Work Text:
a writer too afraid to use his own name is a writer all the same.
that's what changkyun says when he sees the writing hyungwon has splayed over the desk. they look like the pirate maps hyungwon used to make when he was younger -- tea-stained and fire-glazed, crumpled up and then straightened out in a bid to salvage the carefully inked words.
hyungwon watches as changkyun's eyes move over the thick teak desk, sees jooheons and minhyuks and kihyuns but not a trace of his own name. original characters whose flaws can be worked through even if a rock were to fall on them and crush their pretty little skulls, flawless little boys who get drunk on rosewater and choke on their halos.
changkyun looks like he wants to say something. changkyun always looks like he wants to say something.
"this is nice."
hyungwon's voice is weary and torn from disuse. kihyun used to say that his voice sounded like a crackling fireplace, but kihyun was always a bit too optimistic and hyungwon knows that he meant to say a dying bird. "it's a mess, changkyun." he stumbles backwards into his chair, a dying bird with broken bones.
from his sitting position, he sees the latest bit of paper he's thrown out. another idea for another storyline with another character, but with the same writer who can't see past his impending deadlines. can't plan into the future like jooheon has been with his fantasy novels, or even manga artist wonho who locks himself in his workspace for days on end drawing, emerging only with coffee-scented breath and finished art ready for sale.
it's not as if there's anything to do with the way they work -- wonho and hyungwon are eerily similar in their working style, and changkyun has joked that in their small circuit of writers and artists, wonho and him are two minds of the same kind, cut from the same cloth. it's the person that has something to do with it, a good sort of person who can weave intricate webs from silk.
and hyungwon isn't a good person.
changkyun pauses, a pregnant pause lingering in the air before he moves and deftly pulls a translucent red folder from the pile. it's the one at the very top. hyungwon doesn't stop him, and changkyun's surprised -- it's the first thing that hyungwon has allowed him to touch without careless cautions since changkyun invited himself in, pushed past the locked front door. maybe hyungwon wants to preserve everything in its forlorn state, unwashed clothes strewn across doorknobs and the floor, plastic instant meal packagings overflowing from the rubbish bin. it would make a magnificent museum exhibit, changkyun thinks, if he could conglaciate this moment in ash like the way pompeii fell. maybe then hyungwon would be alright.
then he frowns, because even hyungwon will never understand how he files things -- they seem to be his whim and fancy. things written on good days go into the stack of writing behind his chair (it's empty). everything else is haphazardly assigned to coloured folders, discarded when they're full with soiled writing paper. the writing paper itself comes from under hyungwon's bed -- hyungwon threw out his laptop in favour of pen and paper long ago. jooheon was seething for weeks at his lost money, and had to be placated by the fact that insurance covered some part of it.
one of the works catches changkyun's attention. "hyungwon, this is good," changkyun tugs the first sheet of crinkled paper from the folder. he's holding it by the right-hand corner and looking as if he wants to believe that the brown stains littering the top part of the paper are coffee stains. "why did you throw it away?"
the taller boy shrugs, eyes faraway, distracted by the ghosts hanging from his ceiling fan blades. "not worth it."
"not worth it?" changkyun scans the second page of writing before feeling something build in his throat, a knife in his windpipe. "hyungwon, why isn't this getting sent out? hyunwoo would publish this. even if he didn't, a magazine would take it. i can call hyunwoo now, get him over here to look it over. it's exactly what he's looking for--"
"i said no," hyungwon closes his eyes, retracts further into his own world. he brings his knees closer to his chin. "please don't bother me about it."
the shorter boy leans against the table, hands flicking through the surprisingly clean folder. the third page of writing is unintelligible scribbling, the fourth littered with scratches and drawings of oddly disfigured people. he's known hyungwon for long enough to know that hyungwon has a tendency to draw whatever's lingering in his vision at the moment when the mood strikes him, so he doesn't question it. all he can think is that hyungwon ought to go into hyper-realism.
fifth page. it's poetry this time, carefully layered words and smatterings of punctuation impeding the syllables from jackknifing off the page. there are harshly coloured-in portions, black and foul-smelling of ink where hyungwon decided that the writing wasn't satisfactory. imprints of brown and yellow where hyungwon spilled coffee and tea.
changkyun tries to imagine how hyungwon would look while writing. is he the type to stay fixated at his desk for hours, days, weeks, on end, only stopping to look for food and water, in true writer fashion? or would he be the type to scratch out asymmetrical letters half-drunk and half-conscious with his blood as ink? neither of these are particularly positive, despite being particularly probable. changkyun prays that hyungwon has been alright.
the older writer hasn't moved. changkyun moves to the sixth page. this one is different. it's white, bleached with youth and whatever else hyungwon has brewing in that head of his. letters are stencilled neatly across the piece of paper, as if it was a penmanship exercise left to be forgotten at the bottom of some other worksheets. but this isn't schoolwork, it's hyungwon's concoction and changkyun knows that that spells nothing but trouble.
it's a letter to his parents.
dearest mother, father in heaven;
changkyun tears his eyes away from the rest of the letter. hyungwon probably didn't intend for anyone to read it, and he should respect that.
"changkyun-"
he doesn't even have time to raise his head before hyungwon falls into his arms, somehow having managed to close the distance between them in less than a second. changkyun feels panic seize him before hyungwon heaves a sob, buries his head into the crook of changkyun's neck. he's trembling, and changkyun runs a hand over the fabric covering hyungwon's shaking back.
hyungwon is a rising tide, emerging from the depths of the raging sea before crashing into the shore with reckless abandon. he is every swelling black and white key on a score sheet, forming a gradual crescendo of tears and blood and gliding over changkyun like only music can. he is the empty air between words that say more than any sentence ever can. he is the creation and destruction of destiny itself, and changkyun thinks that if he isn't careful, he'll find himself destroyed too.
hyungwon exhales softly, pulls away as if it never happened, and changkyun hears himself whine. doesn't know what this means, because he's never whined for anyone before and maybe he's overthinking it but maybe that makes hyungwon different. maybe despite the fact that hyungwon's afraid to even look in the mirror for fear of his reflection, despite the fact that hyunwoo is easier to deal with than hyungwon's kafkaesque existence, maybe he's different.
"i think there's something wrong with me."
changkyun wills himself not to say anything. hyungwon's a fragile wineglass, too easily toppled over and destabilized. intoxicating only if taken in measured doses. but if that's the universe's way of challenging changkyun, changkyun thinks fiercely, he'd accept it in a heartbeat.
"i'm-- i'm just so fucked up," hyungwon whispers, straggled breaths leaking from his nose and mouth, "and no one even noticed."
they're standing further apart now. it's almost funny because changkyun wants nothing but to drag him close. feel how his breath splays across changkyun's lips. he wants to calm hyungwon's thundering heart with his own pulse.
hyungwon's head is angled to the left, hands steady, but his eyes are splintered, shattered glass and crushed porcelain. it breaks changkyun's heart to see his this way. has always broken his to see hyungwon suffer. because hyungwon doesn't deserve it. hyungwon doesn't deserve to watch his empire of haunting nightmares tower over his. has never done anything to warrant scarring his arms, thighs, with almost phantasmagoric designs, raised crimson flesh moated by pink skin.
everyone has their own demons. the only difference between everyone and him is that hyungwon has let these monsters wreck him.
changkyun feels the coldness of hyungwon's skin and pulls his into a hug. lets hyungwon's breath hit the side of his neck and doesn't let go until he's done letting it all out.
"i'm sick -- i'm so fucked up. i feel things i shouldn't and i try so, so hard to make them go away but they come back over and over again and i can't do anything. i see and hear things i don't want to and fuck, i... i just want them to leave because as long as they're here i'm sick. they said i would get better, changkyun, but i'm not. i can't even get out of bed somedays because the voices are too loud. is that okay?" hyungwon's bottom lip is trembling, and he quells the movement with a sharp swallow. changkyun feels hyungwon's jaw tense as he clenches his teeth, doesn't do anything but run a hand down hyungwon's hair. "is that okay, changkyun?"
hyungwon's the first one to pull away, because changkyun has never been able to leave first. changkyun sees that his expression's a far cry from the distant, possessed one he had on merely minutes ago -- but he's not upset. doesn't even look close to crying. his face is stony, tight with anger and frustration and the fact that he thinks changkyun can't help him physically hurts.
changkyun sighs. "there's nothing wrong with you."
"there is," hyungwon snarls.
"stop being so stubborn," changkyun says evenly. he guides hyungwon across the room to sit on hyungwon's bed, clearing out the old newspapers with words in bright red marker and sweeping them off the mattress. "please believe me when i say something nice about you, hyungwon, because i mean it."
the taller boy's eyes linger on the space above changkyun's shoulder for a split second longer than they should, and changkyun's filled with blind panic, because he can't lose hyungwon again. not after all of this. not after everything that hyungwon has done for him, to himself. it has taken weeks of chasing and begging to get to where they are now, and changkyun can't let that slip out of his hands.
he doesn't know what possesses him to do it, but he pulls hyungwon forward, presses his lips to his. he doesn't force it deeper, just waits until hyungwon stiffens and relaxes, pushing back against him with just as much vigour. the kiss is decadent, and something in changkyun's head screams that he shouldn't be doing this.
he can't help but notice that hyungwon kisses like he lives; with his eyes wide open.
changkyun realizes a heartbeat later that he has to make sure that there are no misunderstandings between him and hyungwon. but really, what is there to understand? what are they, two hormonal teenagers on a rooftop late at night? the real world has repercussions, real things that they have to think about. like how hyungwon can't even remember his name sometimes, or how changkyun has to deal with a liar of a publishing agent who calls himself son hyunwoo every single day, or how both of them are adults who have to eke out their own livings and paths. he runs his fingers along the curve of hyungwon's jaw, the fingers of his other hand entwined with hyungwon's own, and somehow the problems of the world fade to black.
hyungwon stutters when he next speaks. he's staring into changkyun's eyes with an intensity that borders almost on virulent, and his hands have moved to changkyun's waist to hold him. changkyun's leaning back, almost off the mattress, and hyungwon seems determined to anchor him down.
"stay?" hyungwon makes out through swollen lips.
it's not a question.
changkyun thinks about the letters hyungwon's penned, the red and blue and black writing folders he has tossed on his desk, dearest mother and father in heaven printed across snowy paper. he thinks about hyungwon's eyes narrowed in concetration, the faces he made when their writing circuit threw a surprise birthday on his twenty-fifth birthday three years ago. he thinks about how hyungwon is trying, even if he can't see it, even if he loses himself to his demons when the memories come back, even if he spends some days staring at the ceiling and scratching the blood out of his veins.
he thinks about how he's going to be so much more than what he is now one day, even if it's not today.
he'll be okay.
they'll be okay.