slow down, the world isn't watching us break down
slow down, the world isn’t watching us break down; kyuhyun/sungmin | g | ~2300w
au, angst | dystopian!au where the two of them are free to rule the world as they please.
♛
the world has ended. it’s scary, really, how everything looks unchanged. they wouldn’t had known that it was over if they hadn’t lived through it. there were no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no volcanic eruptions or anything to hint at the impending end.
kyuhyun glances at sungmin sleeping peacefully next to him, then out of the bedroom window that overlooks the peaceful seoul street. it’s strange, because it’s supposed to be filled with people and bustling with activity especially at seven-thirty am on a monday morning (working crowds, children and teenagers all hurrying to school), yet it’s as silent as a grave. there aren’t bright and flashy sports cars, no slow buses lumbering along. no motorbikes revving up and down, no impatient drivers honking their horns to get pedestrians to hurry up.
it all seems a little unnatural, so he finds sungmin’s hand under the covers and grips it a little tighter than he would normally. after all, it’s comforting to know that there’s someone else with him, someone who isn’t just a memory swimming about in his mind.
♛
they fall through to the centre of the earth the next day. it seems like a dream, the kind of subconscious fantasy caught halfway between a nightmare and just another incredulous imagining. it had happened without much fanfare - both boys had been walking along the street, revisiting familiar shops and houses of the people they had loved most. and then suddenly the ground had shifted, split apart under their feet to form a chasm which both of them had proceeded to drop straight into. it was inevitable, there was no escaping it as the gap yawned wider and darker until the whole sidewalk receded into itself and turned into empty space.
down, down and down we go, kyuhyun thinks. he squeezes sungmin’s hand a little tighter as if to say i’m still here, don’t be afraid and sungmin squeezes back in return. the velocity at which they’re falling renders him unable to speak, his words snatched away by the howling wind in his ears, so they don’t say anything.
they fall in complete silence, each other’s grip the only comfort they can offer.
♛
kyuhyun wonders if it’s an endless abyss they’re falling into. they’ve been falling for what seems like forever, and his stomach feels like it’s been left at the top of the chasm; he’s never been one for rollercoaster rides like these, anyway. sungmin’s a bigger fan of them, the thrillseeker and daredevil of the two. he’d discovered that on their first date at everland where sungmin had proceeded to drag him on each and every one of the rides and he’d turned green at the end of the three minute-long rollercoaster ride, but hey, sungmin was laughing and cheering beside him and that was all that mattered. just as the thought enters his mind, however, they land painfully on a cold, firm surface, the impact jarring his teeth and slamming into his bones.
sungmin doesn’t do much better either - kyuhyun’s pretty sure he heard the resounding ‘crack’ of a bone breaking. sungmin’s suppressed whimpers and grunts of pain aren’t very comforting either, so they lie there for a while in darkness, recovering.
none of them says anything, because after knowing each other for so long they can already tell what the other is thinking without the need for words to express themselves. ‘are you okay’ is translated by a concerned press of sungmin’s fingers to kyuhyun’s forearm. ‘fine, but could be better’ is conveyed via a soft sigh and kyuhyun’s hand coming to rest over sungmin’s. ‘i think i broke something’ - a small gasp, hurried breathing, the slow and cautious shifting over to rest his head on kyuhyun’s chest for comfort.
“i think it was some part of my leg. i can’t put any weight on it, kyu, and it hurts so badly you wouldn’t believe.”
“shh. let’s just - let’s just lie here for a while, okay? let me just recover for a bit and regain my strength, then i can try and carry you.”
sungmin must be really tired, or at least hurt really badly, kyuhyun observes. he hasn’t even tried to protest, just nodded meekly and rested his head on kyuhyun’s chest like kyuhyun was his pillow, like kyuhyun was home and comfort and love all rolled into one.
the darkness looms above them, large and intimidating, but the silence isn’t awkward. it never is.
♛
after a while, they manage to get back up. kyuhyun doesn’t know how much time has passed, because time seems to be immeasureable in this abyss. none of them were wearing a watch when they fell, anyway, so it’s impossible to tell how long they’ve spent lying down. still, when they get up they feel totally fine, all injuries healed. even sungmin’s broken bone has fused itself back together and he can stand up independently, even walk normally like nothing had ever happened.
sungmin’s overjoyed at what’s happened, but kyuhyun frowns. that isn’t right - broken bones don’t just go away like this. broken bones don’t just knit themselves back together painlessly, they don’t just -- they don’t just fuse back together like they were never broken in the first place.
“look, kyu, it’s magic,” sungmin laughs, and kyuhyun bites back the words that surface on his tongue, not wanting to burst sungmin’s bubble.
it’s unnatural, that’s what it is.
♛
that’s when the Gamemakers find them, sungmin laughing and kyuhyun struggling to stay quiet.
“come with us,” they say, and later on when kyuhyun tries to describe them he realises they’re the type of people who are utterly unremarkable, the ones you’d overlook in a crowd without difficulty.
he’ll realise he can’t remember their faces, that when he’s looking at them he can’t find any fitting adjective to describe their features. his gaze just seems to slip right off their faces.
♛
“you can help us rebuild the world,” they say, these beings with peculiarly bland faces, flat voices and plain clothes. “we tell you guys what to do, you follow our orders, we build another city from ash and dust. we can start anew. in return, we give you everything you could ever want, like food and shelter. how does that sound?”
kyuhyun and sungmin glance at each other. what chance do we have, the resigned glances say. we can’t go anywhere else if we don’t know where we are.
simultaneously, both of them turn back to face the Gamemakers.
“we’ll do it.”
one of them smiles, but there’s no warmth in it. it’s like a piece of paper, cut into strips and twisted up at the corners to form a semblance of a curve.
“perfect. we start tomorrow.”
♛
it’s not too bad. they get good food of all kinds, delivered piping hot to their doorstep thrice a day. chinese, german, korean, whatever they want to have, they’ll get it. they only have to think about it before it appears on their doorstep with a soft ‘thud’. both of them live in a small, cozy apartment with three bedrooms and a bathroom each, a living room and a kitchen. it’s not much, but it’s definitely enough.
even though they have three bedrooms, they prefer to share one, just like they used to do back on the surface. kyuhyun games on the laptop he’s been given and sungmin strums away on the guitar he’s received, and sometimes when kyuhyun’s in a good mood he’ll sing along to the chords sungmin easily plucks out from his guitar strings.
“do you miss them?” sungmin asks one day, and kyuhyun hesitates a beat before replying.
“our families and friends? yeah, of course.”
“me too,” sungmin replies in a soft voice before pressing closer. unspoken words hang in the air.
still, i’m glad i’ve got you. and really, that is all that matters.
♛
“your first job is to think up a building. we’ve already got the city plans here, so you just need to follow according to the plan and we’ll be good to go,” the Gamemakers say the first day at work.
“uh, but where will the city be built?” kyuhyun asks, finding it weird how anyone can survive for long down here in this abyss. there’s no natural light, so plants can’t exactly grow. still, there are always underground water sources, so he guesses people can survive for a while but not long. he doesn’t even want to think about how electricity is supplied to their apartment, because he’s tried countless times and has come up with no plausible solution.
“oh, you don’t need to worry about that,” one of the Gamemakers reply with a sickly sweet smile, the no-more-questions easily audible in his? her? tone. cautiously, sungmin takes the paper, as if afraid it’ll suddenly explode in his hands the way their world crumbled and fell apart. bringing it over to kyuhyun, both of them pore over it and what they see jolts them. you see, it’s a city, but one that looks remarkably like seoul. it leaves a tang of homesickness on the tongue and a tightness in their throats, the kind only homesickness can cause, for the things they’ve lost and will never get back again.
“well,” sungmin breaks the lingering silence, clearing his throat and darting eyes up to the impassive Gamemakers. “i guess it’s time to get started?”
“y-yeah,” kyuhyun stutters a little, suddenly afraid because he doesn’t know what’s going on, who these people are, how they’ll end up.
sungmin frowns and looks over at him. come on, kyuhyun, get it together. we need to do this if we want to survive.
kyuhyun draws a shaky breath before letting his thoughts focus on the stadium that the Gamemakers have drawn up, the one that looks remarkably like the seoul world cup stadium.
♛
things go okay for a while. they think buildings up, build an imaginary city that could be in the clouds for all they know. they go home and eat like kings and laugh like the 20 and 22 year old children they are. they fall in love harder and faster because they only have each other to remind themselves of life from before, of life on the surface. of being human and of being home.
of course, things can only go so well for a limited period of time before they go downhill. it’s a cycle, kyuhyun supposes, since when life hits rock bottom it can only go back up again. it’s a cliche but it’s true, and the truth is never anything but cold and hard.
it all gets worse when the city passes the halfway mark to being completed. neither of them can figure out what to do when things start disappearing - when there’s only one portion of food being delivered to their doorstep, when there’s only one bed in the apartment when there used to be three. none of them know what to say when the Gamemakers start dropping pointed remarks like ‘we really only need one person for the job’. they can only cling on to each other tighter at night as if hoping to fuse into one being, as if hoping that this is all a nightmare they’ll somehow get through.
♛
kyuhyun has always been the smarter one amongst the two. he’s the one who won the science fair six years in a row in elementary school, topped the class unfailingly in high school and got promoted to university a year early. kyuhyun has always been smarter, more on his guard. sungmin isn’t stupid, either, but he’s just a little more shrouded in cotton wool, blinkers over his eyes.
sungmin is an idealist, choosing to put his faith into believing that they’ll somehow be okay. kyuhyun is a realist, knowing with dreadful uncertainty that it’ll never happen.
this is why kyuhyun is the one to leave.
♛
hey ming.
if you’re reading this, i trust you know where i’ve gone. i don’t know what these people will do if push comes to shove, so i’m choosing to leave before they hurt us. or hurt you, for that matter. you know i’m not good at expressing my feelings through words, but i guess they’ll leave you alone if i go, and that’s the most i can do for you. i know it hasn’t been easy to live here because this place kind of really sucks, but i trust they’ll treat you well after i leave, since you did help build their city after all.
just remember that i love you, okay. don’t forget that. or me.
kyuhyun
♛
sungmin wakes up when kyuhyun clambers out of bed and he curses because shit, he’s already tried to be quiet. sungmin pulls on kyuhyun’s shirt sleeve, asking, “where are you going?” his voice is soft and raspy, the voice of a person who’s still half-asleep, the kind of voice which can break a heart. and so for the first time in their whole relationship, kyuhyun decides to lie to him.
“bathroom,” he smiles tightly. it feels forced, stretched across his face like this, but it’s dark and sungmin can’t see.
“oh, okay. be back soon,” sungmin replies before falling back asleep. kyuhyun nods and whispers, “i will,” before tiptoeing to the door and opening it, padding outside.
he makes sure to shut the door quietly. after all, he doesn’t want to disturb sungmin further.
♛
the next day, sungmin wakes up to an empty bed and a crumpled note.
end
+ this was birthday fic for ming and uh the last time i wrote kyumin was half a year ago ;n; wow…….. they were my first ever ship and ming was my first ever kpop bias ;;;; so his birthday is pretty much a special thing to me. happy birthday lee sungmin ♥
+ this was supposed to be happy fic but
+ title from secondhand serenade’s ‘a twist in my story’. i love secondhand serenade.
au, angst | dystopian!au where the two of them are free to rule the world as they please.
♛
the world has ended. it’s scary, really, how everything looks unchanged. they wouldn’t had known that it was over if they hadn’t lived through it. there were no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no volcanic eruptions or anything to hint at the impending end.
kyuhyun glances at sungmin sleeping peacefully next to him, then out of the bedroom window that overlooks the peaceful seoul street. it’s strange, because it’s supposed to be filled with people and bustling with activity especially at seven-thirty am on a monday morning (working crowds, children and teenagers all hurrying to school), yet it’s as silent as a grave. there aren’t bright and flashy sports cars, no slow buses lumbering along. no motorbikes revving up and down, no impatient drivers honking their horns to get pedestrians to hurry up.
it all seems a little unnatural, so he finds sungmin’s hand under the covers and grips it a little tighter than he would normally. after all, it’s comforting to know that there’s someone else with him, someone who isn’t just a memory swimming about in his mind.
♛
they fall through to the centre of the earth the next day. it seems like a dream, the kind of subconscious fantasy caught halfway between a nightmare and just another incredulous imagining. it had happened without much fanfare - both boys had been walking along the street, revisiting familiar shops and houses of the people they had loved most. and then suddenly the ground had shifted, split apart under their feet to form a chasm which both of them had proceeded to drop straight into. it was inevitable, there was no escaping it as the gap yawned wider and darker until the whole sidewalk receded into itself and turned into empty space.
down, down and down we go, kyuhyun thinks. he squeezes sungmin’s hand a little tighter as if to say i’m still here, don’t be afraid and sungmin squeezes back in return. the velocity at which they’re falling renders him unable to speak, his words snatched away by the howling wind in his ears, so they don’t say anything.
they fall in complete silence, each other’s grip the only comfort they can offer.
♛
kyuhyun wonders if it’s an endless abyss they’re falling into. they’ve been falling for what seems like forever, and his stomach feels like it’s been left at the top of the chasm; he’s never been one for rollercoaster rides like these, anyway. sungmin’s a bigger fan of them, the thrillseeker and daredevil of the two. he’d discovered that on their first date at everland where sungmin had proceeded to drag him on each and every one of the rides and he’d turned green at the end of the three minute-long rollercoaster ride, but hey, sungmin was laughing and cheering beside him and that was all that mattered. just as the thought enters his mind, however, they land painfully on a cold, firm surface, the impact jarring his teeth and slamming into his bones.
sungmin doesn’t do much better either - kyuhyun’s pretty sure he heard the resounding ‘crack’ of a bone breaking. sungmin’s suppressed whimpers and grunts of pain aren’t very comforting either, so they lie there for a while in darkness, recovering.
none of them says anything, because after knowing each other for so long they can already tell what the other is thinking without the need for words to express themselves. ‘are you okay’ is translated by a concerned press of sungmin’s fingers to kyuhyun’s forearm. ‘fine, but could be better’ is conveyed via a soft sigh and kyuhyun’s hand coming to rest over sungmin’s. ‘i think i broke something’ - a small gasp, hurried breathing, the slow and cautious shifting over to rest his head on kyuhyun’s chest for comfort.
“i think it was some part of my leg. i can’t put any weight on it, kyu, and it hurts so badly you wouldn’t believe.”
“shh. let’s just - let’s just lie here for a while, okay? let me just recover for a bit and regain my strength, then i can try and carry you.”
sungmin must be really tired, or at least hurt really badly, kyuhyun observes. he hasn’t even tried to protest, just nodded meekly and rested his head on kyuhyun’s chest like kyuhyun was his pillow, like kyuhyun was home and comfort and love all rolled into one.
the darkness looms above them, large and intimidating, but the silence isn’t awkward. it never is.
♛
after a while, they manage to get back up. kyuhyun doesn’t know how much time has passed, because time seems to be immeasureable in this abyss. none of them were wearing a watch when they fell, anyway, so it’s impossible to tell how long they’ve spent lying down. still, when they get up they feel totally fine, all injuries healed. even sungmin’s broken bone has fused itself back together and he can stand up independently, even walk normally like nothing had ever happened.
sungmin’s overjoyed at what’s happened, but kyuhyun frowns. that isn’t right - broken bones don’t just go away like this. broken bones don’t just knit themselves back together painlessly, they don’t just -- they don’t just fuse back together like they were never broken in the first place.
“look, kyu, it’s magic,” sungmin laughs, and kyuhyun bites back the words that surface on his tongue, not wanting to burst sungmin’s bubble.
it’s unnatural, that’s what it is.
♛
that’s when the Gamemakers find them, sungmin laughing and kyuhyun struggling to stay quiet.
“come with us,” they say, and later on when kyuhyun tries to describe them he realises they’re the type of people who are utterly unremarkable, the ones you’d overlook in a crowd without difficulty.
he’ll realise he can’t remember their faces, that when he’s looking at them he can’t find any fitting adjective to describe their features. his gaze just seems to slip right off their faces.
♛
“you can help us rebuild the world,” they say, these beings with peculiarly bland faces, flat voices and plain clothes. “we tell you guys what to do, you follow our orders, we build another city from ash and dust. we can start anew. in return, we give you everything you could ever want, like food and shelter. how does that sound?”
kyuhyun and sungmin glance at each other. what chance do we have, the resigned glances say. we can’t go anywhere else if we don’t know where we are.
simultaneously, both of them turn back to face the Gamemakers.
“we’ll do it.”
one of them smiles, but there’s no warmth in it. it’s like a piece of paper, cut into strips and twisted up at the corners to form a semblance of a curve.
“perfect. we start tomorrow.”
♛
it’s not too bad. they get good food of all kinds, delivered piping hot to their doorstep thrice a day. chinese, german, korean, whatever they want to have, they’ll get it. they only have to think about it before it appears on their doorstep with a soft ‘thud’. both of them live in a small, cozy apartment with three bedrooms and a bathroom each, a living room and a kitchen. it’s not much, but it’s definitely enough.
even though they have three bedrooms, they prefer to share one, just like they used to do back on the surface. kyuhyun games on the laptop he’s been given and sungmin strums away on the guitar he’s received, and sometimes when kyuhyun’s in a good mood he’ll sing along to the chords sungmin easily plucks out from his guitar strings.
“do you miss them?” sungmin asks one day, and kyuhyun hesitates a beat before replying.
“our families and friends? yeah, of course.”
“me too,” sungmin replies in a soft voice before pressing closer. unspoken words hang in the air.
still, i’m glad i’ve got you. and really, that is all that matters.
♛
“your first job is to think up a building. we’ve already got the city plans here, so you just need to follow according to the plan and we’ll be good to go,” the Gamemakers say the first day at work.
“uh, but where will the city be built?” kyuhyun asks, finding it weird how anyone can survive for long down here in this abyss. there’s no natural light, so plants can’t exactly grow. still, there are always underground water sources, so he guesses people can survive for a while but not long. he doesn’t even want to think about how electricity is supplied to their apartment, because he’s tried countless times and has come up with no plausible solution.
“oh, you don’t need to worry about that,” one of the Gamemakers reply with a sickly sweet smile, the no-more-questions easily audible in his? her? tone. cautiously, sungmin takes the paper, as if afraid it’ll suddenly explode in his hands the way their world crumbled and fell apart. bringing it over to kyuhyun, both of them pore over it and what they see jolts them. you see, it’s a city, but one that looks remarkably like seoul. it leaves a tang of homesickness on the tongue and a tightness in their throats, the kind only homesickness can cause, for the things they’ve lost and will never get back again.
“well,” sungmin breaks the lingering silence, clearing his throat and darting eyes up to the impassive Gamemakers. “i guess it’s time to get started?”
“y-yeah,” kyuhyun stutters a little, suddenly afraid because he doesn’t know what’s going on, who these people are, how they’ll end up.
sungmin frowns and looks over at him. come on, kyuhyun, get it together. we need to do this if we want to survive.
kyuhyun draws a shaky breath before letting his thoughts focus on the stadium that the Gamemakers have drawn up, the one that looks remarkably like the seoul world cup stadium.
♛
things go okay for a while. they think buildings up, build an imaginary city that could be in the clouds for all they know. they go home and eat like kings and laugh like the 20 and 22 year old children they are. they fall in love harder and faster because they only have each other to remind themselves of life from before, of life on the surface. of being human and of being home.
of course, things can only go so well for a limited period of time before they go downhill. it’s a cycle, kyuhyun supposes, since when life hits rock bottom it can only go back up again. it’s a cliche but it’s true, and the truth is never anything but cold and hard.
it all gets worse when the city passes the halfway mark to being completed. neither of them can figure out what to do when things start disappearing - when there’s only one portion of food being delivered to their doorstep, when there’s only one bed in the apartment when there used to be three. none of them know what to say when the Gamemakers start dropping pointed remarks like ‘we really only need one person for the job’. they can only cling on to each other tighter at night as if hoping to fuse into one being, as if hoping that this is all a nightmare they’ll somehow get through.
♛
kyuhyun has always been the smarter one amongst the two. he’s the one who won the science fair six years in a row in elementary school, topped the class unfailingly in high school and got promoted to university a year early. kyuhyun has always been smarter, more on his guard. sungmin isn’t stupid, either, but he’s just a little more shrouded in cotton wool, blinkers over his eyes.
sungmin is an idealist, choosing to put his faith into believing that they’ll somehow be okay. kyuhyun is a realist, knowing with dreadful uncertainty that it’ll never happen.
this is why kyuhyun is the one to leave.
♛
hey ming.
if you’re reading this, i trust you know where i’ve gone. i don’t know what these people will do if push comes to shove, so i’m choosing to leave before they hurt us. or hurt you, for that matter. you know i’m not good at expressing my feelings through words, but i guess they’ll leave you alone if i go, and that’s the most i can do for you. i know it hasn’t been easy to live here because this place kind of really sucks, but i trust they’ll treat you well after i leave, since you did help build their city after all.
just remember that i love you, okay. don’t forget that. or me.
kyuhyun
♛
sungmin wakes up when kyuhyun clambers out of bed and he curses because shit, he’s already tried to be quiet. sungmin pulls on kyuhyun’s shirt sleeve, asking, “where are you going?” his voice is soft and raspy, the voice of a person who’s still half-asleep, the kind of voice which can break a heart. and so for the first time in their whole relationship, kyuhyun decides to lie to him.
“bathroom,” he smiles tightly. it feels forced, stretched across his face like this, but it’s dark and sungmin can’t see.
“oh, okay. be back soon,” sungmin replies before falling back asleep. kyuhyun nods and whispers, “i will,” before tiptoeing to the door and opening it, padding outside.
he makes sure to shut the door quietly. after all, he doesn’t want to disturb sungmin further.
♛
the next day, sungmin wakes up to an empty bed and a crumpled note.
end
+ this was birthday fic for ming and uh the last time i wrote kyumin was half a year ago ;n; wow…….. they were my first ever ship and ming was my first ever kpop bias ;;;; so his birthday is pretty much a special thing to me. happy birthday lee sungmin ♥
+ this was supposed to be happy fic but
+ title from secondhand serenade’s ‘a twist in my story’. i love secondhand serenade.