent silicone, but with the power of receiving and sending signals over great distances and affecting the human brain to interpret them - Minho stared at the boy quizzically. His mind felt empty as he was no longer aware of the people in the city.
“Keep it.” was scribbled under the previous messages but Minho barely comprehended the words. For the very first time in his life, he was alone in his own head, and it felt a bit scary.
The boy stood on his tippy toes, invading Minho’s personal space while the man struggled to focus in this newfound solitude. He was fascinated by every flicker of Minho’s eyelids, the quickening breathing and uncharacteristically slumped shoulders and he observed for a while, without Minho even registering this course of events, before drawing back to his journal.
He had sworn to avoid all contact with the foolish humans occupying most of the city’s grounds, no, most of the world, unless it was under the rebels’ terms. But this stranger needed help, he was desperate enough to allow his transmitter to be removed. The boy closed his notebook and traced the letters pressed to the cover, their motto, with the tip of his finger - I am human. I am not a machine.
With a sigh, the boy found the page on which their previous conversation had taken place on, and after a glance at Minho - the man was still caught up in the throes of confusion - he wrote a few lines.
”I think you could use a rest, strange one.
You can stay here.
Follow me.”
His steps echoed somewhere under Minho’s skull and the weird boy boldly grabbed him by the
hand to lead him once it became obvious that Minho wasn’t going to cooperate. The walls of the small room Minho was taken to were covered with rows and rows of books and besides an old-fashioned couch pushed up against the bookshelves, it lacked furniture.
Minho listened to the blood rushing through his veins while his host fumbled around, pulling out quilts and linens and fluffing up a pillow. Then, the boy stepped aside with a grin and gestured to the makeshift bed proudly. The man obeyed without thinking, a shiver shooting down his spine as he tried to signal a thank you before realizing that it was impossible.
As Minho sat down on the cushions, the boy left without a backwards glance, the door falling shut after him. The silence that followed was deafening. After a moment of straining himself to catch a noise, a sound that would indicate that the world he knew outside this house still existed, Minho exhaled slowly. His boots dropped on the floor with a satisfying thunk and Minho sank into the blankets.
Sleep came easy to him on that night.
-
Minho woke to the smell of aged wood, yellowed paper and dust. He rested well, better than he ever had in his posh apartment, and disoriented, it took him awhile to understand that it was because of the lack of buzzing from his transmitter.
His neck felt swollen and hot around the place where the disk used to be but luckily it didn’t hurt. The idea of being on unknown territory without any means of calling for help scared him, but Minho decided to trust his soccer reflexes - his host seemed much too skinny and unthreatening to put up a fight anyway.
After straightening his clothes, Minho opened a door, only to find himself back in the main room,
the one he’d so rudely barged into on the previous night. The owner of the house was nowhere in sight so Minho took his time to study the various objects scattered around on the mismatching shelves and desks. There was a selection of electronic parts and tools on the floor, graphite sketches consisting of lines, graphs and unintelligible notes tacked to the walls.
“Good. Morning.” a voice suddenly said, startling Minho, who had been trying to make sense of a model for something that was apparently supposed to create a lasting illusion of clothes around a person so people would never have to bother dressing themselves again. They would be naked. All the time.
Minho clutched at his chest, turning around to face the boy grinning at him. He was wearing another weird headpiece, a thick black band around his head which was attached to a wire going down to a remote-like controller on the boy’s left upper arm. It reminded Minho of the headsets they used for listening to music.
“Hello.”
The boy was still smiling, his mouth didn’t move, but the sound had definitely come from his direction. Minho furrowed his brows, legitimately bewildered, as he’d only heard human voices on ancient recordings.
Amused by his reaction, the boy dove for a scrap of paper and a pencil, huddling over a table as he wrote.
”This is my latest invention.
It has sensors around the language areas of my brain which are connected to an audio dictionary, it’s not complete, whi only up to the letter M.
But I can kind of say things with it.
Not names.
And I can’t use tenses or turn nouns.
But it’s something.”
Minho was stupefied and shamelessly staring at the inventor. He accepted the torn sheet of a notebook the boy passed over to him and jotted down his only semi-intelligent thought. “What is your name?”
The boy tilted his head to the side as if contemplating whether Minho deserved to know that bit of information about him or not. Then he exhaled heavily, pretty features set in a hesitant frown.
“Taemin.”
It dawned to Minho then, that the rebel was as wary of him as he was of the boy. He gave a cautious smile, reminding himself to be grateful for the shelter he’d been provided. The device around Taemin’s head crackled and the boy relaxed somewhat, brushing a few overgrown strands of his fringe out of his eyes.
“Coffee.” the voice that Minho now knew was emitted by the set of miniature speakers on Taemin’s body declared rather than asked, but Minho nodded in response anyway.
-
Minho couldn’t help but twitch his nose at the unusual smell of food before him. The waffles in front of him looked normal, with what looked like the same syrup and butter, but the smell caught him off guard. He could tell that Taemin was watching his every move, looking to see if Minho would take a bite. Minho wasn’t purposefully trying to be rude by not eating the food Taemin had made for them, but he was wondering if the boy had decided to poison him rather than murder him in his sleep and bloody the floors.
Taemin reached out for a notepad.
”Have you never eaten it before?”
It took Minho a moment to shake his head in response, temporarily forgetting his transmitter had been removed.
Taemin wrote again.
”Then eat.”
Taemin looked away from Minho and placed his pencil back onto the notepad before returning to his own food, forking it into his mouth happily. Watching the display, Minho had to admit that his stomach felt as though it was eating itself in desperation to find food. Swallowing, he gained the courage to cut the waffles and bring a piece close to his mouth. His tongue poked out and tasted some of the syrup dripping off, the sweet taste overwhelming him. Seconds later the entire piece was in his mouth, slowly chewing it as to determine whether or not he enjoyed it. There was definitely more flavor which was strange, but Minho couldn’t say he didn’t like it. Even though it was such a normal food, it was possibly one of the best things he had ever tasted.
Minho quickly began cutting more pieces, scarfing them down until the only thing on his plate was syrup residue. He looked up to see Taemin making a strange noise behind his hand while writing something on the notepad again.
”I should have known that you’ve never had real food before. You sure are an odd one.”
Minho rolled his eyes at the last comment and moved the notepad closer to him, writing a response in curiosity.
”What do you mean by real food, and what was the noise you just made now?”
The other jotted down a response and pushed it back towards Minho.
”It was a laugh, something you do when you find something funny.
If the government can control your voice do you really think they wouldn’t control other aspects of your life, like food for example?
It was obvious that Taemin knew so much more than he did, even about his own life. Taemin’s response made a shiver run down his spine, whether it was because of fear or something else he did not know.
-
Minho was what most would call bored out of their minds. He hadn’t been outside in at least two days, it was hard to tell what time of day it was with how little light found it’s way into the house and how much he slept just to pass the time, and it beginning to take a toll on his normally active body. Minho was currently on the couch with his face plastered against a pillow, watching Taemin work on the same invention. He tried busying himself with some of the books Taemin had, but he was never a reader to begin with. With all of this time on his hands he began to think about his life and what would happen now that he was gone. Would he ever be able to return? What would happen if they actually found him?
Minho stared hard at the boy in front of him. What would they do to Taemin?
He stretched his hand out and grabbed one of the notebooks and wrote something down for the other. Slowly peeling himself off the couch, Minho sat down next to Taemin and placed the notebook on the desk where he could read it.
”What do you think will happen to us if they do happen to find me?”
Taemin glanced at what Minho wrote and slowly put his tools down. Taemin looked into Minho’s eyes before picking up the pencil to respond to the other’s question.
”They will take us far, far away...
They will probably destroy everything here as well.”
Minho’s fingers tapped on the wooden desk, looking around the room for a moment while Taemin stared intently at the contraption in front of them.
”I apologize for prying, but how did you even get this place?
You haven’t even left the house either.
What do you do other than study and work on things like this?”
Taemin read Minho’s questions and let out a big breath of air. His shoulders slumped as he took the pencil and began to write again.
”I inherited the place from my parents.
I’m nowhere as rebellious against the government as they were.
They had so much more knowledge and taught so many people, trying to start a movement to change the world we live in today, but...
They were discovered before anything big happened and were taken far away by the government, never to be seen again.
The government didn’t know about this place, so I fled before they could find me.
As for money, I have enough for basic needs, but for how long I do not know.”
Minho was sorry he asked. It was all a lot clearer now though, but now he worried about what could happen to them. No doubt someone was still looking for him and possibly for Taemin as well if the government knew he existed. With what he knew now though he could probably never go back willingly to such a horrible place, even if he could see his loved ones again.
Minho asked the boy one final question.
”Are you afraid of what might happen?
Taemin replied.
”Yes.”
-
Three days later and Minho had grown used to being alone with his thoughts. His wrist hurt from filling page after page of the paperback Taemin had lent him with memories and ideas that seemed important enough to tell the boy.
A fragile friendship was quick to form between them, as Taemin had dreamed of having someone to keep him company without having any expectations and Minho was simply fascinated by what the boy could construct out of bolts and threads of wire.
Taemin was all too happy to put his everyday activities aside and focus solely on Minho, overcoming his fear of the cityfolk. It came out that he didn’t really leave his house much, as groceries were brought to him by an old friend and he spent his days with the books his father had left him, only leaving to attend the so-called rebel’s meetings. The removal of the transmitter, as Minho learned, was the first thing Taemin’s group of acquaintances demanded upon feeling threatened, as people would often feel dizzy and lost after it was taken out, which gave the rebels a chance to flee. Despite his age - Taemin was a few years younger than Minho - the boy could easily stun scholars and scientists alike with his knowledge about the world before the Third World War and neurological processes associated to speech. Yet he knew little about the current events and happenings, having cut himself off the social network.
The reason behind Minho’s escape both shocked and disgusted him. Taemin had heard of ways to affect the brain to change a person’s behavioral patterns and cure pathologies, but the fact that physical attraction, lust, could be generated and controlled with the help of electrical impulses, was just inhumane. Taemin locked his front door that evening, after Minho told him about Yuri, that girl who was powerful, rich and selfish enough to make someone go through such a risky process just for the sake of gaining their affection.
They learned a lot from each other and with every passing hour, Minho’s views about the society he had grown up in changed. To his surprise, the books Taemin owned weren’t forbidden, but it made sense for the government to disencourage curiosity by making the information free and available, while unnecessary and difficult to handle. He also found out, that it was common for toddlers to have their vocal cords medically paralyzed for about a year or two, so even if there was someone to teach them, it was impossible for children to learn how to speak.
After a while, Minho was fully accustomed to deciphering Taemin’s chicken scratch and Taemin no longer flinched away when Minho leaned in to read over his shoulder.
They developed an easy routine of waking up when the sun was high above the horizon and finding something edible, then scouring through the boxes of things from the previous centuries that Taemin’s parents had collected, all while wordlessly poking fun at each other.
Taemin knew of a system of gestures called the body language and they spent a whole night fruitlessly searching the books for clues on how it might work.
What had seemed like an alternative universe, an attic full of spiderwebs and grime, dangerously unsanitary and nothing like the light high-ceiled air conditioned rooms Minho was used to, became more of a home to him than his spotlessly clean apartment ever was. He had a feeling this had something to do with the way Taemin smiled at him.
“Look.”
The boy was using his headset again, even though the voice in the audio vocabulary belonged to a middle-aged woman so it sounded rather ridiculous.
“I. Find,” pause, “cassette.”
Minho dropped the stack of letters he had been examining and stumbled over a pile of rubbish on his way to the boy. Inside the box there was actually a whole heap of different cassettes in colorful plastic cases, more than Minho had ever seen in his life. Taemin was fidgeting with excitement, laughing and nudging Minho to take it down to the workroom. The man rolled his eyes good-naturedly, a warmth spreading all through his body when their hands brushed. He couldn’t say no and not only because Taemin was doing him a favor by letting him stay.
“How come you didn’t find these earlier?” Minho wrote in the notebook later, ignoring the cramping of his overworked fingers.
Taemin fumbled with the wires of his headset before taking the device off completely and resting it on his desk. On his way to pick up the cassette player, Taemin read Minho’s question, standing close enough for the man to smell his hair.
“I haven’t really spent much time up there.
It seemed too sacred.”
”Why sacred?” Minho replied quickly, but Taemin had already turned to rummage through one of the cabinets, a flimsy shirt stretching over his back. Minho admired the view for a few seconds before getting back to sorting the tapes as Taemin had asked him to.
Most of the cassettes had music from the 1990’s on them and it was sad that they had no examples of the songs people listened to after cassettes were no longer used, since fragile cds and dvds, not to mention computer files since the WWIII doubled as a cyber war, were destroyed in the post-war madness.
He was so caught up in entertaining himself with the titles of the tracks - some of them were really cheesy and nonsensical - that he didn’t notice Taemin sliding up to him before the boy was crouching over his notebook. The boy left just as suddenly, grabbing a wrench to fix up the radio.
”The things up there were my father’s prized possessions.
I’m not half the man he was.
But it felt like it was time to look around.”
Even if Minho could’ve sent out a signal, or speak like the people from the previous century did, he wouldn’t have known what to say. An emotion resembling glee bubbled in his chest as he wondered whether his presence had an influence on Taemin. If only he could leave a mark as deep as the one the boy had imprinted on Minho.
Taemin waved his arms triumphantly, calling Minho over to him and the man randomly picked a cassette before complying. They shoved it into the slot and stood by after pressing ‘play,’ a static noise filling the room.
A few moments later, a slow tune started playing. It was nothing like the high quality music Minho was used to hearing, cracky in places and and slowing down at random intervals but he mirrored
Taemin’s grin nonetheless. Then, a voice joined the instruments, shyly at first, but then gaining confidence and belting out a heart-shattering melody. Minho couldn’t make out the lyrics as they were buried under piano motifs and crackling sounds, but it didn’t really matter because he had never heard anyone sing.
He didn’t realize how engrossed he was in the music until Taemin touched his hand, eyebrows raised. The boy’s eyes sparkled with mischief as he crossed the distance between them, slender fingers giving Minho’s shoulder a squeeze.
Minho was a hundred percent positive that his expression betrayed his disbelief, judging by the playful smirk on Taemin’s lips. He got the point easily enough and wound his arms around the boy’s middle, suppressing a gasp at the body warmth seeping through his clothes. Taemin took the first step, sparing Minho a timid smile before hiding his face in Minho’s neck, breathing deeply.
They swayed to the beat, not even stopping when the song ended and a new one came on.
Keeping his sweaty palms on Taemin’s waist, Minho found himself wishing, for the first time, that Taemin was one of them. That they could exchange signals and Minho could let him know how much the time they spent together meant to him. That he could whisk Taemin off his feet and carry him off to the sunset, screw the “no relationship” rule, Jonghyun could be single by himself.
Taemin rested some of his weight on Minho and the man would’ve thought he was falling asleep if it wasn’t for the precise footwork. He could hardly believe it had been a whole week since he escaped from his own home, seven days since he met a boy he still found strange, but endearingly so.
The little house tucked away on a mostly abandoned street had become a wormhole to Minho, a sanctuary where time and space had no meaning. He sighed during a soulful falsetto, troubling himself with thoughts of his team, his friends and fans who he guessed must be sick with worry. He couldn’t even imagine all the rumours going around about his abrupt disappearance, especially if people sighted his mad dash out of the building that night.
He had to take responsibility in order not to disappoint his coach and the people that believed in him. He couldn’t hide forever even if the possibility of Yuri using her money to do the procedure on him was still real.
But for one more day, he allowed himself to stay, tightening his hold around Taemin as another song faded out. Another day, in their paradise of written messages, silly inventions and mystery objects from the past.
A single day in silence.