green onions
Title: Green Onions
Pairing: Jonghyun/Minho
Rating: PG13
Note: Another one of those not-lighthearted stories. You've been warned.
My entry for 's eighteenth challenge, based on the picture prompt. For whose birthday's coming up, who asked for fic and , who won my soul in a game of poker.
You're never too old for ghost stories
Green Onions
I don’t know what to think of midnights anymore. The ghosts never show no matter how long we wait.
You say they’re afraid of our flashlights and our sheets but that’s bullshit.
I can hear them through the walls. Can’t you?
Shh- hold your breath.
Kibum says it’s just the pipes, they’re rusty. Taemin says we’re too old for ghost stories. Isn’t that strange? When did he outgrow his Tooth Fairy days, I saw him a week ago, blowing wishes on dandelions.
I missed my wish tonight. Fell asleep before 11.11 and you can’t find dandelions in all this concrete- hush, can’t you hear them? It’s like they’re scratching through the walls.
There’s a gray stain on the carpet next to your bare toes and see, I have this theory.
What if it’s us.
The things that go bump in the night.
What if we were the ones haunting this place all along in some post-mortem blissful ignorance, tragic lovers feeding each other shots of arsenic on the living room floor, next to an open window?
What if it is us grinning when the shades grow longer and the lights bleed red.
Tell me it doesn't it sound like something I'd talk you into. You know me, I’d find it fitting, sufficiently melodramatic, toasting on poison, slipping lemon-scented notes under their pillows, asking for white sheets over the mirrors, open windows to let us out into the night. Like all the times we’d snuck out with dirty hair and flaking pale foundation, my face falling apart under your hands, do you remember?
But they didn’t listen, when do they ever listen? They shut the windows and locked the doors to keep us in, covered the walls in mirrors so we could haunt their bedrooms and they wouldn’t forget those liquid eyes and your long legs. And now we’re trapped because they love us too much, like we were trapped because I loved you too much, enough to wait three years to steal one kiss in a rehearsal.
Perhaps this is why we long for the outside so much, why you can’t breathe after sundown and you drag me by my shirtsleeves to go to the convenience store at night to buy green onions. It’s because we can never go out- this is a hallucination, the world behind the mirror and everything reversed, I mean where else would you find a triple-layer strawberry cake 30% off, other than in the underworld? Where else would you want to make me pajeon with real butter because I missed my mom, where else would you ask me to dance under those neon lights, your hand warm over my shirt in the cereal aisle where anyone can see, Captain Crunch appalled and watching?
Oh don’t look so surprised, that’s right, I’m saying yes even though that’s a silly jingle you chose to dance to, but it’s ok cos we’re both dead, baby, the grateful dead trapped in a mirror and people are much more forgiving after you’ve taken off.
They said I’d never have this and we showed them, didn’t we.
So you know what, let’s kick it up a notch and call this our wedding song, the most stupid jingle you could find.
Whaddya say, will you marry me?
Will you take my hand and toss me yours, I’m pretty sure we’re swiftly decomposing somewhere dark, so this exchange might even be possible. You have to say yes because I said yes and important choices are being made under the Captain’s watchful gaze, so let’s settle this right here. Say yes, I’m pretty sure the devil won’t mind that we’re both boys. I’m sure Hell’s Bells will echo merrily, I doubt Lucifer has ever met two lambs so desperate for damnation. Say yes, I’ll find an open grave that we can desecrate, a finger with a gleaming ring we can chop off, oh how I hope they buried us together, Kibum should know I can’t sleep well without you.
I missed my wish tonight, but it’s alright because if we stay here, if we stay it’s forever eleven strikes to twelve, a breath before the horses switch back to mice, the princes back to ghosts, we never have to hear the truth again, the way Kibum would sneer, well aren’t you the optimist.
There are deep smudges under your eyes, dark and almost red. I still remember all the nights you kept me up, searching for loopholes.
So say yes and we can forget. All those words on paper, now we have nothing to fear, they were just names and numbers and legal terms and.
And I don’t care if I never sleep again, I just want to stay here with you on this ever-spinning star, here to push your swing too hard, I push because you always come right back in your elliptical orbit with a scream and a laugh over your shoulder and the promise of massive head trauma. If you say yes then I don’t care if they said no before, they’ll always say no, so many hearts they’ve smashed under their desks and they never did repent for those sad eyes, those finger-clutched curtains, shadows lurking hungry and incomplete in the hallway after dark, eternal vampires, so old in the lamplight.
But you and me? We’re the new edition baby, reinforced in steel, grinning and dangerous under all the glitter and we’ll sing, we’ll dance, we’ll steal things. They said we’d never have this, thought they got our hearts too but there was just bubblewrap in that small hollow when sank their hand in to squeeze. They will never know the popping sound was only plastic, the blood in our mouths just raspberry jam.
The practice rooms are haunted too, but vengeful spirits love you and they hiss their secrets through the floorboards, they do not want your wrists, it’s your neck they’re after.
So we keep our hearts on our sleeves because their chains were made to choke and I don’t mind as long as I can hold your hand during the chorus, and no-one ever knew the things I’ve promised.
You used laugh and swing your feet, you used to call them soap-bubble oaths and you used to call them Japanese-lantern vows, you used say I never came through but was just you that never came to collect.
But you can’t say that now can you, you can’t say that now, now you can only say yes because I came through, I’ve dropped to my knees in this supermarket aisle in Hades, I’ve dropped to my knees on this stained carpet, I’ve dropped to my knees in this haunted playground, a breath from midnight, few hours from daylight and I’m asking you to turn off your flashlight.
Let’s burn the sun. Say you’ll stay here in the darkness, behind the looking glass with me, and we can haunt this place til it’s in ruins. Let’s sit on the ground and wish on eleven fifty-nine, let’s eat this strawberry cake we stole and then go sever some ringfingers.
Because I think we sliced the hearts on our wrists a while back, I don’t think I’d choose arsenic even though it makes you smile.
The wishing wells are dry here, so I’m asking you.
Say yes.
Endnotes: You people give me engagement rings, I give you severed ring fingers. And you keep calling our relationship unhealthy. Pshaw.
Pairing: Jonghyun/Minho
Rating: PG13
Note: Another one of those not-lighthearted stories. You've been warned.
My entry for 's eighteenth challenge, based on the picture prompt. For whose birthday's coming up, who asked for fic and , who won my soul in a game of poker.
You're never too old for ghost stories
Green Onions
I don’t know what to think of midnights anymore. The ghosts never show no matter how long we wait.
You say they’re afraid of our flashlights and our sheets but that’s bullshit.
I can hear them through the walls. Can’t you?
Shh- hold your breath.
Kibum says it’s just the pipes, they’re rusty. Taemin says we’re too old for ghost stories. Isn’t that strange? When did he outgrow his Tooth Fairy days, I saw him a week ago, blowing wishes on dandelions.
I missed my wish tonight. Fell asleep before 11.11 and you can’t find dandelions in all this concrete- hush, can’t you hear them? It’s like they’re scratching through the walls.
There’s a gray stain on the carpet next to your bare toes and see, I have this theory.
What if it’s us.
The things that go bump in the night.
What if we were the ones haunting this place all along in some post-mortem blissful ignorance, tragic lovers feeding each other shots of arsenic on the living room floor, next to an open window?
What if it is us grinning when the shades grow longer and the lights bleed red.
Tell me it doesn't it sound like something I'd talk you into. You know me, I’d find it fitting, sufficiently melodramatic, toasting on poison, slipping lemon-scented notes under their pillows, asking for white sheets over the mirrors, open windows to let us out into the night. Like all the times we’d snuck out with dirty hair and flaking pale foundation, my face falling apart under your hands, do you remember?
But they didn’t listen, when do they ever listen? They shut the windows and locked the doors to keep us in, covered the walls in mirrors so we could haunt their bedrooms and they wouldn’t forget those liquid eyes and your long legs. And now we’re trapped because they love us too much, like we were trapped because I loved you too much, enough to wait three years to steal one kiss in a rehearsal.
Perhaps this is why we long for the outside so much, why you can’t breathe after sundown and you drag me by my shirtsleeves to go to the convenience store at night to buy green onions. It’s because we can never go out- this is a hallucination, the world behind the mirror and everything reversed, I mean where else would you find a triple-layer strawberry cake 30% off, other than in the underworld? Where else would you want to make me pajeon with real butter because I missed my mom, where else would you ask me to dance under those neon lights, your hand warm over my shirt in the cereal aisle where anyone can see, Captain Crunch appalled and watching?
Oh don’t look so surprised, that’s right, I’m saying yes even though that’s a silly jingle you chose to dance to, but it’s ok cos we’re both dead, baby, the grateful dead trapped in a mirror and people are much more forgiving after you’ve taken off.
They said I’d never have this and we showed them, didn’t we.
So you know what, let’s kick it up a notch and call this our wedding song, the most stupid jingle you could find.
Whaddya say, will you marry me?
Will you take my hand and toss me yours, I’m pretty sure we’re swiftly decomposing somewhere dark, so this exchange might even be possible. You have to say yes because I said yes and important choices are being made under the Captain’s watchful gaze, so let’s settle this right here. Say yes, I’m pretty sure the devil won’t mind that we’re both boys. I’m sure Hell’s Bells will echo merrily, I doubt Lucifer has ever met two lambs so desperate for damnation. Say yes, I’ll find an open grave that we can desecrate, a finger with a gleaming ring we can chop off, oh how I hope they buried us together, Kibum should know I can’t sleep well without you.
I missed my wish tonight, but it’s alright because if we stay here, if we stay it’s forever eleven strikes to twelve, a breath before the horses switch back to mice, the princes back to ghosts, we never have to hear the truth again, the way Kibum would sneer, well aren’t you the optimist.
There are deep smudges under your eyes, dark and almost red. I still remember all the nights you kept me up, searching for loopholes.
So say yes and we can forget. All those words on paper, now we have nothing to fear, they were just names and numbers and legal terms and.
And I don’t care if I never sleep again, I just want to stay here with you on this ever-spinning star, here to push your swing too hard, I push because you always come right back in your elliptical orbit with a scream and a laugh over your shoulder and the promise of massive head trauma. If you say yes then I don’t care if they said no before, they’ll always say no, so many hearts they’ve smashed under their desks and they never did repent for those sad eyes, those finger-clutched curtains, shadows lurking hungry and incomplete in the hallway after dark, eternal vampires, so old in the lamplight.
But you and me? We’re the new edition baby, reinforced in steel, grinning and dangerous under all the glitter and we’ll sing, we’ll dance, we’ll steal things. They said we’d never have this, thought they got our hearts too but there was just bubblewrap in that small hollow when sank their hand in to squeeze. They will never know the popping sound was only plastic, the blood in our mouths just raspberry jam.
The practice rooms are haunted too, but vengeful spirits love you and they hiss their secrets through the floorboards, they do not want your wrists, it’s your neck they’re after.
So we keep our hearts on our sleeves because their chains were made to choke and I don’t mind as long as I can hold your hand during the chorus, and no-one ever knew the things I’ve promised.
You used laugh and swing your feet, you used to call them soap-bubble oaths and you used to call them Japanese-lantern vows, you used say I never came through but was just you that never came to collect.
But you can’t say that now can you, you can’t say that now, now you can only say yes because I came through, I’ve dropped to my knees in this supermarket aisle in Hades, I’ve dropped to my knees on this stained carpet, I’ve dropped to my knees in this haunted playground, a breath from midnight, few hours from daylight and I’m asking you to turn off your flashlight.
Let’s burn the sun. Say you’ll stay here in the darkness, behind the looking glass with me, and we can haunt this place til it’s in ruins. Let’s sit on the ground and wish on eleven fifty-nine, let’s eat this strawberry cake we stole and then go sever some ringfingers.
Because I think we sliced the hearts on our wrists a while back, I don’t think I’d choose arsenic even though it makes you smile.
The wishing wells are dry here, so I’m asking you.
Say yes.
Endnotes: You people give me engagement rings, I give you severed ring fingers. And you keep calling our relationship unhealthy. Pshaw.