Work Text:
Drabbles on 1994 - Behind Blackedout
~Winter, 1992
It was almost 10 when they entered the karaoke, the spirit was high among the third years. They had just finished the last round of the written exams, the one that they had been dreading all semester. Deok Sun smiled as her friends fought over the controllers to put in their favorite songs, before the menu was shoved into her hands by U Ju, her incorrigible class secretary.
"I'm not taking any written task tonight, you order the drinks" he said and Deok Sun stuck her tongue to him. He just laughed and joined the fight for the controller.
She shook her head, but counted the number of people they managed to pile to the karaoke room and put in order for their drinks. She knew enough of the bunch to know that they were particularly fond of soju-beer concoction and would probably be wasted by the end of the 10th song.
Deok Sun went outside to put in their orders and when she was back, the song was already on full swings. She rolled her eyes seeing Young Ae, her class straight-A, straining her voice trying to match the blaring sound of a cheap sound system.
“Ya, Young Ae-ah, aren’t you going to have a sore throat for that?” one of their friends shouted and the usually dignified long-haired beauty just stuck her tongue before continuing with her medley of songs about a broken hearted girl. Everyone just laughed, until the next song came in and another bleary-eyed student took over; so ready to take the steam off from their hard finals just hours before.
Sung Deok Sun was not particularly in the mood for singing that night, but she found it quite cathartic seeing her friends trying so hard to have fun. She laughed along with them and booed the loudest when U Ju sang so out of tune they begged him to stop singing.
Until a song showed the background of two lovers playing around on a beach during sunset, which didn’t match the song at all considering the song was about two men getting wasted at Gangnam. It took her breath away, in a way that she never thought that memories would ever have.
Cold beaches.
Accidental road trip, soured only by the fact that their friend was running away and her older sister's temperament, as usual.
Milk. Coffee.
Them.
Frolicking on the beach.
Wet socks and damp shoes.
And smiles.
A lot of them.
Ones that didn’t leave her face even hours after.
She cursed it.
Especially when the memories were already tainted today.
~
“Deok Sun-ah, isn’t this your friend?” her friend, Mi Ra shoved a tabloid under her nose and she blinked. There was a blown up picture of Taek, standing beside a woman she didn’t know.
She was very pretty.
“He’s seen on a date with a drama actress, whoa!” Mi Ra whistled. “He’s so handsome”
“Ya, do you have time to read that kind of thing, Mi Ra-ah?” Young Ae threw a ball of paper towards Mi Ra, causing the girl to giggle and put down the tabloid.
“Geez, relax. I’m just taking a break” she grumbled. “That journal won’t go anywhere even if I left it for 5 minutes”
Deok Sun laughed lightly, but the entire 2 minutes conversation left her putting down the snacks she had been munching, because suddenly there was a sinking feeling deep inside her stomach and chased away her appetite.
She didn’t like it one bit.
~
“ Somaek , Deok Sun-ah?” U Ju offered a drink but Deok Sun shook her head.
She never liked the taste of Soju, too bitter for her.
She’d always preferred beer, the sweet one if she could get one.
U Ju shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to drink the concoction himself, a bottle of Soju in his hand.
But then, Deok Sun thought Soju had some advantages. One of them being numbing.
And numb was good, right?
Numb was better than the weird feeling inside her stomach right now.
So without a word, she grabbed a glass on the table and the Soju from U Ju.
“Hey, slow down Deok Sun-ah” U Ju reminded her when she gulped a quarter of a glass in one go.
The alcohol burned her throat, and left a sharp sensation in her stomach.
Not enough.
Because she still felt like she wanted to scream but knew that she couldn’t.
So she poured another one.
Now the tears threatened to come and she blinked them furiously. Why would she cry? It wasn’t like he owed her something, or anything.
It was just a kiss.
Not enough.
So she poured another one.
And another one.
At one point, she felt U Ju tried to take the Soju from her hand, but she told him to back off.
“Just one more glass” she felt her lips telling him and his blurred face looked concerned.
Good.
Now, it was better was her last thought before her vision became black.
~
“Geez, this is my first time seeing her like this”
“Do you know where her house is?”
She heard snippets of voices around her, and while she could make out the words, she couldn’t really understand what they meant.
“Ah, she wakes up” someone said, and then the voice talked to her, much closer.
“Deok Sun-ah, can you walk?”
She laughed. What kind of question was that? Of course she could, what was she, three?
But her legs seemed to be disconnected from her brain, because no matter how much she tried to move, or even sit up, her body didn’t listen. So she just closed her eyes again.
“Blacked out” she heard someone sigh.
“Ah, I know, let’s call Dong Ryong-ssi” someone said, “Don’t they live next to each other?”
Good, Dong Ryong, good, she thought.
I like Dong Ryong.
Though not as much as…
~
Someone must have hated her and gave her poison.
There was nothing else that could explain why her head was pounding like crazy and why her tongue tasted like she had eaten a bowl of rotten kimchi.
“Arrrgg” she heard herself groan and a chuckle replied to her.
She blinked. She was not alone.
She opened one eye and the view of an unfamiliar room greeted her.
She opened both eyes.
And saw Ryu Dong Ryong chuckling happily.
Too happy for her taste.
“Drink this,” he gave her a bottle of water and he never looked that handsome to her eyes.
His laugh indicated that maybe she said it out loud.
“Better?” he asked and she nodded. The fog in her eyes cleared out a bit, though there was nothing that could stop the pounding in her head.
“Where are we?” she started and Dong Ryong scoffed. She looked towards her surroundings, and realized that it was a studio apartment. She was sleeping on a single bed on the corner, while Dong Ryong seemed to sit on a blanket below the bed.
“Ryu Jin’s apartment, don’t worry, he wasn’t here last night” and Deok Sun nodded. She knew Park Ryu Jin, marketing, third year, the same as Dong Ryong. They often went out together with her friends from Management. He lived in an apartment near campus, and his apartment was a regular hanging spot for their year.
“Do you have pain killers?” she asked as she winced from the pounding on her head and Dong Ryong grumbled.
“Serve yourself” he said while standing up and walking to a table. He rustled something from his bag.
“Eat first” he threw her a pack of bread and Deok Sun was so grateful.
“You’re the best person ever, Ryu Dong Ryong” she said, relishing the dry texture of the bread, and chased it after with water. Dong Ryong walked to sit by the blanket again and watched her polishing half of the bread before giving her a strip of pain killer.
She smiled, chugged down two pills and chased them with water again, before sitting more comfortably on the bed, head propped up by pillows.
“What time is it?” she started before catching a clock on the opposite wall. She cringed. It was half past 1 already.
“You slept like you were dead,” Dong Ryong told her, but something in his voice caused her to look at him directly. “Are you okay, Deok Sun-ah?”
Deok Sun closed her eyes.
The painkiller must have started to work, the throbbing in her head started to ebb away, but everything in her body felt like shit. Her stomach hurt. Her tongue felt like sandpaper. She felt like something had run her over.
It was better than before.
She shrugged.
“I was carried away with the end of semester, I guess” she grinned, then added. “The Somaek U Ju gave me tasted so delicious”
Dong Ryong turned to look at her intently, and it was at that time Deok Sun cursed the fact that Dong Ryong had been living less than ten meters away from her in the past 20 years. He literally knew her, inside and out. Therefore, she just kept on smiling with the hope that he would let this one go.
He sighed
She sighed as well.
“Just go to sleep, I’ll wake you when we have to go” he said while sitting up, taking the empty packaging of the bread away. “Ryu Jin will come back somewhere after 5, let’s go home by then”
“Do you want something for lunch?” he asked and Deok Sun snorted.
“Porridge?” she asked and Dong Ryong nodded.
He kept grumbling how Sung Deok Sun owed him, Ryu Dong Ryong, b.i.g time and that he wouldn’t hear a single complaint when he appointed her as his designated driver for the next year and beyond.
Deok Sun only laughed until Dong Ryong closed the apartment door.
Yes, it was better than before.
~
“Thank you Manager Yoo '' he bowed politely as they arrived on the main street near Ssangmun Dong. The alley outside his house was too narrow, and he didn’t want to burden his manager more than was necessary. It was barely 11 in the evening, he could still walk.
“See you tomorrow, Master Choi” the cheerful manager told him and he waved him away and sighed.
Tomorrow he would have another match.
Another 10 hours sitting like a stone in front of rows of stone. Across a similarly stony opponent.
He wondered if his literature grade would even pass middle school level at this point.
He looked up when he was about to take a left turn to the alley. He made a mistake doing that.
Right in front of him, not ten meters away, stood Deok Sun with a man he didn’t know.
They stood face to face, closer than two casual friends should be.
Deok Sun was so beautiful.
“I see you tomorrow, then, Oppa ?” He heard Deok Sun called the man, causing him to grit his teeth and move so he was not in their line of vision.
“Your house is there, right? Let me walk you” he offered her.
He looked too handsome for his liking. Too tall, that Deok Sun had to look up just to see his face. It must have been uncomfortable for her.
He saw Deok Sun smiled but shook her head.
“It’s okay, I can just walk,” she said, then added. “You have a baseball practice right, I don’t want you to be late”
“Are you sure?” the man added, and to his horror, the man took Deok Sun’s hand and gripped it tightly.
He was wondering if he could use harassment as an excuse to start throwing rocks at him.
He meant, the man was taller and bigger than him, and he was drop dead tired from his 10 hours match today. Throwing rocks was the most he could handle at the moment.
But Deok Sun didn’t seem to mind as she just smiled.
He could see it coming and he tried to close his eyes. He really did, it wasn’t like he was a pervert.
But he didn’t seem able to look away, as the tall man moved closer to Deok Sun and touched her head before diving into her mouth.
He felt like a true masochist at that point, because no matter what his rational mind told him to look away, to run away, to be anywhere other than there, he was still rooted to the spot. Drops of tears started to pave their way from his eyes and only then he could close them.
To finally give him a reprieve of a nightmare that now had seeped into his reality.
And to have no one else to blame but himself for causing it.
Sometimes, Choi Taek 8-dan wondered if there was any merit in trying to stop taking sleeping pills. With that in mind, he finally turned away and took that familiar walk to Ssangmun Dong pharmacy.
He needed a strong one tonight.
~