fic-DBSK-Failure
Title: Failure
Author: virdant
Length: 1,344 words; one-shot
Rating: PG for... one profane word
Genre: Angst / Trainee-fic AU
Pairing: None unless you have amazing pairing-hint-detecting skills... then it's JaeSu
Summary: It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as dramas made it seem. There was no gasping, no wheezing, no clutching of the throat. Just the clinical tones of a doctor saying: “You’ll never be able to sing again.”
Warning: 1 profane word.
Notes: Some experimentation with narrative style (and flowery language, slap me if I overdid it). Concrit on said style please. For more details, see end-notes.
Failure
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
-Lord Tennyson Alfred
This is loss, Junsu realized.
It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as dramas made it seem. There was no gasping, no wheezing, no clutching of the throat. Just the clinical tones of a doctor saying, “You’ll never be able to sing again.”
The doctor said other words: “I’m sorry,” and “truly regret,” and “your loss.”
Your loss.
This is loss, Junsu realized.
As he staggered out of the office, shock and horrific realization pounding in his temples, he wondered what was left for him now. No voice. He saw for the briefest second, leaning against a wall, eyes sharp behind oval frames, sympathy and acceptance and concern behind a mask of shards. But then the other trainee looked away and he looked away and Junsu staggered away from this broken girl, because this was loss.
He wasn’t certain what led him to wander down the hallway-masochistic urges, perhaps. Junsu’s legs had a mind of their own, and they brought him deep into practice rooms, where vocal coaches created perfection.
You’ll never be able to sing again, Junsu told himself. Grief swelled until he choked on it, until it buried itself under eyelids, contained by the fragile exterior of shock.
He saw Kim Jaejoong, too thin and too pretty with a too perfect voice to match, down the hallway, and he almost dipped his head down and stalked away. Kim Jaejoong’s face was freezingly blank; Junsu thought that he preferred this to the sympathetic looks in everybody else’s eyes. But then their eyes met, for the briefest of seconds, and Kim Jaejoong nodded, looking almost human, and Junsu found himself nodding back, a greeting prepared in a throat that would never sing again, because that was the polite thing to do. That was the right thing to do. Never mind that he would never be able to sing again.
There was sympathy in Kim Jaejoong’s eyes; that was enough for Junsu to want to rail, to demand Kim Jaejoong to take his damn sympathy and fuck himself. Wasn’t Kim Jaejoong happy now, now that one more competitor was out of the picture? The words stayed in though, grief covering anger.
They passed each other without a word.
There was a whiteboard hanging on the wall; it listed the names of every vocal coach along a grid of times. Names were marker-ed in dull greens, blues and grays. Kim Jaejoong flashed bright red in three different people’s slots. Junsu’s name was nowhere to be seen.
Shock kept grief in.
*
There are no words, Junsu thought, to describe singing. To describe a body moving perfectly, cohesively, perfectly as one. For one purpose. Creation.
There are also no words, Junsu thought, to describe loss.
In the course of a day, he had wailed silent cries in a shower that had formerly contained melodies. Salt and recycled water mixed together, until he wasn’t certain where one began and one ended. His mind was focused on one thought alone: you’ll never be able to sing again.
He whispered responses to worried inquires through the phone, thinking of the words: you’ll never be able to sing again. He couldn't feel-lungs, diaphragm, throat, mouth, tongue-moving perfectly, cohesively, perfectly. Everything was disjointed. Lungs expanding and a rib-cage motionless. Diaphragm pushing and lungs expanding. Throat spasming and mouth shut. Tongue flickering without air to shape. A symphony without a conductor, shattered; broken glass and the coppery taste of loss.
*
His legs have a mind of their own; they took Junsu into a cafeteria where Kim Jaejoong sat wolfing down the cheapest meal offered in Prestissimo. Kim Jaejoong looked surprised to see him, surprised to see Junsu’s legs collapse and Junsu’s arms flash out to brace Junsu’s head from meeting the table. Too much trauma to take away a non-existent voice.
Junsu rasped, “Are you happy I’m gone?”
He had seen the whiteboard today, with Kim Jaejoong written in four different handwritings and two different colors: red and bright blue. At least one of the squares with Kim Jaejoong had had Kim Junsu written in it only days ago. None of the squares had ever been occupied with red before.
Kim Jaejoong looked wary, confused, and for a second something along the lines of understanding slipped through frozen caution. “No,” he said carefully.
Junsu whispered with just as much care, if not more, because it was too much force, too much air, too much perfection that caused this loss, “Why not?”
Awkward, uncertain, and a myriad of other emotions flickered, contained by caution and a face arranged too coldly. “Are you okay?” Kim Jaejoong asked instead. “How long do you have to rest?”
Junsu felt a laugh bubbling in his throat, a laugh that threatened to destroy tissue and muscle and take away a voice already stripped of everything that mattered. “I’ll never be able to sing again.”
Saying it aloud made it real.
“I’ll”-he chokes a little, but he pushes his voice to carry, lessons long ago about using the diaphragm forcing more air, more force, more destruction through his throat. “I’ll never be able to sing again.”
He felt grief pushing through his throat again.
This time, hands pressed to hands kept grief in where shock had been before.
*
Kim Jaejoong is Jaejoong-hyung; polite, understanding, but not sympathetic. He listened to a too-quiet voice, worn away by granules of struggle, until the voice slipped away and left Junsu void. Empty. Lost.
Jaejoong-hyung didn’t say anything, even though the clock hands in Largo continued moving until time entered a box with Kim Jaejoong scrawled in red and then left. He listened carefully as Junsu railed at him in a voice destroyed; he listened as Junsu hissed, “Why?”
Jaejoong-hyung is very patient, and also very cruel.
He said, in a voice cold and eyes full of hurt, “Because you failed.”
Without grief contained in careful shock, rage slipped out easily. Junsu struggled to maintain his composure, but loss and loss and loss twists around until he’s snarling in a voice no louder than a whisper, “I didn’t fail.”
Jaejoong-hyung’s face was frozen. “You failed. You’re sitting here, screaming at me. You’re sitting here, regretting and hating and regretting and hating, and you know you failed because if you didn’t fail, then you wouldn’t be here.”
“I didn’t ask to lose my voice!”
But Jaejoong-hyung’s voice covered Junsu’s whisper, syllables blurring together as Jaejoong-hyung’s voice crescendoed. “You’ve given up. You think that this will make it hurt less, if you accept it, but it doesn’t. You think that if you give up, then you’ll move on, that everything will work out.
“You think that if you give up, there will be no regrets. You think that you’ll be happy, knowing that you’ve made the right choice, to give up. But then you’ll realize that you miss everything that you had before, but you’ll say: ‘I made the right choice’ even though it’ll hurt so much. You’ll say: ‘this was the right thing to do’ even though you’ll wonder if it was or wasn’t.”
Jaejoong-hyung waited for a response. Junsu whispered, “How do you know?”
There was no response beyond the shifting of a bench scraping along the ground and footsteps in Moderato tapping on the ground.
“I envy you,” Jaejoong-hyung murmured softly.
*
“I’m not going to give up,” he rasped out to the doctor checking on his throat, to the vocal coach who switched out Kim Junsu in blue to Kim Jaejoong in red. He started to piece together his voice, remembering the sensation of perfection and the journey to get there. He struggled, determined to sing, even if he’d have to spend three years to find a voice half-broken instead of whole; it’d be three years fighting instead of three years regretting.
He remembered asking, in the cafeteria with time slipping away in Presto, incredulously, “Why?”
And he remembered the reply, “Because you can fight.”
End.
End-notes: I've been re-reading The God of Small Things and so I wanted to try to write something in a moderately similar style. Was fun, despite the fact that it's hard to write motifs in a ~1,000 K space (so I didn't bother). Additionally, any tense switches? If you think you find any that's not done stylistically then slap me. Slap me if I failed at metaphors as well.
Additionally, this is not the first time I've written... this. I wrote an original three-shot and Failure is exceedingly similar in the style and events to said three-shot. Understandably, this is probably better, since I feel like I've improved. Sadly, said three-shot probably has more motifs and symbols.
Also, I probably should have dug out my old bio notes. I will dig them out and make sure I didn't write anything anatomically correct, but since they're in some corner of my room lying under my chem notes if anybody can just tell me if I've gone completely wrong, that'd be helpful. I'm fairly sure everything is correct. Wikipedia wasn't much help.
I know my musical notation is correct.
Also, this is my attempt at finding Junsu's voice. If anybody wants to poke over characterization, please do so; characterization eludes me even on the best of days.
Long end-notes are long. Summary? Concrit please.
Author: virdant
Length: 1,344 words; one-shot
Rating: PG for... one profane word
Genre: Angst / Trainee-fic AU
Pairing: None unless you have amazing pairing-hint-detecting skills... then it's JaeSu
Summary: It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as dramas made it seem. There was no gasping, no wheezing, no clutching of the throat. Just the clinical tones of a doctor saying: “You’ll never be able to sing again.”
Warning: 1 profane word.
Notes: Some experimentation with narrative style (and flowery language, slap me if I overdid it). Concrit on said style please. For more details, see end-notes.
Failure
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
-Lord Tennyson Alfred
This is loss, Junsu realized.
It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as dramas made it seem. There was no gasping, no wheezing, no clutching of the throat. Just the clinical tones of a doctor saying, “You’ll never be able to sing again.”
The doctor said other words: “I’m sorry,” and “truly regret,” and “your loss.”
Your loss.
This is loss, Junsu realized.
As he staggered out of the office, shock and horrific realization pounding in his temples, he wondered what was left for him now. No voice. He saw for the briefest second, leaning against a wall, eyes sharp behind oval frames, sympathy and acceptance and concern behind a mask of shards. But then the other trainee looked away and he looked away and Junsu staggered away from this broken girl, because this was loss.
He wasn’t certain what led him to wander down the hallway-masochistic urges, perhaps. Junsu’s legs had a mind of their own, and they brought him deep into practice rooms, where vocal coaches created perfection.
You’ll never be able to sing again, Junsu told himself. Grief swelled until he choked on it, until it buried itself under eyelids, contained by the fragile exterior of shock.
He saw Kim Jaejoong, too thin and too pretty with a too perfect voice to match, down the hallway, and he almost dipped his head down and stalked away. Kim Jaejoong’s face was freezingly blank; Junsu thought that he preferred this to the sympathetic looks in everybody else’s eyes. But then their eyes met, for the briefest of seconds, and Kim Jaejoong nodded, looking almost human, and Junsu found himself nodding back, a greeting prepared in a throat that would never sing again, because that was the polite thing to do. That was the right thing to do. Never mind that he would never be able to sing again.
There was sympathy in Kim Jaejoong’s eyes; that was enough for Junsu to want to rail, to demand Kim Jaejoong to take his damn sympathy and fuck himself. Wasn’t Kim Jaejoong happy now, now that one more competitor was out of the picture? The words stayed in though, grief covering anger.
They passed each other without a word.
There was a whiteboard hanging on the wall; it listed the names of every vocal coach along a grid of times. Names were marker-ed in dull greens, blues and grays. Kim Jaejoong flashed bright red in three different people’s slots. Junsu’s name was nowhere to be seen.
Shock kept grief in.
*
There are no words, Junsu thought, to describe singing. To describe a body moving perfectly, cohesively, perfectly as one. For one purpose. Creation.
There are also no words, Junsu thought, to describe loss.
In the course of a day, he had wailed silent cries in a shower that had formerly contained melodies. Salt and recycled water mixed together, until he wasn’t certain where one began and one ended. His mind was focused on one thought alone: you’ll never be able to sing again.
He whispered responses to worried inquires through the phone, thinking of the words: you’ll never be able to sing again. He couldn't feel-lungs, diaphragm, throat, mouth, tongue-moving perfectly, cohesively, perfectly. Everything was disjointed. Lungs expanding and a rib-cage motionless. Diaphragm pushing and lungs expanding. Throat spasming and mouth shut. Tongue flickering without air to shape. A symphony without a conductor, shattered; broken glass and the coppery taste of loss.
*
His legs have a mind of their own; they took Junsu into a cafeteria where Kim Jaejoong sat wolfing down the cheapest meal offered in Prestissimo. Kim Jaejoong looked surprised to see him, surprised to see Junsu’s legs collapse and Junsu’s arms flash out to brace Junsu’s head from meeting the table. Too much trauma to take away a non-existent voice.
Junsu rasped, “Are you happy I’m gone?”
He had seen the whiteboard today, with Kim Jaejoong written in four different handwritings and two different colors: red and bright blue. At least one of the squares with Kim Jaejoong had had Kim Junsu written in it only days ago. None of the squares had ever been occupied with red before.
Kim Jaejoong looked wary, confused, and for a second something along the lines of understanding slipped through frozen caution. “No,” he said carefully.
Junsu whispered with just as much care, if not more, because it was too much force, too much air, too much perfection that caused this loss, “Why not?”
Awkward, uncertain, and a myriad of other emotions flickered, contained by caution and a face arranged too coldly. “Are you okay?” Kim Jaejoong asked instead. “How long do you have to rest?”
Junsu felt a laugh bubbling in his throat, a laugh that threatened to destroy tissue and muscle and take away a voice already stripped of everything that mattered. “I’ll never be able to sing again.”
Saying it aloud made it real.
“I’ll”-he chokes a little, but he pushes his voice to carry, lessons long ago about using the diaphragm forcing more air, more force, more destruction through his throat. “I’ll never be able to sing again.”
He felt grief pushing through his throat again.
This time, hands pressed to hands kept grief in where shock had been before.
*
Kim Jaejoong is Jaejoong-hyung; polite, understanding, but not sympathetic. He listened to a too-quiet voice, worn away by granules of struggle, until the voice slipped away and left Junsu void. Empty. Lost.
Jaejoong-hyung didn’t say anything, even though the clock hands in Largo continued moving until time entered a box with Kim Jaejoong scrawled in red and then left. He listened carefully as Junsu railed at him in a voice destroyed; he listened as Junsu hissed, “Why?”
Jaejoong-hyung is very patient, and also very cruel.
He said, in a voice cold and eyes full of hurt, “Because you failed.”
Without grief contained in careful shock, rage slipped out easily. Junsu struggled to maintain his composure, but loss and loss and loss twists around until he’s snarling in a voice no louder than a whisper, “I didn’t fail.”
Jaejoong-hyung’s face was frozen. “You failed. You’re sitting here, screaming at me. You’re sitting here, regretting and hating and regretting and hating, and you know you failed because if you didn’t fail, then you wouldn’t be here.”
“I didn’t ask to lose my voice!”
But Jaejoong-hyung’s voice covered Junsu’s whisper, syllables blurring together as Jaejoong-hyung’s voice crescendoed. “You’ve given up. You think that this will make it hurt less, if you accept it, but it doesn’t. You think that if you give up, then you’ll move on, that everything will work out.
“You think that if you give up, there will be no regrets. You think that you’ll be happy, knowing that you’ve made the right choice, to give up. But then you’ll realize that you miss everything that you had before, but you’ll say: ‘I made the right choice’ even though it’ll hurt so much. You’ll say: ‘this was the right thing to do’ even though you’ll wonder if it was or wasn’t.”
Jaejoong-hyung waited for a response. Junsu whispered, “How do you know?”
There was no response beyond the shifting of a bench scraping along the ground and footsteps in Moderato tapping on the ground.
“I envy you,” Jaejoong-hyung murmured softly.
*
“I’m not going to give up,” he rasped out to the doctor checking on his throat, to the vocal coach who switched out Kim Junsu in blue to Kim Jaejoong in red. He started to piece together his voice, remembering the sensation of perfection and the journey to get there. He struggled, determined to sing, even if he’d have to spend three years to find a voice half-broken instead of whole; it’d be three years fighting instead of three years regretting.
He remembered asking, in the cafeteria with time slipping away in Presto, incredulously, “Why?”
And he remembered the reply, “Because you can fight.”
End.
End-notes: I've been re-reading The God of Small Things and so I wanted to try to write something in a moderately similar style. Was fun, despite the fact that it's hard to write motifs in a ~1,000 K space (so I didn't bother). Additionally, any tense switches? If you think you find any that's not done stylistically then slap me. Slap me if I failed at metaphors as well.
Additionally, this is not the first time I've written... this. I wrote an original three-shot and Failure is exceedingly similar in the style and events to said three-shot. Understandably, this is probably better, since I feel like I've improved. Sadly, said three-shot probably has more motifs and symbols.
Also, I probably should have dug out my old bio notes. I will dig them out and make sure I didn't write anything anatomically correct, but since they're in some corner of my room lying under my chem notes if anybody can just tell me if I've gone completely wrong, that'd be helpful. I'm fairly sure everything is correct. Wikipedia wasn't much help.
I know my musical notation is correct.
Also, this is my attempt at finding Junsu's voice. If anybody wants to poke over characterization, please do so; characterization eludes me even on the best of days.
Long end-notes are long. Summary? Concrit please.