S66: Plucking at Red Strings
Title: Plucking at Red Strings
For: S66
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2.7k
Summary: The last thing Minseok needs is to be indebted to his menace of a best friend. Unfortunately fate has other plans.
Warnings: Luhan
Minseok
Minseok wasn’t sure if this whole concert thing was entirely down his alley. He told himself to withhold judgement until he got to experience the actual concert, but what he’d seen so far just seemed like a giant pain in his ass. Over an hour ago his best friend had stormed into his apartment - using the spare key he refused to surrender - and dragged him out for some ‘BFF bonding time’. So instead of finalizing his current project for work and maybe ordering take-out, to park out on the couch for a good movie as initially planned, he was lining up in front of the shady looking club with Luhan, who was all but bouncing with excitement in his spot. He had no idea how Luhan could be so damn cheerful. They had been at this for an hour now, standing in line between a group of way too giggly girls and a guy that - unfortunately - reminded him of his great-uncle Daesung. Barring the bleach blonde hair and nose ring, of course.
His feet were starting to ache from all that standing around, he really needed to go to the bathroom and his mood was on the verge of tipping from ‘slightly annoyed’ to ‘pretty damned pissed off’. He liked when things happened the way they were supposed to happen, when everything was in its right place, and having his plans for the evening interrupted to wait for a concert he didn’t actually want to go to wasn’t his kind of fun. As Luhan knew very well.
“This better be one hell of a concert,” Minseok muttered under his breath, but of course Luhan heard him. The only times his best friend’s hearing failed him was when it was convenient for him. Luhan generally only heard what he wanted to hear.
He really didn’t know how they had become such good friends in the first place. But then Luhan hadn’t given him much of a choice. The slightly taller man could be damned pig-headed and determined when he wanted to be. And one look at Minseok had apparently been enough for Luhan to decide that they were destined to be best friends. Not that Minseok was complaining. Much. Luhan was a great friend and always had his back - when he wasn’t dragging him out of his apartment for a rock concert. Or calling him in the middle of the night because Manchester United had lost a match. Or setting him up on blind dates with the strangest people. Or…
Luhan’s voice yanked him out of his thoughts, before he had time to talk himself out of their friendship. “It will be! Believe me, the band is amazing. And you’ll thank me once you get a good look at their guitarist. He’s hot. But then all of them are.”
“That’s the jailbait you haven’t stopped yammering about for the last several weeks, right?”
Luhan gave him a judging look that only managed to deepen Minseok’s scowl. Luhan would just have to deal. Everyone knew Minseok was miserable company when he was grumpy.
“He’s not jailbait. He’s twenty-one, but you make it sound like I’m lusting after a high school kid.” Luhan didn’t look impressed. “And I don’t yammer.”
Choosing to ignore that last statement, Minseok simply turned away from his friend, just as - unbelievable, but true - the noise level around them picked up a notch and the line started moving.
If possible, the club looked even smaller from the inside and Minseok had no idea how all the people lining up in front were supposed to fit in here. Suddenly Luhan's insistence to arrive this early made a lot more sense. But that still didn't mean he was happy about how he had spent - wasted - the last seventy minutes of his life. Ignoring Luhan's very vocal protests of "But I wanted a spot right in front of the stage!", Minseok headed straight for the toilets and by the time he came back, his best friend was still standing where he had left him, arms crossed in front of his chest and petulant frown growing more pronounced by the second. Maybe it was small of him, but the fact that Luhan had lost quite a bit of that annoying cheerfulness definitely improved Minseok's own mood.
"Took you long enough," was all Luhan said, before he grabbed Minseok's arm, turned around and started pushing through the considerable crowd that had already gathered in front of the stage. There were curses, hissed complaints and one sharp elbow to Minseok's ribs, but for some reason they actually made it a lot farther than he had expected before they came across a real obstacle. The girl that whirled around with a growled "Fuck off" had a scarily determined look to her, the black 'Overdose' shirt and band's name tattooed on her forearm telling Minseok that this was going to end badly, but warning his best friend turned out to be entirely unnecessary. Luhan had already stopped moving, a brilliant smile on his face that had the girl’s face going slack with something that looked suspiciously like awe, before she wordlessly turned back around with a bemused frown. Minseok had seen the same thing happen way too many times to still be surprised by the whole spectacle.
A moment later they went back to… waiting. Music from the speakers boosted the noise level, as more and more people filed into the venue. Minseok just knew that Luhan wasn’t going to get him to another concert anytime soon. All they had done so far was stand around and wait. And as patient as Minseok considered himself to be, there were a lot more important things he could do with his time.
But before he was able to complain to Luhan and curse him - loudly this time - for dragging him here, the room practically exploded with screams and shouts. One look at the stage was enough to detect the reason for the sudden ruckus. One by one five men, which Minseok cleverly identified as the band, stepped out onto the stage and next to him Luhan started bouncing on his toes with excitement again.
“That’s him! That’s Sehun! The blond with the guitar!” Luhan half-screamed into his ear to be heard over the thunderous welcome of the people around them. “Isn't he hot?"
But Minseok didn't answer, wasn't sure if he'd be able to, gaze transfixed by the lean boy stepping out onto the stage. A mop of messy, almost silvery blond hair, long limbs, even longer body and a face so damn gorgeous, Minseok had trouble drawing in his next breath. The boy's eyes were downcast to his sleek, gunmetal gray guitar, but even from a distance Minseok could make out the shadows thrown by those unfairly long lashes. The next moment he bit down on one of those disconcertingly pink lips and Minseok actually felt his chest tighten. His heart beat was accelerating, his breathing going oddly flat to the uncomfortable roiling of his stomach and for a wild second he wondered if he had maybe eaten something bad for lunch. Then the rather petit-looking front singer stepped up to the mic stand to the sound of ear-splitting screams and applause and suddenly there was no more time to think.
“We’re Overdose and this is our new song Exodus!”
With a violently beautiful clash of instruments, the dark club was flooded with the sound of music and the energy level in the room surged with such vehemence, Minseok felt the tiny hairs on his arms rising in primal reaction. Within minutes he had to go back on his previously formed opinion. There might be an unholy amount of waiting and standing around involved, but this could actually be worth it. He didn’t know a lot about this kind of music, but one thing was crystal clear. They were good. They were really really good.
Unable to do anything but join in with the surging, screaming crowd, Minseok let himself move… and kept his eyes on the silver-haired boy with the grey guitar for the remainder of the set.
“Minseok?”
“Hey! Minseok! You alright?”
His best friend’s voice was nothing more than a quiet buzzing in the back of his mind.
It had happened seconds ago. With his eyes still firmly glued to Sehun up on the stage, Minseok had watched him raise a bottle of water to his mouth between songs, holding his breath as the guitarist let his appealingly sleepy-eyed gaze sweep over the audience and the next moment all the air in his body had left him on a sharp gasp.
Dark eyes meeting his.
The violent pounding of his heartbeat and rush of blood the only things he could hear.
A sheer endless second of brilliant realization.
And with a resounding snap Minseok lost his grip on reality, knowing that his life was never going to be the same again.
He felt it then. The sharp, almost painful tearing in his chest, but so much more importantly than that, the slight pressure on his right pinkie. He didn’t have to look down to find the reason for it - not that he could have actually torn his gaze away from the man onstage. He saw the thin, almost fragile looking red string spanning the distance between them, saw the loop around the last finger of Sehun’s hand on the bottle. It shone such a bright, impossible red in the murkily lit room, for a second it was all Minseok could see, before it disappeared with a last flicker as if it had never been there in the first place.
But Minseok knew.
Sehun
Sehun thought he might finally know what it felt like to be struck by thunder.
It was his only - and last - coherent thought as he met that gaze in the crowd. Before he knew what he was doing, he was moving forward, somehow making it off the stage to start pushing through the excited crowd to get to him. He paid no attention to the hands grabbing on to him, to the people trying to get his attention, the shrill calls of his name - he couldn’t. For a second he thought he heard Baekhyun calling his name from the stage, but not even that managed to get through. Sehun just kept on moving forward until he was within arm’s reach of the man with those amazing, feline eyes. Until he could have reached out and touched him, just to make sure that this was real. That he was real.
Sehun felt dizzy, weightless, but rooted to the floor at the same time. As if the other man's eyes on him, that stunned gaze, was the only thing keeping him from just floating away. He felt compelled to move closer, to rest his head on those inviting shoulders and wait for the man's arms to curl around him. Because even though he was incapable of moving another inch, some deeply buried part inside of him just knew the man in front of him would never reject his touch. Would never push him away or shy from him. The knowledge had come out of nowhere. One second he had been focused on nothing, but guzzling down the remaining water in his bottle, high from their successful first set, and the next he had raised his gaze, found those extraordinary eyes in the sea of people and the knowledge had simply slammed into him with the force of a punch to the gut.
He’d found him. He’d finally found him.
Minseok
It was like a shower after a long day at work, a cool drink for a parched throat or a soothing touch to tense shoulders. It was a burning in his gut, shivers down his spine and the prickling of exhilaration in his veins. Just having this stranger - that somehow didn’t feel like a stranger at all - standing there in front of him soothed Minseok in a way he hadn’t thought possible, while he made his heart race and palms sweat at the same time. Minseok didn’t notice his own sigh of relief, but it left him on a whoosh of air that released the trapped breath in chest. It was only then - with the gradual lessening of pain - that Minseok realized he had simply stopped breathing.
Then Sehun took one hesitant step forward and any coherent train of thought the older man might have had cut off with the abruptness of a stretched rubber band snapping back. There was a look of such determined longing on the other man’s face, Minseok reacted without conscious thought. Bridging the remaining distance between them, he waited with newly baited breath as the tall man lowered his head to Minseok’s shoulder and the relief and warmth that flooded through his chest had him all but going weak in the knees. His hand was moving on its own accord, lifting up until he could thread his fingers through the soft strands of Sehun's hair, until he felt, more than heard, the younger man's shaky sigh. The urge to hold him close, to curl himself around Sehun was so strong, he didn't even question it, leave alone try to resist.
Minseok simply cupped the taller man's nape and pulled him against himself with an arm around his waist. There was no resistance, no hesitation, as Sehun all but molded himself to Minseok, face nuzzling deeper into the curve of Minseok's neck. In that moment he wasn’t aware of standing in a room full of people, putting on quite the show for everyone around them, and even if he had been, for once Minseok wouldn’t have been able to care less. With his arms around Sehun he could feel his warmth, the fast beating of his heart against his own chest, and he finally felt like he was able to breathe again.
Completely motionless except for the slight rise and fall of their chests and the soft petting motion of Minseok's hand through Sehun's hair, he let himself lean against the other man just a little bit and listened to his quiet hum of approval.
“I’m Sehun.”
The words against his neck were more softly-spoken than expected, should have been impossible to make out over the noise of the packed club around them, but his gentle voice was clear as day in his ears. It only heightened the urge to hold the young man close until they both stopped shaking.
“Minseok,” he replied carefully, his throat so thick, he was surprised he had actually managed to get out that much. “It’s nice to meet you, Sehun.”
And where he would have winced in embarrassment at the tremble in his voice any other time, he waved the show of vulnerability away with a mere mental shrug. He could feel Sehun’s lips curving where they were pressed against the fabric of his shirt, felt him shift impossibly closer and knew neither of them cared.
Then there was the fact that Minseok was pretty sure a man had a right to a little tremble in his voice after meeting his soulmate.
Luhan
Luhan wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to pout or grin. Minseok had found his soulmate. Charmingly prickly, sometimes inflexible, but always wonderful Minseok had found his soulmate before him and somehow it had turned out to be the guy Luhan had had his eyes on since the first show he’d seen of the band. He wasn't pissed about that. It wasn't as if they'd had a choice in the matter and judging by the stunned delight in both their eyes it was a pretty much done deal. Luhan was willing to bet his A+ ass that Minseok wasn’t even aware of the dopey grin stretching across his usually so carefully calm face, as Sehun burrowed deeper into him.
And they did look ridiculously adorable together.
He would have cooed, but then he was convinced Minseok wouldn’t have noticed and there was no reason to try to get on his best friend’s nerves if he wasn’t going to reap the very satisfying benefit of the slightly older man’s flustered scowl. In their current state Minseok and Sehun would have probably missed a bomb blast. So he’d save the cooing for later.
Apart from that, Minseok totally owed him for convincing him to come here in the first place. And Luhan always collected.
For: S66
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2.7k
Summary: The last thing Minseok needs is to be indebted to his menace of a best friend. Unfortunately fate has other plans.
Warnings: Luhan
Minseok
Minseok wasn’t sure if this whole concert thing was entirely down his alley. He told himself to withhold judgement until he got to experience the actual concert, but what he’d seen so far just seemed like a giant pain in his ass. Over an hour ago his best friend had stormed into his apartment - using the spare key he refused to surrender - and dragged him out for some ‘BFF bonding time’. So instead of finalizing his current project for work and maybe ordering take-out, to park out on the couch for a good movie as initially planned, he was lining up in front of the shady looking club with Luhan, who was all but bouncing with excitement in his spot. He had no idea how Luhan could be so damn cheerful. They had been at this for an hour now, standing in line between a group of way too giggly girls and a guy that - unfortunately - reminded him of his great-uncle Daesung. Barring the bleach blonde hair and nose ring, of course.
His feet were starting to ache from all that standing around, he really needed to go to the bathroom and his mood was on the verge of tipping from ‘slightly annoyed’ to ‘pretty damned pissed off’. He liked when things happened the way they were supposed to happen, when everything was in its right place, and having his plans for the evening interrupted to wait for a concert he didn’t actually want to go to wasn’t his kind of fun. As Luhan knew very well.
“This better be one hell of a concert,” Minseok muttered under his breath, but of course Luhan heard him. The only times his best friend’s hearing failed him was when it was convenient for him. Luhan generally only heard what he wanted to hear.
He really didn’t know how they had become such good friends in the first place. But then Luhan hadn’t given him much of a choice. The slightly taller man could be damned pig-headed and determined when he wanted to be. And one look at Minseok had apparently been enough for Luhan to decide that they were destined to be best friends. Not that Minseok was complaining. Much. Luhan was a great friend and always had his back - when he wasn’t dragging him out of his apartment for a rock concert. Or calling him in the middle of the night because Manchester United had lost a match. Or setting him up on blind dates with the strangest people. Or…
Luhan’s voice yanked him out of his thoughts, before he had time to talk himself out of their friendship. “It will be! Believe me, the band is amazing. And you’ll thank me once you get a good look at their guitarist. He’s hot. But then all of them are.”
“That’s the jailbait you haven’t stopped yammering about for the last several weeks, right?”
Luhan gave him a judging look that only managed to deepen Minseok’s scowl. Luhan would just have to deal. Everyone knew Minseok was miserable company when he was grumpy.
“He’s not jailbait. He’s twenty-one, but you make it sound like I’m lusting after a high school kid.” Luhan didn’t look impressed. “And I don’t yammer.”
Choosing to ignore that last statement, Minseok simply turned away from his friend, just as - unbelievable, but true - the noise level around them picked up a notch and the line started moving.
If possible, the club looked even smaller from the inside and Minseok had no idea how all the people lining up in front were supposed to fit in here. Suddenly Luhan's insistence to arrive this early made a lot more sense. But that still didn't mean he was happy about how he had spent - wasted - the last seventy minutes of his life. Ignoring Luhan's very vocal protests of "But I wanted a spot right in front of the stage!", Minseok headed straight for the toilets and by the time he came back, his best friend was still standing where he had left him, arms crossed in front of his chest and petulant frown growing more pronounced by the second. Maybe it was small of him, but the fact that Luhan had lost quite a bit of that annoying cheerfulness definitely improved Minseok's own mood.
"Took you long enough," was all Luhan said, before he grabbed Minseok's arm, turned around and started pushing through the considerable crowd that had already gathered in front of the stage. There were curses, hissed complaints and one sharp elbow to Minseok's ribs, but for some reason they actually made it a lot farther than he had expected before they came across a real obstacle. The girl that whirled around with a growled "Fuck off" had a scarily determined look to her, the black 'Overdose' shirt and band's name tattooed on her forearm telling Minseok that this was going to end badly, but warning his best friend turned out to be entirely unnecessary. Luhan had already stopped moving, a brilliant smile on his face that had the girl’s face going slack with something that looked suspiciously like awe, before she wordlessly turned back around with a bemused frown. Minseok had seen the same thing happen way too many times to still be surprised by the whole spectacle.
A moment later they went back to… waiting. Music from the speakers boosted the noise level, as more and more people filed into the venue. Minseok just knew that Luhan wasn’t going to get him to another concert anytime soon. All they had done so far was stand around and wait. And as patient as Minseok considered himself to be, there were a lot more important things he could do with his time.
But before he was able to complain to Luhan and curse him - loudly this time - for dragging him here, the room practically exploded with screams and shouts. One look at the stage was enough to detect the reason for the sudden ruckus. One by one five men, which Minseok cleverly identified as the band, stepped out onto the stage and next to him Luhan started bouncing on his toes with excitement again.
“That’s him! That’s Sehun! The blond with the guitar!” Luhan half-screamed into his ear to be heard over the thunderous welcome of the people around them. “Isn't he hot?"
But Minseok didn't answer, wasn't sure if he'd be able to, gaze transfixed by the lean boy stepping out onto the stage. A mop of messy, almost silvery blond hair, long limbs, even longer body and a face so damn gorgeous, Minseok had trouble drawing in his next breath. The boy's eyes were downcast to his sleek, gunmetal gray guitar, but even from a distance Minseok could make out the shadows thrown by those unfairly long lashes. The next moment he bit down on one of those disconcertingly pink lips and Minseok actually felt his chest tighten. His heart beat was accelerating, his breathing going oddly flat to the uncomfortable roiling of his stomach and for a wild second he wondered if he had maybe eaten something bad for lunch. Then the rather petit-looking front singer stepped up to the mic stand to the sound of ear-splitting screams and applause and suddenly there was no more time to think.
“We’re Overdose and this is our new song Exodus!”
With a violently beautiful clash of instruments, the dark club was flooded with the sound of music and the energy level in the room surged with such vehemence, Minseok felt the tiny hairs on his arms rising in primal reaction. Within minutes he had to go back on his previously formed opinion. There might be an unholy amount of waiting and standing around involved, but this could actually be worth it. He didn’t know a lot about this kind of music, but one thing was crystal clear. They were good. They were really really good.
Unable to do anything but join in with the surging, screaming crowd, Minseok let himself move… and kept his eyes on the silver-haired boy with the grey guitar for the remainder of the set.
“Minseok?”
“Hey! Minseok! You alright?”
His best friend’s voice was nothing more than a quiet buzzing in the back of his mind.
It had happened seconds ago. With his eyes still firmly glued to Sehun up on the stage, Minseok had watched him raise a bottle of water to his mouth between songs, holding his breath as the guitarist let his appealingly sleepy-eyed gaze sweep over the audience and the next moment all the air in his body had left him on a sharp gasp.
Dark eyes meeting his.
The violent pounding of his heartbeat and rush of blood the only things he could hear.
A sheer endless second of brilliant realization.
And with a resounding snap Minseok lost his grip on reality, knowing that his life was never going to be the same again.
He felt it then. The sharp, almost painful tearing in his chest, but so much more importantly than that, the slight pressure on his right pinkie. He didn’t have to look down to find the reason for it - not that he could have actually torn his gaze away from the man onstage. He saw the thin, almost fragile looking red string spanning the distance between them, saw the loop around the last finger of Sehun’s hand on the bottle. It shone such a bright, impossible red in the murkily lit room, for a second it was all Minseok could see, before it disappeared with a last flicker as if it had never been there in the first place.
But Minseok knew.
Sehun
Sehun thought he might finally know what it felt like to be struck by thunder.
It was his only - and last - coherent thought as he met that gaze in the crowd. Before he knew what he was doing, he was moving forward, somehow making it off the stage to start pushing through the excited crowd to get to him. He paid no attention to the hands grabbing on to him, to the people trying to get his attention, the shrill calls of his name - he couldn’t. For a second he thought he heard Baekhyun calling his name from the stage, but not even that managed to get through. Sehun just kept on moving forward until he was within arm’s reach of the man with those amazing, feline eyes. Until he could have reached out and touched him, just to make sure that this was real. That he was real.
Sehun felt dizzy, weightless, but rooted to the floor at the same time. As if the other man's eyes on him, that stunned gaze, was the only thing keeping him from just floating away. He felt compelled to move closer, to rest his head on those inviting shoulders and wait for the man's arms to curl around him. Because even though he was incapable of moving another inch, some deeply buried part inside of him just knew the man in front of him would never reject his touch. Would never push him away or shy from him. The knowledge had come out of nowhere. One second he had been focused on nothing, but guzzling down the remaining water in his bottle, high from their successful first set, and the next he had raised his gaze, found those extraordinary eyes in the sea of people and the knowledge had simply slammed into him with the force of a punch to the gut.
He’d found him. He’d finally found him.
Minseok
It was like a shower after a long day at work, a cool drink for a parched throat or a soothing touch to tense shoulders. It was a burning in his gut, shivers down his spine and the prickling of exhilaration in his veins. Just having this stranger - that somehow didn’t feel like a stranger at all - standing there in front of him soothed Minseok in a way he hadn’t thought possible, while he made his heart race and palms sweat at the same time. Minseok didn’t notice his own sigh of relief, but it left him on a whoosh of air that released the trapped breath in chest. It was only then - with the gradual lessening of pain - that Minseok realized he had simply stopped breathing.
Then Sehun took one hesitant step forward and any coherent train of thought the older man might have had cut off with the abruptness of a stretched rubber band snapping back. There was a look of such determined longing on the other man’s face, Minseok reacted without conscious thought. Bridging the remaining distance between them, he waited with newly baited breath as the tall man lowered his head to Minseok’s shoulder and the relief and warmth that flooded through his chest had him all but going weak in the knees. His hand was moving on its own accord, lifting up until he could thread his fingers through the soft strands of Sehun's hair, until he felt, more than heard, the younger man's shaky sigh. The urge to hold him close, to curl himself around Sehun was so strong, he didn't even question it, leave alone try to resist.
Minseok simply cupped the taller man's nape and pulled him against himself with an arm around his waist. There was no resistance, no hesitation, as Sehun all but molded himself to Minseok, face nuzzling deeper into the curve of Minseok's neck. In that moment he wasn’t aware of standing in a room full of people, putting on quite the show for everyone around them, and even if he had been, for once Minseok wouldn’t have been able to care less. With his arms around Sehun he could feel his warmth, the fast beating of his heart against his own chest, and he finally felt like he was able to breathe again.
Completely motionless except for the slight rise and fall of their chests and the soft petting motion of Minseok's hand through Sehun's hair, he let himself lean against the other man just a little bit and listened to his quiet hum of approval.
“I’m Sehun.”
The words against his neck were more softly-spoken than expected, should have been impossible to make out over the noise of the packed club around them, but his gentle voice was clear as day in his ears. It only heightened the urge to hold the young man close until they both stopped shaking.
“Minseok,” he replied carefully, his throat so thick, he was surprised he had actually managed to get out that much. “It’s nice to meet you, Sehun.”
And where he would have winced in embarrassment at the tremble in his voice any other time, he waved the show of vulnerability away with a mere mental shrug. He could feel Sehun’s lips curving where they were pressed against the fabric of his shirt, felt him shift impossibly closer and knew neither of them cared.
Then there was the fact that Minseok was pretty sure a man had a right to a little tremble in his voice after meeting his soulmate.
Luhan
Luhan wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to pout or grin. Minseok had found his soulmate. Charmingly prickly, sometimes inflexible, but always wonderful Minseok had found his soulmate before him and somehow it had turned out to be the guy Luhan had had his eyes on since the first show he’d seen of the band. He wasn't pissed about that. It wasn't as if they'd had a choice in the matter and judging by the stunned delight in both their eyes it was a pretty much done deal. Luhan was willing to bet his A+ ass that Minseok wasn’t even aware of the dopey grin stretching across his usually so carefully calm face, as Sehun burrowed deeper into him.
And they did look ridiculously adorable together.
He would have cooed, but then he was convinced Minseok wouldn’t have noticed and there was no reason to try to get on his best friend’s nerves if he wasn’t going to reap the very satisfying benefit of the slightly older man’s flustered scowl. In their current state Minseok and Sehun would have probably missed a bomb blast. So he’d save the cooing for later.
Apart from that, Minseok totally owed him for convincing him to come here in the first place. And Luhan always collected.