there's this tune i found (it makes me think of you somehow)
THERE'S THIS TUNE I FOUND (IT MAKES ME THINK OF YOU SOMEHOW)
one-shot (i guess? IDK), 1192 words, G
band!fic au, myungsoo/sunggyu
A/N: I don't think I ever tried writing something that's not het so - I'm sorry if this is just terrible. It's kind of band!fic, I guess? For gui, who is the only other person in the world I can cry about Sunggyu to on whatsapp. Oh - I didn't have anyone read this through so. Apologies for any grotesque mistakes.
'cause there's this tune i've found
that makes me think of you somehow
and i play it on repeat until i fall asleep
His fingers find the microphone, his voice cracks twice, he pretends he’s on the radio. Sunggyu sees in very dark colors, inebriated by the cheap-looking limelight of dirty underground stations, and it’s music laced with smoke that he breathes, lungs inhaling, exhaling. The song is over, the haze is gone, his high burns down - it lasted twelve cover songs from forgotten bands. The applause isn’t there. Sunggyu lingers. It never comes.
The train screams on his ears all the way home.
He’s at the same station the next day, eyeliner concealing his fears, another night, another failure. No one seems to acknowledge him while his throat pours out words mixed with feelings - hate, despair, hunger, yearning; they’re all there, in the underlines of sickly love songs. He makes twenty bucks, surprisingly, and leaves with the train. Sunggyu pretends he doesn’t see Myungsoo standing on the other side of the tracks, in the same ripped jeans he had been wearing just the other night.
“I wrote you a -“ Beep.
Sometimes Sunggyu will close his eyes and his dreams will be filled with hyperbolic fame in deep hues of purple, his blood is bright pink, his voice never cracks. He's made of paint and music. It feels as thin as air - fame. It's all around him, like a body of salty water, yet he can't grab it. His dreams often transform into cold sweats and painful screaming, and he'll wake up to an empty hostel room - Myungsoo and the roaches keeping him company.
“Go to sleep, Myungsoo.”
He thinks he hears the younger boy’s voice - I can’t go, I can’t go now - but the world is already fading into slumber. When he wakes up again, Myungsoo is gone, always gone whenever the sun’s out.
“I wrote you a -“ Beep.
At late hours, he likes to call Myungsoo, and he waits until the answering machine picks it up. Sure enough, the boy is never there, he never calls back, never will, but Sunggyu is needy, greedy, hopelessly, beyond help. His monologue is recorded in different chapters, he thinks it could be the saddest song ever written.
“Why aren’t you here?”
“Hey - Myungsoo.”
“You should be here.”
“You should be here.”
“Fuck. You should be -“ Beep.
Myungsoo looks sullen on the other side of the tracks, another night, few people. Sunggyu sings for him, just for him, always for him, secretly, amidst the train screams, where no one cares. “We’ll be famous,” Myungsoo had said in the soft voice Sunggyu was already so used to. “We won’t need to sing the subway soundtracks anymore.” The possibility, still echoing in his head, makes Sunggyu smile, it makes everything better for half a minute - maybe less - until somebody throws him another dime, and the other boy’s shadow fades under the bitter lights. A sad reminder they’re not there, not together, not ever.
(Another train goes by, Sunggyu wails with it.)
“I wrote you a song, it goes like this-“ Beep.
Sunggyu isn’t ready yet.
“You will never leave me, right?”
A dangerous question, to Sunggyu’s heart at least, threaded with careful sips of warm vodka, said in a lower voice to Myungsoo’s ear in one those nights, in one of those pubs where music is as raw as a human being’s soul. The younger boy didn’t flinch, they had been drunk enough for proximity (he hadn’t noticed how Myungsoo hardly ever pulled away, sober or intoxicated, he didn’t know). Sunggyu wanted nothing more than being drunk for the next three lifetimes - aside, maybe, for an answer, which he waited for with ardent eagerness. “You’re the leader, you can do without me. I just play the guitar.”
No, no, no, no - I can’t do without you, he whispered, though he thought Myungsoo couldn’t hear it under the music. “I’m not that good of a singer either,” Myungsoo continued, looking at him with a resigned smile. “I’m only good if you’re there.”
Sunggyu listens to those ghostly words like they’re some kind of trashy 80s song playing on repeat on the corner of his head. It’s so bad - but you can’t let it go. You have to let it go, he thinks Myungsoo repeats behind him, but it is - as a recurrent reminder of his state of mind - only the corners of his room; much like the corner of his head, these are shaded yellow and black too, remains of the sunset and feelings combined, a graveyard, just for Myungsoo.
Flimsy, thin, airy fame. It lasted two years and fifty-seven days. A rush of sugar in form of a stage, one hit song, blissful lights. Sunggyu would turn his radio up at random times throughout the day, just to listen to his own voice sing that generation’s newest hit - and Myungsoo’s voice, next to his, glorified by guitar riffs and fancy-sounding synths. Heaven was made of their music, bouncing from sound waves into the hearts of thousands of souls - red strings of faith, Myungsoo liked to say, a connection. You never lose something like this, it’s forever.
They sat side by side in the airplane, seeing animals and cotton candy where clouds should be. It was real for them, it was enough for Sunggyu.
“I wrote you a song, it goes like this - I wish we could play it someday. Wherever you are. Ok, here it goes-”
He doesn’t sing, because he thinks no words are necessary. Myungsoo can hear them through the chords.
Beep, and it’s over.
Grief is as harsh and glassy as fame, often deprived of colors - either it lasts fifteen minutes, or a lifetime. Sunggyu had tasted both, their absinthian
taste never truly leaving. So he stands on the subway station with a guitar on his hand, Myungsoo’s guitar, and plays the song he’s written for a boy who isn’t there.
(A dime comes, and then a dollar, and then a thousand more, airwave sounds on the tune of his guitar, instant hit. Fame embraces him again, his past lover, no, foe - he doesn’t care.)
To Sunggyu,
I’m sorry for not being with you. We were always together on stage. Hyung - how are you feeling? Having your own road must be scary. I’m sorry I had to leave. But I won’t really, remember? Whenever you sing, I’m there. I’m always there.
Myungsoo
Sunggyu turns up the radio, the song he wrote for Myungsoo is playing - only one voice this time, another monologue, just not on an answering machine. The saddest song ever written, carefully made into a hit by the bony hands of fame. Myungsoo stands next to him, Sunggyu can see him through the layers of light and dust. He dials, his fingers touching the screen with an urgent need.
“Myungsoo.”
“Myungsoo, I-“
“Our song is on the radio. Your song.”
“I hope you can hear it.”
“You should have been here.”
“Myungsoo, I-“
Beep.
He doesn’t have time to say what he needs.
I miss you too, he thinks he hears from the other side of the room. The song comes to an end, he snaps the radio off, Myungsoo’s gone - but not really. Never, really.
one-shot (i guess? IDK), 1192 words, G
band!fic au, myungsoo/sunggyu
A/N: I don't think I ever tried writing something that's not het so - I'm sorry if this is just terrible. It's kind of band!fic, I guess? For gui, who is the only other person in the world I can cry about Sunggyu to on whatsapp. Oh - I didn't have anyone read this through so. Apologies for any grotesque mistakes.
'cause there's this tune i've found
that makes me think of you somehow
and i play it on repeat until i fall asleep
His fingers find the microphone, his voice cracks twice, he pretends he’s on the radio. Sunggyu sees in very dark colors, inebriated by the cheap-looking limelight of dirty underground stations, and it’s music laced with smoke that he breathes, lungs inhaling, exhaling. The song is over, the haze is gone, his high burns down - it lasted twelve cover songs from forgotten bands. The applause isn’t there. Sunggyu lingers. It never comes.
The train screams on his ears all the way home.
He’s at the same station the next day, eyeliner concealing his fears, another night, another failure. No one seems to acknowledge him while his throat pours out words mixed with feelings - hate, despair, hunger, yearning; they’re all there, in the underlines of sickly love songs. He makes twenty bucks, surprisingly, and leaves with the train. Sunggyu pretends he doesn’t see Myungsoo standing on the other side of the tracks, in the same ripped jeans he had been wearing just the other night.
“I wrote you a -“ Beep.
Sometimes Sunggyu will close his eyes and his dreams will be filled with hyperbolic fame in deep hues of purple, his blood is bright pink, his voice never cracks. He's made of paint and music. It feels as thin as air - fame. It's all around him, like a body of salty water, yet he can't grab it. His dreams often transform into cold sweats and painful screaming, and he'll wake up to an empty hostel room - Myungsoo and the roaches keeping him company.
“Go to sleep, Myungsoo.”
He thinks he hears the younger boy’s voice - I can’t go, I can’t go now - but the world is already fading into slumber. When he wakes up again, Myungsoo is gone, always gone whenever the sun’s out.
“I wrote you a -“ Beep.
At late hours, he likes to call Myungsoo, and he waits until the answering machine picks it up. Sure enough, the boy is never there, he never calls back, never will, but Sunggyu is needy, greedy, hopelessly, beyond help. His monologue is recorded in different chapters, he thinks it could be the saddest song ever written.
“Why aren’t you here?”
“Hey - Myungsoo.”
“You should be here.”
“You should be here.”
“Fuck. You should be -“ Beep.
Myungsoo looks sullen on the other side of the tracks, another night, few people. Sunggyu sings for him, just for him, always for him, secretly, amidst the train screams, where no one cares. “We’ll be famous,” Myungsoo had said in the soft voice Sunggyu was already so used to. “We won’t need to sing the subway soundtracks anymore.” The possibility, still echoing in his head, makes Sunggyu smile, it makes everything better for half a minute - maybe less - until somebody throws him another dime, and the other boy’s shadow fades under the bitter lights. A sad reminder they’re not there, not together, not ever.
(Another train goes by, Sunggyu wails with it.)
“I wrote you a song, it goes like this-“ Beep.
Sunggyu isn’t ready yet.
“You will never leave me, right?”
A dangerous question, to Sunggyu’s heart at least, threaded with careful sips of warm vodka, said in a lower voice to Myungsoo’s ear in one those nights, in one of those pubs where music is as raw as a human being’s soul. The younger boy didn’t flinch, they had been drunk enough for proximity (he hadn’t noticed how Myungsoo hardly ever pulled away, sober or intoxicated, he didn’t know). Sunggyu wanted nothing more than being drunk for the next three lifetimes - aside, maybe, for an answer, which he waited for with ardent eagerness. “You’re the leader, you can do without me. I just play the guitar.”
No, no, no, no - I can’t do without you, he whispered, though he thought Myungsoo couldn’t hear it under the music. “I’m not that good of a singer either,” Myungsoo continued, looking at him with a resigned smile. “I’m only good if you’re there.”
Sunggyu listens to those ghostly words like they’re some kind of trashy 80s song playing on repeat on the corner of his head. It’s so bad - but you can’t let it go. You have to let it go, he thinks Myungsoo repeats behind him, but it is - as a recurrent reminder of his state of mind - only the corners of his room; much like the corner of his head, these are shaded yellow and black too, remains of the sunset and feelings combined, a graveyard, just for Myungsoo.
Flimsy, thin, airy fame. It lasted two years and fifty-seven days. A rush of sugar in form of a stage, one hit song, blissful lights. Sunggyu would turn his radio up at random times throughout the day, just to listen to his own voice sing that generation’s newest hit - and Myungsoo’s voice, next to his, glorified by guitar riffs and fancy-sounding synths. Heaven was made of their music, bouncing from sound waves into the hearts of thousands of souls - red strings of faith, Myungsoo liked to say, a connection. You never lose something like this, it’s forever.
They sat side by side in the airplane, seeing animals and cotton candy where clouds should be. It was real for them, it was enough for Sunggyu.
“I wrote you a song, it goes like this - I wish we could play it someday. Wherever you are. Ok, here it goes-”
He doesn’t sing, because he thinks no words are necessary. Myungsoo can hear them through the chords.
Beep, and it’s over.
Grief is as harsh and glassy as fame, often deprived of colors - either it lasts fifteen minutes, or a lifetime. Sunggyu had tasted both, their absinthian
taste never truly leaving. So he stands on the subway station with a guitar on his hand, Myungsoo’s guitar, and plays the song he’s written for a boy who isn’t there.
(A dime comes, and then a dollar, and then a thousand more, airwave sounds on the tune of his guitar, instant hit. Fame embraces him again, his past lover, no, foe - he doesn’t care.)
To Sunggyu,
I’m sorry for not being with you. We were always together on stage. Hyung - how are you feeling? Having your own road must be scary. I’m sorry I had to leave. But I won’t really, remember? Whenever you sing, I’m there. I’m always there.
Myungsoo
Sunggyu turns up the radio, the song he wrote for Myungsoo is playing - only one voice this time, another monologue, just not on an answering machine. The saddest song ever written, carefully made into a hit by the bony hands of fame. Myungsoo stands next to him, Sunggyu can see him through the layers of light and dust. He dials, his fingers touching the screen with an urgent need.
“Myungsoo.”
“Myungsoo, I-“
“Our song is on the radio. Your song.”
“I hope you can hear it.”
“You should have been here.”
“Myungsoo, I-“
Beep.
He doesn’t have time to say what he needs.
I miss you too, he thinks he hears from the other side of the room. The song comes to an end, he snaps the radio off, Myungsoo’s gone - but not really. Never, really.