Entry #9
Title: never (again)
Pairings/Characters: Yewook, kyuwook
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, AU
Rating: R
Summary: A tragedy, in 6000 words; or: Ryeowook's descent into madness.
Notes: Inspired heavily by this doujin, and by the Hyuuga family dynamics in Naruto
never (again)
This is not a story with a happy ending, nor does it have much of a happy beginning. There is no closure, no reconciliation, perhaps not even an ounce of genuine humanity that can be salvaged from this. All this has is a beginning, an ending, and all the spaces in between point A to B, as if structured to fit some higher power's design, or a greater purpose; perhaps we can find more potential or hope than what really exists.
And what truths can be found here, other than that all of these characters loved without knowing how, or without understanding that tragedies all end the same way? After all, what would have prevented this, when all we know is how to love? Could we find fault in that?
So let this play out, with a shaky premonition of things to come.
our whole lives ahead of us, contained in this small space
Kim Ryeowook is born as the only son of the branch family, and it is this fact that curses him for his entire life.
He spends his childhood with this ingrained into his mind; he seems to accept this with little stubbornness, being a naturally reticent child, and he learns, quickly, what it means to be a servant as a preparation for the future. He is drilled on how to make tea, how to answer questions, how to walk with his head bowed low and his eyes forever trained to the ground, his feet making barely discernible noises on the ground. He stops playing with the other children and amuses himself by singing to himself, wringing his hands and closing his mouth when he hears footsteps near his hiding place, because sacrifices must be made if he does not want to be punished.
It’s all very stifling, at first, but eventually he manages to mistake this for normalcy and accepts this discomfort with the ignorance that habituation brings.
Ryeowook is not born to believe in choices; it is not inherent in any of them, but he understands, to some degree, that he must make them in the future. As such, he is a little surprised when, on his seventh birthday, a servant from the main house comes to speak to his parents in private, and he sits, nervously, behind his mother as the older man says words such as “unavoidable necessity” or “fortuitous position of duty”, words that Ryeowook can barely follow, and when he looks at Ryeowook appraisingly, he punctuates his next words very carefully:
“It will require the minimal amount of work, of course. He is to be a - shall we say, close companion of the young master. I assure you that it will be to his advantage, in the end.”
He knows better than to erupt in tears and look back at his parents as he is led away to the car. They will never turn to watch him leave anyway.
He is introduced to Jongwoon who is three years older than he is, and to Kyuhyun, Jongwoon’s younger brother, with little fanfare as to be expected. Ryeowook greets them perfunctorily as he has been taught to, keeping his head bowed low, his eyes avoiding the gleam of Jongwoon’s leather shoes. Jongwoon makes a show of circling him, as if inspecting him, and Ryeowook feels his palms begin to sweat as the silence grows more oppressive by the minute.
“Can you sing?” Jongwoon finally pipes up, eyeing him a little suspiciously, and Ryeowook, baffled, has to be nudged by the butler before he sings a slow and sad love song his grandmother taught him, once, with a clear, lilting voice, shame coloring his cheeks even as Jongwoon nods.
“He’ll do,” he tells the butler, waving him away, and Ryeowook doesn’t think that he can get used to this so soon. Kyuhyun peeks at him from behind his brother’s back, looking a little enthralled, and waves at Ryeowook with small, hesitant fingers, and Jongwoon frowns but does not say anything about it.
Jongwoon takes to him with the expected air of a satisfied master, and Kyuhyun with the complete adoration of a little boy. Ryeowook knows rather than feels that Jongwoon’s seemingly unstoppable chatter is somehow inappropriate for a proper superior-inferior dynamic, but he says nothing to discourage him, merely opting to clasp Kyuhyun’s smaller hand in his and patiently answering Jongwoon’s inquiries about himself. His room is adjacent to Jongwoon’s, but Jongwoon insists on keeping him in his room, saying things like “we’ll be best friends” that Ryeowook can only nod at with some confusion and apprehension. He feels irate at this, at first, but eventually recognizes and appreciates the small freedom Jongwoon gives him, the self-deception of the existence of equality and intimacy. It’s a little thoughtful and different from what Ryeowook is used to, so he can respond in the only way he knows how: blind loyalty, and, perhaps, some love.
Ryeowook knows few things about the main house, and Jongwoon tells him in hushed whispers when they’re supposed to be asleep that there is a gift that runs in the family, something so secret and wonderful that it is enough reason to separate the main family with the rest.
“I don’t know why,” says Jongwoon, his eyes crinkling with glee, “but I can take away memories and turn them into pretty butterflies.”
“Oh,” Ryeowook gasps, not quite understanding the connection, “what about Kyuhyun?”
Jongwoon makes a face, the kind that comes with the difficulties of having an overbearing puppy for a younger sibling, and hides his displeasure by picking at a stray thread on Ryeowook’s shirt. “I don’t think he can do it too,” he says in a measured tone, and Ryeowook nods and lets Jongwoon snuggle closer to his body, wondering if, maybe, Kyuhyun will face the same situation he is in, his life mapped out and determined by an insignificant thing in Ryeowook’s small world.
It does not seem so precious to him, but he does not have the heart to tell Jongwoon that.
let me place you on a pedestal; let me keep you in my heart
In spite of Jongwoon's (fruitless) attempts at friendship, Ryeowook still feels the gap between himself and Jongwoon all too keenly, and he knows that this should hurt more than it does, but being with Jongwoon makes his brain sluggish and muddled, unable to rationalize clearly with his rather linear mindset, or to disassociate the feeling of contentment he derives from watching Jongwoon's ink-stained hands, or wiping the sheen of sweat on Jongwoon's brow.
While Jongwoon sits in his study, twirling with his pen haphazardly as his tutor instructs him on algebra or what-have-you, Ryeowook can only stay in the other room with Kyuhyun dozing in his lap, fingers threading through curly waves of hair as he thinks of Jongwoon’s straighter, tamer locks, wondering if Jongwoon’s thoughts are filled of him, too. How else is he to know that Jongwoon thinks the world of him, in this same vein?
Jongwoon may be years older, but Jongwoon is still a child, still all too human. He commits mistakes with the clumsiness he is born with, seemingly miniscule ones (like falling asleep during a tutoring session, putting the wrong foot into the wrong shoe, surreptitiously littering the carpet with cake crumbs and used clothing), harmless and rectifiable, but it is Ryeowook who bears the brunt of the punishment and carries his injuries with the nobleness of a martyr in the end. He takes the raps on his wrists, the sharp sting from a leather belt to the back of his knees with admirable forbearance, reciting apologies in place of Jongwoon who has never learned (or felt the need to) say them to anyone. He presses his palms into his eyes and curls up into a ball in his room, feeling nauseous and yet satisfied that he can do more for Jongwoon in this manner; he pacifies himself with this simplistic knowledge, and if sacrifices must be made, then so be it.
He keeps silent about this arrangement, the unmarred stretch of Jongwoon’s skin enough compensation for his own pain (because Jongwoon has given him something far more precious; he has given him a purpose, a reason for his existence, and he thrives at knowing that it is Jongwoon who deserves nothing but the world at his feet). Any reward is unheard of for him; he finds enough to keep him going as long as Jongwoon finds some use or need for him.
He declines Jongwoon’s offers to swim with him, making excuses like promising to spend time with Kyuhyun, or feeling too tired to move more than necessary. The envious glint in Jongwoon’s eyes is lost to him, and he never knows that Jongwoon locks himself in his room, sometimes, to calm the burning frustration he feels when he is denied of anything; it is as selfless as Jongwoon can get, although, in retrospect, it is already an improvement. Ryeowook avoids making his secret known, but he is young and too inexperienced with the ways of burying his skeletons in his closet; when Jongwoon’s fingers tickle him into submission, he is still too short of breath and lightheaded to realize that Jongwoon goes completely still above him, his eyes widening and his mouth twisting into a surprised ‘o’ as Ryeowook’s shirt rides up his bare stomach. For an interminable moment, Ryeowook is genuinely terrified of the anger morphing in Jongwoon’s eyes, but it is the flicker of guilt and self-blame that urges Ryeowook to cover his wrists with a coverlet self-consciously, as if willing the bruises and scars to disappear.
Jongwoon finally bursts into tears, and Ryeowook automatically opens his arms to Jongwoon, pulling him down to lay beside him, crooning a cheerful ballad into Jongwoon’s ear as he strokes the older boy’s hair. It comes so easily to him, now. He does this until Jongwoon’s sobs subside into quiet hiccups, his cheeks sticky and glistening with sweat and tears, and Ryeowook kisses his cheeks as Jongwoon’s hold on his wrists tightens like a lifeline.
Jongwoon runs shaking, clammy hands all over Ryeowook’s back, whispering, “I’ll grow up, I’ll do better, I promise.”
Ryeowook doesn’t respond, and Jongwoon continues, his lower lip wobbling with disappointment, “Don’t leave me.”
It comes out, as all things from Jongwoon do, like a command rather than a supplication, and Ryeowook feels the urge to laugh, the idea so absurd to him that he wonders what could possess Jongwoon to follow this train of thought.
The inevitable capitulation goes without saying. Ryeowook has always known his loyalty is to Jongwoon. Perhaps Jongwoon still finds it difficult to accept that.
That, or he is simply unable to do so.
(We have in our hands the maddening fixation of one, and the hopeless lovesickness that grows in the other as the years add up, thrust to a boy whose life’s purpose is to serve and be selfless and to think himself as unimportant. Would there possibly be any outcome other than misunderstandings and an unwillingness to believe?
None, of course, but we can pretend.)
we knew what love was, once (first a kiss, then a fuck)
Fact: lovers come and go, but the permanent fixtures in the Kim residence are those who never leave of their own volition.
There is a new addition to Ryeowook’s role; coming of age has reduced the necessity for a playmate, and Jongwoon would rather have him as a lover than a friend, if his preferential treatment and increasing demands for physical affection are indications to go by. Jongwoon pulls him into spacious, empty wardrobes, sandwiches him in between thick fur coats and Jongwoon’s body, Jongwoon’s thumb digging into his hip as he pulls at the knot on Ryeowook’s bowtie with his teeth, the fluttering of Ryeowook’s fingers against his nape more out of fear than exhilaration.
What happens in this house stays in this house, Jongwoon tells him as he sighs into a kiss, and how else can Ryeowook explain how everyone turns a blind eye at the mistress’ new lover, the doe-eyed maid who trails after her even at night, or how this same person yields to the master at times? In some ways, Ryeowook and Jongwoon are exactly the same as them, and if anyone else disapproves of the continuous changing of Jongwoon’s sheets or the splatters of come on a discarded towel, they are wise enough to keep this to themselves.
Except, of course, Kyuhyun.
It is not that Jongwoon particularly cares about his brother’s opinion; it is Ryeowook who shares the subsequent discomfort and awkwardness that stems from the situation. Ryeowook takes to ducking his head when he and Kyuhyun meet in the hallways, steeling himself from the foreseeable scorn that he would receive, but he forgets to give Kyuhyun more credit than that, unaware that if there exists anyone other than Jongwoon who is ever so sensitive to Ryeowook, it is him.
It is, sadly, a truth he must live with for the rest of his life.
“You’re not supposed to be his lover,” Kyuhyun says, stone still as Ryeowook brushes past him. Ryeowook pauses, and turns to look at him. Kyuhyun meets his gaze, unflinching.
“You’re not his lover,” he repeats, “you’re family.”
Someone takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and Ryeowook barely realizes that it is him. He puts a hand on Kyuhyun’s arm, as if to ask permission to speak, and murmurs, “maybe this is how it should be.”
“Should?” Kyuhyun laughs, the sound sharp and laced with disbelief and uneasiness and why is this so hard for him to understand? The conversation trails off uncomfortably, and Ryeowook begins to feel perturbed at the slump in Kyuhyun’s shoulders, the growing crease in between his brows. Suddenly, he looks all too old and young at the same time, and Ryeowook opens his arms to him in an attempt to steal some of the somberness that Kyuhyun carries, but it comes out more as Kyuhyun being the one holding him, as if to offer him protection like a mother bird can give with its wings.
Caged birds. It is a very apt image to liken them to.
“I,” Kyuhyun gasps, looking as if he is about to weep, “I just don’t want you to get hurt. We’ve never been lucky with love, not with anyone.”
Ryeowook has to look up at him, now, to catch his gaze. He smiles, and it comes out a little wrong for both of them. “Wouldn’t this be a nice exception?”
“I hope so,” Kyuhyun accedes, and he realizes that there was nothing to forgive in the first place, not for both of them.
Ryeowook could attribute the realignment of his relationship with Jongwoon as experimentation in Jongwoon’s part (because he has never felt the need to evaluate what they are to each other), or a case of simple infatuation (although he knows, he knows that this is the biggest lie he can ever make to himself), but the truth is that everything seems to have led to this point, his eyelashes brushing against Jongwoon’s cheek as he serenely strokes Jongwoon’s arm, perhaps more like a mother than a lover. Ryeowook accepts this easily because, more than being in love and wanting to feel loved, he is fixated with constants and with finding ways to keep Jongwoon happy and sated with whatever affection Ryeowook imparts.
“You just have to trust me,” Jongwoon says, and Ryeowook nods, wanting to say, I do, I do, without making it sound like a prayer.
If Jongwoon weren’t Jongwoon, Ryeowook would never follow him to the ends of the world, would never let his body and heart be used in this fashion.
Never.
an accumulation of mistakes, until it. just. bursts.
Jongwoon has a new name now. It is Yesung, and Ryeowook is unsure of how to take this change.
Names have always been important to Ryeowook; he systematically associates names with identities, and if he imagines the drastic transformation in Jongwoon - no, in Yesung, then maybe he is a fool. (but the fool has always been right, in the end)
He expresses this thought to Kyuhyun as they go through score sheets; Kyuhyun is taller than he is now, more lanky and a little awkward but still rather fond of him all the same, although his wit has taken a turn for the worse, in his brother’s opinion, and Ryeowook finds himself convinced of this when he is on the receiving end of Kyuhyun’s skeptical stare.
“It’s just a name,” Kyuhyun says, his voice taking on an edge of exasperation and not little envy, “you’re making a big deal about this.”
Maybe he is. Then again, maybe the subtle changes in Jongwoon are things that he will never come to appreciate, and this act is already a first step of alienation.
Ryeowook lets his fingers come down on the piano keys with a disjointed, dissonant noise that makes Kyuhyun wince, and he keeps this image in his heart with the striking satisfaction that comes with finality.
prayers for the restless
Yesung pulls on his white shirt, lets the fabric stretch out across his arms as Ryeowook slowly does the buttons up his vest. He regards himself in the mirror, silently, as Ryeowook smoothens the wrinkles out of his jacket, the one he tossed aside an hour ago in his more urgent task of coaxing the other to bed. There is no inelegance in his stature, no way to tell what he is thinking of at the moment. Ryeowook finds it disturbing and grating, how he can no longer read Yesung’s thoughtful expression, or the glint in his eyes as he opens his doors to clients.
Ryeowook dislikes the new Jongwoon for his restrained manner, his detached speech, how he is so secretive and visible to Ryeowook only to renew the marks he leaves on Ryeowook’s skin, his neck, his thighs. Yet Yesung remains overly attentive, even more so now, and it leaves Ryeowook with complex feelings, how Yesung can be so doting and eager in spite of his nonchalance to everything and everyone else.
“I wish you wouldn’t brush Kyuhyun aside,” Ryeowook discloses to him, the sharp tug he makes with the tie belying the softness of his tone. Yesung barely spares him a glance, instantly growing aloof at the mention of his younger brother.
“He’s old enough to fend for himself. He doesn’t need my approval, or your mothering,” Yesung says with an expression of pure disgust in his eyes.
Ryeowook sighs into the lapels of Yesung’s jacket, unsurprised at the other’s insinuation. “He’s your brother, of course he does. Jongwoon -”
“Yesung.”
Ryeowook opens his mouth, tries to say something in response to that, but the only word he can muster at the moment is a bewildered, “what?”
“It’s Yesung,” his lover says off-handedly, his eyes hardening despite the gentle smile on his lips. “Don’t call me Jongwoon.”
Ryeowook stares at Yesung, who turns around and makes a clucking noise at the mirror even as the other pales in unvoiced anger as he is stunned into silence.
“I think it would look better without the shirt, wouldn’t it?”
this is the way we are
October, in the morning. Yet it does not appear to be so, because the room is enveloped by a swarm of blue butterflies, and the sight of it astonishes Ryeowook so much he has to shut his eyes for a second to block out the blinding intensity of its hue. Ryeowook gasps as a young woman (the mistress, his mind hisses) barrels into him on her way out of the door, the frills of her skirt swishing lightly, almost drunkenly, as he puts his hands on her arms to support her.
Excuse me, she whispers, bowing, and walks out of the room, almost as if in a trance.
“Was that-?” Ryeowook falters, his eyes still wide and disbelieving.
Yesung rests against the edge of the window, the smirk on his lips reflecting his contentment at a job well done. “She made a wish. I granted it.”
When Ryeowook does not make a move to respond, Yesung continues, reaching out to stroke at a butterfly on its way out of the window and into the morning light, “Her memories weighed her down and made rational thought impossible. I merely gave her an opportunity to walk away from it by turning these,” he leans in to press a worshipping kiss on a bright blue wing, “into butterflies.”
“Blue, for sorrow.” Yesung turns to look back at him, the mass of blueblueblue casting a shadow over him, a sick imitation of the night, “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“No,” whispers Ryeowook, the fluttering growing louder in volume, “no.”
He tosses his head back, and screams.
and then it -
“What have we done to you?” Kyuhyun asks him one night, and Ryeowook does not answer because Kyuhyun never expects one, especially in his weakened state. They keep the room dark, lit only by a few bedside candles because the light hurts Ryeowook’s eyes, and he needs all the comfort that he can get, or so Yesung says.
This family, Ryeowook thinks, is completely insane. All of them.
A nervous breakdown, they call it. Stress and sleeplessness from an unknown anxiety, but Ryeowook knows precisely what it is.
He alternates between lucidity and delirium, bedridden with the highest fever he has ever had, perpetually restless even in his sleep. He has dreams of man-eating butterflies passing, transparently, through Yesung’s hands, eating Jongwoon alive, grim nightmares that begin and end with Ryeowook’s screams and Kyuhyun’s tears. It is enough to keep him nervous and disturbed and forever wary of his - friend? Lover? Master seems more fitting now that he feels no emotional attachment to Yesung. None.
Some hours, he imagines he sees Yesung watching over him as he wills his illness away, but no, it is Kyuhyun, and he feels bursts of gratitude every time he sees the tenderness in the anguished face, feels the cold skin of his bony hand, heavy against Ryeowook’s clammy forehead.
Insane, Ryeowook’s mind screams, his mouth forming the words without his consciousness. I feel so-
“You’re not crazy,” Kyuhyun fervently mumbles as his lips ghost over Ryeowook’s brow, “you’re not, you’re not.”
Ryeowook wonders why he didn’t fall in love with Kyuhyun, when he had the chance. It would have saved him the heartbreak.
His fever goes away after a week, but he remains bedridden, pale and gaunt, because Yesung will not allow him to leave his room. Yesung’s mistake is thinking that Yesung will suffice for Ryeowook, rather than Jongwoon, but Ryeowook cannot be his friend or lover because those positions were for Jongwoon, and no one else. Yesung should come close, but it doesn’t work that way, not for Ryeowook.
“Sing for me,” Yesung murmurs at night, his voice husky and impossibly loud as he trails kisses down the arc of Ryeowook’s back, and Ryeowook does, like a trained bird.
Completely insane.
Yesung is a demon, Yesung is a monster, Yesung is an angel, Yesung is everything, everything, and still-
And Jongwoon. Jongwoon is nothing, so who is Ryeowook supposed to follow now? Jongwoon disappears with Yesung’s emergence, the key replaced by an intricate, iron cage, and Ryeowook wants to grieve for a corpseless name, the embodiment of his freedom, his love, his, all his.
His instability grows worse, and in between his apathy and his guardedness, he begins to view Yesung as a captor. He thinks of Yesung, of how he lets the butterflies rest on his outstretched palm, his smile all-knowing and distant, and imagines that his fingers will suddenly curl into themselves, crushing the insects in his hand, the blue of their wings blurring into the red of Ryeowook’s vision.
“Let me go,” Ryeowook moans, his hands blindly grasping at air, “let me find Jongwoon. Give him back to me!”
“Ryeowook-” Yesung croons, pushing Ryeowook’s upright form back down to rest stiffly on the pillows. His kindness rekindles a fire in Ryeowook’s heart, and it is not love.
“Jongwoon! Jongwoon!”
“I am Jongwoon.”
“You’re a liar,” whimpers Ryeowook, his voice cracking, “Liar!”
“You’re delusional,” Yesung says sadly, and Ryeowook can only tremble with the thousand aftershocks from his half-dazed epiphany.
It’s all too much to take.
the calm before the storm
Months after the week of his hysteria, Ryeowook allows Yesung to touch him like Jongwoon used to.
It is not that Ryeowook does not care for his own body anymore. It is simply that he has accepted the situation, although it does not lessen the abhorrence he feels for Yesung; this sightless, all-consuming rage fills him to the brim, and he obtains some sick satisfaction from it, fascinated and appalled all at once.
Yesung stands for the family, the bearer of the gift; Ryeowook remembers how choice was once a word he knew, until his comprehension and familiarity with it is snatched from his grasp, and he craves it with a single-minded fixation that trespasses the boundary between insanity and reason.
“If you love me,” Ryeowook cries into Yesung’s shoulder, “you would help me forget.”
“Never,” says Yesung, his voice like cold steel and acid, and Ryeowook comes into his hand with a distressed sob, throat parched and eyes watery even as his thoughts roll in his mind like waves with impunity.
Ryeowook does not fully know why Jongwoon is so important; all that matters is that he loves this memory (clumsy hands, toothy grins, the warmest gaze in the world) blindly, unequivocally.
sympathy is a two(one)-way street
Kyuhyun, on the other hand, seems to have had enough of this madness.
“This isn't love," Kyuhyun trails after him like the devoted child he has always been, his voice strained with desperation even as his grip on Ryeowook's sleeve loosens. His eyes, Ryeowook thinks, look more lost than ever. "Please, you have to leave, I don't know what to do to keep you alive--"
Ryeowook turns to face Kyuhyun, one hand resting on the door to Yesung's room, the other perched, safely, over Kyuhyun's chest, near his heart. It beats, lightly, with the ache that Ryeowook knows he alone is responsible for, and yet he regrets nothing, not even this, his palm on Kyuhyun's body, his touch a reminder of the things Kyuhyun will never know and have; it is, irrevocably, an obsession that he has yet to find a cure for.
"Maybe you are right," he starts to say, and there is no trace of the shy, hesitant creature Kyuhyun keeps in his mind, under lock and key, "but maybe you aren't, either."
Kyuhyun stares at the shadow of Ryeowook's body, watches it disappear into the dim lighting of Yesung's room until his eyes begin to water. He imagines he can hear something break, and it is not his heart. More like: the cracks in the mask Ryeowook painstakingly constructs, only to have it crumble in the face of Yesung's guarded smiles.
He knows: he has lost him completely, from the start.
more than soul can hope or mind can hide
(- e.e. cummings)
At exactly four o’clock in the afternoon, Yesung sits on his armchair in his room and drinks tea or coffee with Ryeowook perched on a loveseat across him or hovering about, his twitching fingers a sharp contrast to Yesung’s more restrained movements as he shifts forward to pour more tea, laughably enough, for his own servant, making small talk in a soft, soothing voice; it reminds Ryeowook of the smooth material of Yesung’s bed sheets, stretched taut across the mattress and rumpled only in Ryeowook’s presence.
In front of Ryeowook, Yesung is all smiles and gentle laughter, and Ryeowook notes with some trepidation that the older man is very aware of the thin packet of a questionable powder that Ryeowook tucks in the inner pocket of his jacket or inside his arm band, and mixes, in extremely small doses, into Yesung’s cup, every other day - not enough to kill, instantly, but it still serves as a reminder that, despite the quiet acceptance (no, toleration) that Ryeowook may permit him with every half-hearted kiss, there is nothing remotely consensual or romantic about the entire affair. Why Yesung chooses to ignore this threat to his life and persists on keeping this precarious position is beyond Ryeowook’s comprehension; he cannot, of course, understand the obsession that Yesung has for capturing his entire being simply because he has not felt that way himself, for anyone else.
(Perhaps, once - but it is such a long time ago, and he trusts his mind more than his gut now -)
Some days Yesung humors him by sipping a bare minimum of his coffee, just enough to wet his lips; other days, he leaves his cup untouched for the entire hour, choosing, instead, to steal Ryeowook’s (perpetually unsipped) tea, or to feed a (passive) Ryeowook biscuits or small fruits with his ungloved hands, pausing to playfully swipe the crumbs off Ryeowook’s mouth with his thumb, his knuckles, his lips, his teeth, all in that order, and the sight of Yesung thoughtfully gnawing on his lower lip, strawberry juice smeared on his cheek from when Ryeowook turns his head to avoid him, is enough to send Ryeowook into an irrational state of irritation, and he narrows his eyes and looks out of the window, staring into nothing, asking tersely, “why do you like touching me so much?”
Yesung smiles at him fondly, as he always does, and if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, well, he can always blame it on exhaustion. When he speaks, he sounds like it’s the only thing he can ever believe in at this moment, or at any other point in his life. “I love you. Is that so wrong?”
Some days Ryeowook will scoff and allow himself to be pulled into Yesung’s arms, leaving the matter entirely, or he will stare at Yesung, feeling his resolve crumble a little at that. From three to seven he has been taught nothing about the inner workings of the heart, in a family wherein personal affiliations is limited to sects and relations are nothing more than use-and-be-used, and love, the cursed, wretched thing, has never been anyone else’s tool to fall back on except Yesung’s. He was always, always a little different.
But no - it is his choice to make. His, and no one else’s. Let him believe he (at least) has that much freedom to allow for himself.
He smoothes down the lapels of his jacket, and he hears the crinkling of plastic, almost imperceptible amidst the pounding in his ears. Yesung reaches over to tap his chest, dangerously close to the proof of his disloyalty, and there is none of the contempt that Ryeowook imagines there to be. None at all.
The pounding grows louder.
He stays very still as Yesung traces invisible circles over the fabric of his clothes. Ryeowook hates how he can recall the warmth of Yesung’s palm, the softness of his dainty fingers even through layers and layers of cloth, and he hates how his throat suddenly locks up and his pants tighten as Yesung’s fingers drift lower, lower, lower -
“You can have me killed any time,” he murmurs later against Yesung’s shoulder, during the few minutes he can mercifully spare before he puts his clothes back on (pants, shirt, jacket, shoes, perhaps leaving his tie, or a handkerchief for - what, exactly?) and shuffles out of Yesung’s room even if he doesn’t really need to, even if Yesung doesn’t really want him to, “why do you still insist that I prepare coffee for you?”
Yesung sleepily turns to press a kiss against his forehead, his hand brushing up and down Ryeowook’s bare arm almost in reflex. “I would die in no man’s hands but yours,” he confesses, and if Ryeowook could bring himself to fall in love again, to afford himself the eventual heartache, he would have, probably, lost in the sea of Yesung’s touch, his mouth, his voice. Idly, he imagines that the butterflies Yesung plucks out are laughing at him with every flutter of their bright blue wings right now. The longer he spends under the wing of Yesung’s protection, the heavier his chains seem to become.
“You’re pathetic,” he whispers without a trace of viciousness, and Yesung hides his smile behind Ryeowook’s long, slender fingers because it’s true.
en famile
There are marks scattered all over Ryeowook’s wrists, horizontal failures that pale in comparison to the yellowing bruises Yesung leaves on his skin, not inflicted intentionally, but Ryeowook fancies them to be chains, nonetheless, heavy iron that Yesung fashions with his persistent mouth.
Ryeowook thinks of the razor in his bathroom, hidden neatly in between the folds of his towels, and Ryeowook can smell the faint trace of blood even as he tries to drown himself in the bathtub, lets the water spill out as he submerges his head, counts the seconds to his death even in the haze of his perception, until he remembers that his death would make no difference. He can make Yesung feel more pain if he is alive.
He will not be forgotten in this manner.
Kyuhyun, though. Kyuhyun will never forget him. Ryeowook is sure of that, as sure he is of the redness of his blood and the tiredness in his bones. Not this one, who waits with bated breath on his bed as he bathes, as if unsure of the guarantee that Ryeowook will emerge from the room alive. None of them expect that much of him, now, not after Kyuhyun went through his pockets and, stricken, threw away his secret wordlessly.
He doesn’t even trust himself.
“I’m leaving,” he announces to Yesung, one hand splayed over the other’s chest as Yesung leans in to sink his teeth into the exposed flesh of his shoulder, and the other, distracted, decides to indulge him.
“I see,” he answers simply, smiling, “will you take me with you?”
The amusement in Yesung’s face makes Ryeowook’s senses sharpen, heightens the antagonism that brews in his heart. If Yesung will not take this seriously - if Yesung will continue to believe that nothing has changed and that they are perfectly fine the way they are - then, Ryeowook will use his greatest weakness against him.
Himself.
He will not regret it. He has practiced this scene in his mind hundreds of times for him to stagger, his fingers nervously clawing at the tightness of his chest with each passing second that he awaits this moment, and he will not be dissuaded or dismissed so easily -
“No,” he answers, the word coming out heavy and final even as he smiles back, so widely his eyes close, “better Kyuhyun than you.”
The axe falls. Ryeowook keeps smiling. This is his singular moment of triumph, his raison d’être, and it is enough to watch the ever-present smile on Yesung’s face waver until it bends in itself and comes out entirely wrong. No regrets.
“Why?” Yesung asks, as if he cannot believe it, cannot fathom the idea, and Ryeowook grants him a slow, lingering kiss tied with the bitter poison of his hate before he deals the final blow.
“Because Yesung,” he replies, “means nothing to me.”
He drinks in Yesung’s shaky fingers, the agonized twist of his lips, the redness of his mouth as he bites down to stifle his shout, and brings his own hand up to align with the curve of Yesung’s cheek.
“Absolutely nothing,” whispers Ryeowook, laughing even as Yesung’s hand passes over his eyes in a rare fit of anger, and then everything just stops and turns into blessed darkness.
presentiment
It takes exactly sixty seconds before the butterflies appear. Combine this with the amount of time he needs to search for the corresponding colors that materialize in his mind, and the seconds he spends deliberating on which piece to pluck out, which has greater weight in the grand scheme of things, which to take for himself.
But Yesung will never be able to think clearly when it comes to Ryeowook. It is already something that goes without saying, and if it is his downfall or his success, we may never know. It is not his position to decide.
“Did you think of him, with this?” He murmurs, taking the pair of red and yellow wings in between delicate fingers, “Is his name carved within these, and is mine reserved for your unhappiness?”
He watches it squirm in his hands, and he lets it slip from his fingers, carelessly throwing the windows open, as if he cannot bear to have it remain in his sight. “I can’t ever let you leave me.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, running his hands through Ryeowook’s hair, calm, now, with the assurance that all is well and this boy is his, his alone. It’s the only thing he finds permanent in his life. “Ryeowook.”
Ryeowook makes a soft, whining noise at the back of his throat, and Yesung feels a surge of adoration as Ryeowook leans into his ministrations, his face a poignant picture of serenity that Yesung has not seen in months. Oh, Kyuhyun, he thinks, you don’t deserve this. You never do.
Ryeowook’s long eyelashes flutter open as Yesung’s hand moves to cup his cheek, and when he freezes, Yesung panics and wonders if he might have taken away too little, if it wasn’t enough - Who-”
“Ryeowook?” Yesung whispers, voice unsure.
“Who are you?” Ryeowook asks meekly, eyes still wondering, and it. Just. Clicks.
Yesung looks at this boy who once looked at him with adoration and hatred and impossible love, whose eyes stay glassy and unblinking and still so afraid of him as he tilts his head to the side, like a doll, and Yesung feels his heart break at the sight because, because-
(but that’s alright; he has a lifetime to reconstruct the most wonderful lover in the world, and he can make more memories than defile and destroy them.)
But you would have felt my soul in a kiss,
And known that once if I loved you well;
And I would have given my soul for this
To burn forever in burning hell.
-Algernon Charles Swinburne
end
Pairings/Characters: Yewook, kyuwook
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, AU
Rating: R
Summary: A tragedy, in 6000 words; or: Ryeowook's descent into madness.
Notes: Inspired heavily by this doujin, and by the Hyuuga family dynamics in Naruto
never (again)
This is not a story with a happy ending, nor does it have much of a happy beginning. There is no closure, no reconciliation, perhaps not even an ounce of genuine humanity that can be salvaged from this. All this has is a beginning, an ending, and all the spaces in between point A to B, as if structured to fit some higher power's design, or a greater purpose; perhaps we can find more potential or hope than what really exists.
And what truths can be found here, other than that all of these characters loved without knowing how, or without understanding that tragedies all end the same way? After all, what would have prevented this, when all we know is how to love? Could we find fault in that?
So let this play out, with a shaky premonition of things to come.
our whole lives ahead of us, contained in this small space
Kim Ryeowook is born as the only son of the branch family, and it is this fact that curses him for his entire life.
He spends his childhood with this ingrained into his mind; he seems to accept this with little stubbornness, being a naturally reticent child, and he learns, quickly, what it means to be a servant as a preparation for the future. He is drilled on how to make tea, how to answer questions, how to walk with his head bowed low and his eyes forever trained to the ground, his feet making barely discernible noises on the ground. He stops playing with the other children and amuses himself by singing to himself, wringing his hands and closing his mouth when he hears footsteps near his hiding place, because sacrifices must be made if he does not want to be punished.
It’s all very stifling, at first, but eventually he manages to mistake this for normalcy and accepts this discomfort with the ignorance that habituation brings.
Ryeowook is not born to believe in choices; it is not inherent in any of them, but he understands, to some degree, that he must make them in the future. As such, he is a little surprised when, on his seventh birthday, a servant from the main house comes to speak to his parents in private, and he sits, nervously, behind his mother as the older man says words such as “unavoidable necessity” or “fortuitous position of duty”, words that Ryeowook can barely follow, and when he looks at Ryeowook appraisingly, he punctuates his next words very carefully:
“It will require the minimal amount of work, of course. He is to be a - shall we say, close companion of the young master. I assure you that it will be to his advantage, in the end.”
He knows better than to erupt in tears and look back at his parents as he is led away to the car. They will never turn to watch him leave anyway.
He is introduced to Jongwoon who is three years older than he is, and to Kyuhyun, Jongwoon’s younger brother, with little fanfare as to be expected. Ryeowook greets them perfunctorily as he has been taught to, keeping his head bowed low, his eyes avoiding the gleam of Jongwoon’s leather shoes. Jongwoon makes a show of circling him, as if inspecting him, and Ryeowook feels his palms begin to sweat as the silence grows more oppressive by the minute.
“Can you sing?” Jongwoon finally pipes up, eyeing him a little suspiciously, and Ryeowook, baffled, has to be nudged by the butler before he sings a slow and sad love song his grandmother taught him, once, with a clear, lilting voice, shame coloring his cheeks even as Jongwoon nods.
“He’ll do,” he tells the butler, waving him away, and Ryeowook doesn’t think that he can get used to this so soon. Kyuhyun peeks at him from behind his brother’s back, looking a little enthralled, and waves at Ryeowook with small, hesitant fingers, and Jongwoon frowns but does not say anything about it.
Jongwoon takes to him with the expected air of a satisfied master, and Kyuhyun with the complete adoration of a little boy. Ryeowook knows rather than feels that Jongwoon’s seemingly unstoppable chatter is somehow inappropriate for a proper superior-inferior dynamic, but he says nothing to discourage him, merely opting to clasp Kyuhyun’s smaller hand in his and patiently answering Jongwoon’s inquiries about himself. His room is adjacent to Jongwoon’s, but Jongwoon insists on keeping him in his room, saying things like “we’ll be best friends” that Ryeowook can only nod at with some confusion and apprehension. He feels irate at this, at first, but eventually recognizes and appreciates the small freedom Jongwoon gives him, the self-deception of the existence of equality and intimacy. It’s a little thoughtful and different from what Ryeowook is used to, so he can respond in the only way he knows how: blind loyalty, and, perhaps, some love.
Ryeowook knows few things about the main house, and Jongwoon tells him in hushed whispers when they’re supposed to be asleep that there is a gift that runs in the family, something so secret and wonderful that it is enough reason to separate the main family with the rest.
“I don’t know why,” says Jongwoon, his eyes crinkling with glee, “but I can take away memories and turn them into pretty butterflies.”
“Oh,” Ryeowook gasps, not quite understanding the connection, “what about Kyuhyun?”
Jongwoon makes a face, the kind that comes with the difficulties of having an overbearing puppy for a younger sibling, and hides his displeasure by picking at a stray thread on Ryeowook’s shirt. “I don’t think he can do it too,” he says in a measured tone, and Ryeowook nods and lets Jongwoon snuggle closer to his body, wondering if, maybe, Kyuhyun will face the same situation he is in, his life mapped out and determined by an insignificant thing in Ryeowook’s small world.
It does not seem so precious to him, but he does not have the heart to tell Jongwoon that.
let me place you on a pedestal; let me keep you in my heart
In spite of Jongwoon's (fruitless) attempts at friendship, Ryeowook still feels the gap between himself and Jongwoon all too keenly, and he knows that this should hurt more than it does, but being with Jongwoon makes his brain sluggish and muddled, unable to rationalize clearly with his rather linear mindset, or to disassociate the feeling of contentment he derives from watching Jongwoon's ink-stained hands, or wiping the sheen of sweat on Jongwoon's brow.
While Jongwoon sits in his study, twirling with his pen haphazardly as his tutor instructs him on algebra or what-have-you, Ryeowook can only stay in the other room with Kyuhyun dozing in his lap, fingers threading through curly waves of hair as he thinks of Jongwoon’s straighter, tamer locks, wondering if Jongwoon’s thoughts are filled of him, too. How else is he to know that Jongwoon thinks the world of him, in this same vein?
Jongwoon may be years older, but Jongwoon is still a child, still all too human. He commits mistakes with the clumsiness he is born with, seemingly miniscule ones (like falling asleep during a tutoring session, putting the wrong foot into the wrong shoe, surreptitiously littering the carpet with cake crumbs and used clothing), harmless and rectifiable, but it is Ryeowook who bears the brunt of the punishment and carries his injuries with the nobleness of a martyr in the end. He takes the raps on his wrists, the sharp sting from a leather belt to the back of his knees with admirable forbearance, reciting apologies in place of Jongwoon who has never learned (or felt the need to) say them to anyone. He presses his palms into his eyes and curls up into a ball in his room, feeling nauseous and yet satisfied that he can do more for Jongwoon in this manner; he pacifies himself with this simplistic knowledge, and if sacrifices must be made, then so be it.
He keeps silent about this arrangement, the unmarred stretch of Jongwoon’s skin enough compensation for his own pain (because Jongwoon has given him something far more precious; he has given him a purpose, a reason for his existence, and he thrives at knowing that it is Jongwoon who deserves nothing but the world at his feet). Any reward is unheard of for him; he finds enough to keep him going as long as Jongwoon finds some use or need for him.
He declines Jongwoon’s offers to swim with him, making excuses like promising to spend time with Kyuhyun, or feeling too tired to move more than necessary. The envious glint in Jongwoon’s eyes is lost to him, and he never knows that Jongwoon locks himself in his room, sometimes, to calm the burning frustration he feels when he is denied of anything; it is as selfless as Jongwoon can get, although, in retrospect, it is already an improvement. Ryeowook avoids making his secret known, but he is young and too inexperienced with the ways of burying his skeletons in his closet; when Jongwoon’s fingers tickle him into submission, he is still too short of breath and lightheaded to realize that Jongwoon goes completely still above him, his eyes widening and his mouth twisting into a surprised ‘o’ as Ryeowook’s shirt rides up his bare stomach. For an interminable moment, Ryeowook is genuinely terrified of the anger morphing in Jongwoon’s eyes, but it is the flicker of guilt and self-blame that urges Ryeowook to cover his wrists with a coverlet self-consciously, as if willing the bruises and scars to disappear.
Jongwoon finally bursts into tears, and Ryeowook automatically opens his arms to Jongwoon, pulling him down to lay beside him, crooning a cheerful ballad into Jongwoon’s ear as he strokes the older boy’s hair. It comes so easily to him, now. He does this until Jongwoon’s sobs subside into quiet hiccups, his cheeks sticky and glistening with sweat and tears, and Ryeowook kisses his cheeks as Jongwoon’s hold on his wrists tightens like a lifeline.
Jongwoon runs shaking, clammy hands all over Ryeowook’s back, whispering, “I’ll grow up, I’ll do better, I promise.”
Ryeowook doesn’t respond, and Jongwoon continues, his lower lip wobbling with disappointment, “Don’t leave me.”
It comes out, as all things from Jongwoon do, like a command rather than a supplication, and Ryeowook feels the urge to laugh, the idea so absurd to him that he wonders what could possess Jongwoon to follow this train of thought.
The inevitable capitulation goes without saying. Ryeowook has always known his loyalty is to Jongwoon. Perhaps Jongwoon still finds it difficult to accept that.
That, or he is simply unable to do so.
(We have in our hands the maddening fixation of one, and the hopeless lovesickness that grows in the other as the years add up, thrust to a boy whose life’s purpose is to serve and be selfless and to think himself as unimportant. Would there possibly be any outcome other than misunderstandings and an unwillingness to believe?
None, of course, but we can pretend.)
we knew what love was, once (first a kiss, then a fuck)
Fact: lovers come and go, but the permanent fixtures in the Kim residence are those who never leave of their own volition.
There is a new addition to Ryeowook’s role; coming of age has reduced the necessity for a playmate, and Jongwoon would rather have him as a lover than a friend, if his preferential treatment and increasing demands for physical affection are indications to go by. Jongwoon pulls him into spacious, empty wardrobes, sandwiches him in between thick fur coats and Jongwoon’s body, Jongwoon’s thumb digging into his hip as he pulls at the knot on Ryeowook’s bowtie with his teeth, the fluttering of Ryeowook’s fingers against his nape more out of fear than exhilaration.
What happens in this house stays in this house, Jongwoon tells him as he sighs into a kiss, and how else can Ryeowook explain how everyone turns a blind eye at the mistress’ new lover, the doe-eyed maid who trails after her even at night, or how this same person yields to the master at times? In some ways, Ryeowook and Jongwoon are exactly the same as them, and if anyone else disapproves of the continuous changing of Jongwoon’s sheets or the splatters of come on a discarded towel, they are wise enough to keep this to themselves.
Except, of course, Kyuhyun.
It is not that Jongwoon particularly cares about his brother’s opinion; it is Ryeowook who shares the subsequent discomfort and awkwardness that stems from the situation. Ryeowook takes to ducking his head when he and Kyuhyun meet in the hallways, steeling himself from the foreseeable scorn that he would receive, but he forgets to give Kyuhyun more credit than that, unaware that if there exists anyone other than Jongwoon who is ever so sensitive to Ryeowook, it is him.
It is, sadly, a truth he must live with for the rest of his life.
“You’re not supposed to be his lover,” Kyuhyun says, stone still as Ryeowook brushes past him. Ryeowook pauses, and turns to look at him. Kyuhyun meets his gaze, unflinching.
“You’re not his lover,” he repeats, “you’re family.”
Someone takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and Ryeowook barely realizes that it is him. He puts a hand on Kyuhyun’s arm, as if to ask permission to speak, and murmurs, “maybe this is how it should be.”
“Should?” Kyuhyun laughs, the sound sharp and laced with disbelief and uneasiness and why is this so hard for him to understand? The conversation trails off uncomfortably, and Ryeowook begins to feel perturbed at the slump in Kyuhyun’s shoulders, the growing crease in between his brows. Suddenly, he looks all too old and young at the same time, and Ryeowook opens his arms to him in an attempt to steal some of the somberness that Kyuhyun carries, but it comes out more as Kyuhyun being the one holding him, as if to offer him protection like a mother bird can give with its wings.
Caged birds. It is a very apt image to liken them to.
“I,” Kyuhyun gasps, looking as if he is about to weep, “I just don’t want you to get hurt. We’ve never been lucky with love, not with anyone.”
Ryeowook has to look up at him, now, to catch his gaze. He smiles, and it comes out a little wrong for both of them. “Wouldn’t this be a nice exception?”
“I hope so,” Kyuhyun accedes, and he realizes that there was nothing to forgive in the first place, not for both of them.
Ryeowook could attribute the realignment of his relationship with Jongwoon as experimentation in Jongwoon’s part (because he has never felt the need to evaluate what they are to each other), or a case of simple infatuation (although he knows, he knows that this is the biggest lie he can ever make to himself), but the truth is that everything seems to have led to this point, his eyelashes brushing against Jongwoon’s cheek as he serenely strokes Jongwoon’s arm, perhaps more like a mother than a lover. Ryeowook accepts this easily because, more than being in love and wanting to feel loved, he is fixated with constants and with finding ways to keep Jongwoon happy and sated with whatever affection Ryeowook imparts.
“You just have to trust me,” Jongwoon says, and Ryeowook nods, wanting to say, I do, I do, without making it sound like a prayer.
If Jongwoon weren’t Jongwoon, Ryeowook would never follow him to the ends of the world, would never let his body and heart be used in this fashion.
Never.
an accumulation of mistakes, until it. just. bursts.
Jongwoon has a new name now. It is Yesung, and Ryeowook is unsure of how to take this change.
Names have always been important to Ryeowook; he systematically associates names with identities, and if he imagines the drastic transformation in Jongwoon - no, in Yesung, then maybe he is a fool. (but the fool has always been right, in the end)
He expresses this thought to Kyuhyun as they go through score sheets; Kyuhyun is taller than he is now, more lanky and a little awkward but still rather fond of him all the same, although his wit has taken a turn for the worse, in his brother’s opinion, and Ryeowook finds himself convinced of this when he is on the receiving end of Kyuhyun’s skeptical stare.
“It’s just a name,” Kyuhyun says, his voice taking on an edge of exasperation and not little envy, “you’re making a big deal about this.”
Maybe he is. Then again, maybe the subtle changes in Jongwoon are things that he will never come to appreciate, and this act is already a first step of alienation.
Ryeowook lets his fingers come down on the piano keys with a disjointed, dissonant noise that makes Kyuhyun wince, and he keeps this image in his heart with the striking satisfaction that comes with finality.
prayers for the restless
Yesung pulls on his white shirt, lets the fabric stretch out across his arms as Ryeowook slowly does the buttons up his vest. He regards himself in the mirror, silently, as Ryeowook smoothens the wrinkles out of his jacket, the one he tossed aside an hour ago in his more urgent task of coaxing the other to bed. There is no inelegance in his stature, no way to tell what he is thinking of at the moment. Ryeowook finds it disturbing and grating, how he can no longer read Yesung’s thoughtful expression, or the glint in his eyes as he opens his doors to clients.
Ryeowook dislikes the new Jongwoon for his restrained manner, his detached speech, how he is so secretive and visible to Ryeowook only to renew the marks he leaves on Ryeowook’s skin, his neck, his thighs. Yet Yesung remains overly attentive, even more so now, and it leaves Ryeowook with complex feelings, how Yesung can be so doting and eager in spite of his nonchalance to everything and everyone else.
“I wish you wouldn’t brush Kyuhyun aside,” Ryeowook discloses to him, the sharp tug he makes with the tie belying the softness of his tone. Yesung barely spares him a glance, instantly growing aloof at the mention of his younger brother.
“He’s old enough to fend for himself. He doesn’t need my approval, or your mothering,” Yesung says with an expression of pure disgust in his eyes.
Ryeowook sighs into the lapels of Yesung’s jacket, unsurprised at the other’s insinuation. “He’s your brother, of course he does. Jongwoon -”
“Yesung.”
Ryeowook opens his mouth, tries to say something in response to that, but the only word he can muster at the moment is a bewildered, “what?”
“It’s Yesung,” his lover says off-handedly, his eyes hardening despite the gentle smile on his lips. “Don’t call me Jongwoon.”
Ryeowook stares at Yesung, who turns around and makes a clucking noise at the mirror even as the other pales in unvoiced anger as he is stunned into silence.
“I think it would look better without the shirt, wouldn’t it?”
this is the way we are
October, in the morning. Yet it does not appear to be so, because the room is enveloped by a swarm of blue butterflies, and the sight of it astonishes Ryeowook so much he has to shut his eyes for a second to block out the blinding intensity of its hue. Ryeowook gasps as a young woman (the mistress, his mind hisses) barrels into him on her way out of the door, the frills of her skirt swishing lightly, almost drunkenly, as he puts his hands on her arms to support her.
Excuse me, she whispers, bowing, and walks out of the room, almost as if in a trance.
“Was that-?” Ryeowook falters, his eyes still wide and disbelieving.
Yesung rests against the edge of the window, the smirk on his lips reflecting his contentment at a job well done. “She made a wish. I granted it.”
When Ryeowook does not make a move to respond, Yesung continues, reaching out to stroke at a butterfly on its way out of the window and into the morning light, “Her memories weighed her down and made rational thought impossible. I merely gave her an opportunity to walk away from it by turning these,” he leans in to press a worshipping kiss on a bright blue wing, “into butterflies.”
“Blue, for sorrow.” Yesung turns to look back at him, the mass of blueblueblue casting a shadow over him, a sick imitation of the night, “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“No,” whispers Ryeowook, the fluttering growing louder in volume, “no.”
He tosses his head back, and screams.
and then it -
“What have we done to you?” Kyuhyun asks him one night, and Ryeowook does not answer because Kyuhyun never expects one, especially in his weakened state. They keep the room dark, lit only by a few bedside candles because the light hurts Ryeowook’s eyes, and he needs all the comfort that he can get, or so Yesung says.
This family, Ryeowook thinks, is completely insane. All of them.
A nervous breakdown, they call it. Stress and sleeplessness from an unknown anxiety, but Ryeowook knows precisely what it is.
He alternates between lucidity and delirium, bedridden with the highest fever he has ever had, perpetually restless even in his sleep. He has dreams of man-eating butterflies passing, transparently, through Yesung’s hands, eating Jongwoon alive, grim nightmares that begin and end with Ryeowook’s screams and Kyuhyun’s tears. It is enough to keep him nervous and disturbed and forever wary of his - friend? Lover? Master seems more fitting now that he feels no emotional attachment to Yesung. None.
Some hours, he imagines he sees Yesung watching over him as he wills his illness away, but no, it is Kyuhyun, and he feels bursts of gratitude every time he sees the tenderness in the anguished face, feels the cold skin of his bony hand, heavy against Ryeowook’s clammy forehead.
Insane, Ryeowook’s mind screams, his mouth forming the words without his consciousness. I feel so-
“You’re not crazy,” Kyuhyun fervently mumbles as his lips ghost over Ryeowook’s brow, “you’re not, you’re not.”
Ryeowook wonders why he didn’t fall in love with Kyuhyun, when he had the chance. It would have saved him the heartbreak.
His fever goes away after a week, but he remains bedridden, pale and gaunt, because Yesung will not allow him to leave his room. Yesung’s mistake is thinking that Yesung will suffice for Ryeowook, rather than Jongwoon, but Ryeowook cannot be his friend or lover because those positions were for Jongwoon, and no one else. Yesung should come close, but it doesn’t work that way, not for Ryeowook.
“Sing for me,” Yesung murmurs at night, his voice husky and impossibly loud as he trails kisses down the arc of Ryeowook’s back, and Ryeowook does, like a trained bird.
Completely insane.
Yesung is a demon, Yesung is a monster, Yesung is an angel, Yesung is everything, everything, and still-
And Jongwoon. Jongwoon is nothing, so who is Ryeowook supposed to follow now? Jongwoon disappears with Yesung’s emergence, the key replaced by an intricate, iron cage, and Ryeowook wants to grieve for a corpseless name, the embodiment of his freedom, his love, his, all his.
His instability grows worse, and in between his apathy and his guardedness, he begins to view Yesung as a captor. He thinks of Yesung, of how he lets the butterflies rest on his outstretched palm, his smile all-knowing and distant, and imagines that his fingers will suddenly curl into themselves, crushing the insects in his hand, the blue of their wings blurring into the red of Ryeowook’s vision.
“Let me go,” Ryeowook moans, his hands blindly grasping at air, “let me find Jongwoon. Give him back to me!”
“Ryeowook-” Yesung croons, pushing Ryeowook’s upright form back down to rest stiffly on the pillows. His kindness rekindles a fire in Ryeowook’s heart, and it is not love.
“Jongwoon! Jongwoon!”
“I am Jongwoon.”
“You’re a liar,” whimpers Ryeowook, his voice cracking, “Liar!”
“You’re delusional,” Yesung says sadly, and Ryeowook can only tremble with the thousand aftershocks from his half-dazed epiphany.
It’s all too much to take.
the calm before the storm
Months after the week of his hysteria, Ryeowook allows Yesung to touch him like Jongwoon used to.
It is not that Ryeowook does not care for his own body anymore. It is simply that he has accepted the situation, although it does not lessen the abhorrence he feels for Yesung; this sightless, all-consuming rage fills him to the brim, and he obtains some sick satisfaction from it, fascinated and appalled all at once.
Yesung stands for the family, the bearer of the gift; Ryeowook remembers how choice was once a word he knew, until his comprehension and familiarity with it is snatched from his grasp, and he craves it with a single-minded fixation that trespasses the boundary between insanity and reason.
“If you love me,” Ryeowook cries into Yesung’s shoulder, “you would help me forget.”
“Never,” says Yesung, his voice like cold steel and acid, and Ryeowook comes into his hand with a distressed sob, throat parched and eyes watery even as his thoughts roll in his mind like waves with impunity.
Ryeowook does not fully know why Jongwoon is so important; all that matters is that he loves this memory (clumsy hands, toothy grins, the warmest gaze in the world) blindly, unequivocally.
sympathy is a two(one)-way street
Kyuhyun, on the other hand, seems to have had enough of this madness.
“This isn't love," Kyuhyun trails after him like the devoted child he has always been, his voice strained with desperation even as his grip on Ryeowook's sleeve loosens. His eyes, Ryeowook thinks, look more lost than ever. "Please, you have to leave, I don't know what to do to keep you alive--"
Ryeowook turns to face Kyuhyun, one hand resting on the door to Yesung's room, the other perched, safely, over Kyuhyun's chest, near his heart. It beats, lightly, with the ache that Ryeowook knows he alone is responsible for, and yet he regrets nothing, not even this, his palm on Kyuhyun's body, his touch a reminder of the things Kyuhyun will never know and have; it is, irrevocably, an obsession that he has yet to find a cure for.
"Maybe you are right," he starts to say, and there is no trace of the shy, hesitant creature Kyuhyun keeps in his mind, under lock and key, "but maybe you aren't, either."
Kyuhyun stares at the shadow of Ryeowook's body, watches it disappear into the dim lighting of Yesung's room until his eyes begin to water. He imagines he can hear something break, and it is not his heart. More like: the cracks in the mask Ryeowook painstakingly constructs, only to have it crumble in the face of Yesung's guarded smiles.
He knows: he has lost him completely, from the start.
more than soul can hope or mind can hide
(- e.e. cummings)
At exactly four o’clock in the afternoon, Yesung sits on his armchair in his room and drinks tea or coffee with Ryeowook perched on a loveseat across him or hovering about, his twitching fingers a sharp contrast to Yesung’s more restrained movements as he shifts forward to pour more tea, laughably enough, for his own servant, making small talk in a soft, soothing voice; it reminds Ryeowook of the smooth material of Yesung’s bed sheets, stretched taut across the mattress and rumpled only in Ryeowook’s presence.
In front of Ryeowook, Yesung is all smiles and gentle laughter, and Ryeowook notes with some trepidation that the older man is very aware of the thin packet of a questionable powder that Ryeowook tucks in the inner pocket of his jacket or inside his arm band, and mixes, in extremely small doses, into Yesung’s cup, every other day - not enough to kill, instantly, but it still serves as a reminder that, despite the quiet acceptance (no, toleration) that Ryeowook may permit him with every half-hearted kiss, there is nothing remotely consensual or romantic about the entire affair. Why Yesung chooses to ignore this threat to his life and persists on keeping this precarious position is beyond Ryeowook’s comprehension; he cannot, of course, understand the obsession that Yesung has for capturing his entire being simply because he has not felt that way himself, for anyone else.
(Perhaps, once - but it is such a long time ago, and he trusts his mind more than his gut now -)
Some days Yesung humors him by sipping a bare minimum of his coffee, just enough to wet his lips; other days, he leaves his cup untouched for the entire hour, choosing, instead, to steal Ryeowook’s (perpetually unsipped) tea, or to feed a (passive) Ryeowook biscuits or small fruits with his ungloved hands, pausing to playfully swipe the crumbs off Ryeowook’s mouth with his thumb, his knuckles, his lips, his teeth, all in that order, and the sight of Yesung thoughtfully gnawing on his lower lip, strawberry juice smeared on his cheek from when Ryeowook turns his head to avoid him, is enough to send Ryeowook into an irrational state of irritation, and he narrows his eyes and looks out of the window, staring into nothing, asking tersely, “why do you like touching me so much?”
Yesung smiles at him fondly, as he always does, and if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, well, he can always blame it on exhaustion. When he speaks, he sounds like it’s the only thing he can ever believe in at this moment, or at any other point in his life. “I love you. Is that so wrong?”
Some days Ryeowook will scoff and allow himself to be pulled into Yesung’s arms, leaving the matter entirely, or he will stare at Yesung, feeling his resolve crumble a little at that. From three to seven he has been taught nothing about the inner workings of the heart, in a family wherein personal affiliations is limited to sects and relations are nothing more than use-and-be-used, and love, the cursed, wretched thing, has never been anyone else’s tool to fall back on except Yesung’s. He was always, always a little different.
But no - it is his choice to make. His, and no one else’s. Let him believe he (at least) has that much freedom to allow for himself.
He smoothes down the lapels of his jacket, and he hears the crinkling of plastic, almost imperceptible amidst the pounding in his ears. Yesung reaches over to tap his chest, dangerously close to the proof of his disloyalty, and there is none of the contempt that Ryeowook imagines there to be. None at all.
The pounding grows louder.
He stays very still as Yesung traces invisible circles over the fabric of his clothes. Ryeowook hates how he can recall the warmth of Yesung’s palm, the softness of his dainty fingers even through layers and layers of cloth, and he hates how his throat suddenly locks up and his pants tighten as Yesung’s fingers drift lower, lower, lower -
“You can have me killed any time,” he murmurs later against Yesung’s shoulder, during the few minutes he can mercifully spare before he puts his clothes back on (pants, shirt, jacket, shoes, perhaps leaving his tie, or a handkerchief for - what, exactly?) and shuffles out of Yesung’s room even if he doesn’t really need to, even if Yesung doesn’t really want him to, “why do you still insist that I prepare coffee for you?”
Yesung sleepily turns to press a kiss against his forehead, his hand brushing up and down Ryeowook’s bare arm almost in reflex. “I would die in no man’s hands but yours,” he confesses, and if Ryeowook could bring himself to fall in love again, to afford himself the eventual heartache, he would have, probably, lost in the sea of Yesung’s touch, his mouth, his voice. Idly, he imagines that the butterflies Yesung plucks out are laughing at him with every flutter of their bright blue wings right now. The longer he spends under the wing of Yesung’s protection, the heavier his chains seem to become.
“You’re pathetic,” he whispers without a trace of viciousness, and Yesung hides his smile behind Ryeowook’s long, slender fingers because it’s true.
en famile
There are marks scattered all over Ryeowook’s wrists, horizontal failures that pale in comparison to the yellowing bruises Yesung leaves on his skin, not inflicted intentionally, but Ryeowook fancies them to be chains, nonetheless, heavy iron that Yesung fashions with his persistent mouth.
Ryeowook thinks of the razor in his bathroom, hidden neatly in between the folds of his towels, and Ryeowook can smell the faint trace of blood even as he tries to drown himself in the bathtub, lets the water spill out as he submerges his head, counts the seconds to his death even in the haze of his perception, until he remembers that his death would make no difference. He can make Yesung feel more pain if he is alive.
He will not be forgotten in this manner.
Kyuhyun, though. Kyuhyun will never forget him. Ryeowook is sure of that, as sure he is of the redness of his blood and the tiredness in his bones. Not this one, who waits with bated breath on his bed as he bathes, as if unsure of the guarantee that Ryeowook will emerge from the room alive. None of them expect that much of him, now, not after Kyuhyun went through his pockets and, stricken, threw away his secret wordlessly.
He doesn’t even trust himself.
“I’m leaving,” he announces to Yesung, one hand splayed over the other’s chest as Yesung leans in to sink his teeth into the exposed flesh of his shoulder, and the other, distracted, decides to indulge him.
“I see,” he answers simply, smiling, “will you take me with you?”
The amusement in Yesung’s face makes Ryeowook’s senses sharpen, heightens the antagonism that brews in his heart. If Yesung will not take this seriously - if Yesung will continue to believe that nothing has changed and that they are perfectly fine the way they are - then, Ryeowook will use his greatest weakness against him.
Himself.
He will not regret it. He has practiced this scene in his mind hundreds of times for him to stagger, his fingers nervously clawing at the tightness of his chest with each passing second that he awaits this moment, and he will not be dissuaded or dismissed so easily -
“No,” he answers, the word coming out heavy and final even as he smiles back, so widely his eyes close, “better Kyuhyun than you.”
The axe falls. Ryeowook keeps smiling. This is his singular moment of triumph, his raison d’être, and it is enough to watch the ever-present smile on Yesung’s face waver until it bends in itself and comes out entirely wrong. No regrets.
“Why?” Yesung asks, as if he cannot believe it, cannot fathom the idea, and Ryeowook grants him a slow, lingering kiss tied with the bitter poison of his hate before he deals the final blow.
“Because Yesung,” he replies, “means nothing to me.”
He drinks in Yesung’s shaky fingers, the agonized twist of his lips, the redness of his mouth as he bites down to stifle his shout, and brings his own hand up to align with the curve of Yesung’s cheek.
“Absolutely nothing,” whispers Ryeowook, laughing even as Yesung’s hand passes over his eyes in a rare fit of anger, and then everything just stops and turns into blessed darkness.
presentiment
It takes exactly sixty seconds before the butterflies appear. Combine this with the amount of time he needs to search for the corresponding colors that materialize in his mind, and the seconds he spends deliberating on which piece to pluck out, which has greater weight in the grand scheme of things, which to take for himself.
But Yesung will never be able to think clearly when it comes to Ryeowook. It is already something that goes without saying, and if it is his downfall or his success, we may never know. It is not his position to decide.
“Did you think of him, with this?” He murmurs, taking the pair of red and yellow wings in between delicate fingers, “Is his name carved within these, and is mine reserved for your unhappiness?”
He watches it squirm in his hands, and he lets it slip from his fingers, carelessly throwing the windows open, as if he cannot bear to have it remain in his sight. “I can’t ever let you leave me.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, running his hands through Ryeowook’s hair, calm, now, with the assurance that all is well and this boy is his, his alone. It’s the only thing he finds permanent in his life. “Ryeowook.”
Ryeowook makes a soft, whining noise at the back of his throat, and Yesung feels a surge of adoration as Ryeowook leans into his ministrations, his face a poignant picture of serenity that Yesung has not seen in months. Oh, Kyuhyun, he thinks, you don’t deserve this. You never do.
Ryeowook’s long eyelashes flutter open as Yesung’s hand moves to cup his cheek, and when he freezes, Yesung panics and wonders if he might have taken away too little, if it wasn’t enough - Who-”
“Ryeowook?” Yesung whispers, voice unsure.
“Who are you?” Ryeowook asks meekly, eyes still wondering, and it. Just. Clicks.
Yesung looks at this boy who once looked at him with adoration and hatred and impossible love, whose eyes stay glassy and unblinking and still so afraid of him as he tilts his head to the side, like a doll, and Yesung feels his heart break at the sight because, because-
(but that’s alright; he has a lifetime to reconstruct the most wonderful lover in the world, and he can make more memories than defile and destroy them.)
But you would have felt my soul in a kiss,
And known that once if I loved you well;
And I would have given my soul for this
To burn forever in burning hell.
-Algernon Charles Swinburne
end