halfway down the stairs

chanhore:

(/turns to frown at him and reaches up to adjust his glasses. his fingers meet air and he looks down at his hand, unsure of why he had wanted to do that. he doesn’t know how to reply to the older man. nothing of what he had said made any sense to him right now so he makes a small questioning noise instead.)

(/he blinks as the man runs his hand along his arm, and stares openly for a long time, processing the question.) no, i-. (/pauses to think back to what the doctor had said when he woke up) no, i had to have surgery on it. (/frowns because he wasn’t told what the surgery was for, and he hopes heechul doesn’t ask about it. bits of memory are coming back to him as he speaks, he remembers a family, a little sister, and he wonders if they’re anywhere nearby but something tells him they aren’t.)

(/the pain killers are wearing off little by little and he’s starting to feel the pain in his arm again. it’s dull but when he breathes in too deeply he can feel it shift and the pain gets even worse. he bites his lip, standing up and looking down at heechul) i have- (/looks down at himself, and the motion makes him dizzy but he uses his left arm to dig around in his pockets until he find a few packets of pills) i need water.

[/heechul’s frown deepens slightly as he tries to maintain a cool head about this kind of situation that he’s sure he has never been in before. biting his lip, he stands up when chanho does too and looks towards the emptied train in front of them, reminding him of the reason why he was here at all.] water? um.. [/uselessly looks around before realizing that, duh, this is a relatively abandoned station save for the occasional train that travelled back and forth with institute students.] i don’t have water [/dumb. absolutely dumb. he knows and he would slap himself if he were anyone else but he wasn’t and protect the precious face and all… and he’s getting off track. he shakes his head slightly to clear his head and looks down at chanho] um, i could take you to the convenience store, [/he asks more than suggests as he places a hand lightly on the other’s shoulder and tries to steady him as it looks like the other is having some difficulty standing up straight. he indicates towards the city nearby as he waits for an answer.]

▷french virgin party

thesenewwings:

Yida tenses at the hand on his shoulder. He lets himself be pushed back and watches carefully as Heechul moves around him. He breathes out evenly, but his jaw is still stiff with carefully hidden anger.

“Asshole,” he mutters in chinese.

The walk up is annoying with Heechul stopping at every floor to silently ask if this was the one. At the 3rd floor, he squeezes his way past the red head and moves up to the 4th, guiding him down the hallway that was just as cramped as the stairs. 

He checks the time on his phone and knocks on a door and he passes by.

“Nine thirty,” he calls out.

He ignores Heechul until they get to a door at the end of hallway. He puts in his key and just before he opens the door he stops and points at the numbered plaque just above the peekhole.

“Four thirteen,” he says. A slow grin paints itself on his face and he enters the room without waiting for Heechul to protest. Yida wasn’t a superstitious man. Numbers meant nothing when everyday of your life was littered with encounters that would make anyone else insane. The apartment had been unoccupied at the time, a miracle to him when he was denied every other apartment in favor of couples with children. The landlord hadn’t been able to rent the apartment in years, and the residents had generally avoided the door until he moved in.

Yida moved to the other side of the apartment, tugging at the buttons on his shirt as he moved into his room to change. He didn’t have any food in the small kitchen, but he would wait for Heechul to find out for himself.

With each step, Heechul found himself getting strangely excited. Here he was in China, and even though he could barely understand the complicated syllabic language, he felt he was one step closer to his goal. He almost seems too eager, as he bounds up after Yida, a slight bounce in his step as he chooses to ignore the other in order to observe his surroundings and memorize the way to the apartment. As they walked down the hallway, he couldn’t help but grimace in dissatisfaction at the cobwebs that hung all around them and the amount of dust clinging to every corner as if no one had even bothered to pass a duster through there since the building had been constructed. Heechul stepped carefully around a suspicious stain as he followed Yida and looked up just in time to stop himself from colliding into the other as they turned the key into the room.

If he hesitated, it was merely for a fraction of a second before Heechul entered. Superstitions and religious myths simply weren’t part of his belief system. A certain devout person had tried to convince him otherwise for years before finally giving up and concluding that Heechul would never be saved. Hell if he cared, though, as long as he wasn’t bothered into having to ignore that person’s long rants about being pious and how praying and a whole lot of sore knees could unlock paradise. Please, Heechul thought, Paradise was level 45 and he was already way past that stage.

Heechul looked around the apartment thoughtfully, taking in the awful decor but figured that at least it looked comfortable enough to live in. Although, what he assumed to be the living room looked like it needed a good dust-down before he settled in or else he’d be facing a whole lot of headaches and a whole lot of uncomfortable sneezing. Scratching his neck nervously, he moved towards the kitchen, immediately throwing a critical eye towards the lack of kitchen utensils and the small fridge off towards the side. Walking up towards it, the frown he’d been wearing on his face since he’d entered the apartment only increased as he opened the fridge and found nothing edible in it save for a half a gallon of milk that looked weeks old. Sighing, he turned towards the bedroom door that he’d seen Yida disappear into and approached it tentatively.

“There’s nothing to eat.” He thought he should state the obvious, of course. He couldn’t just starve. It would be against Chinese ethics or something. He’s sure Hangeng had said that once to him too - something about it being in a Chinese person’s blood to always have food around.

“I gave you all my money, so..” Heechul continues when there’s no answer and let’s the rest of his words hang in the air as he waits for an answer.

halfway down the stairs

chanhore:

(/looks up at the sound of a voice. he raises his eyebrows, lids still only half open in a squint. he feels the soft tug of a memory, pulling him back from the haze of painkillers. he knows this man, although the red hair is something he’s sure he doesn’t recognize, but it takes him more than a few minutes for the memory to fade back in like a cloud riding the wind. it gives him a headache, and he cradles his head as he replies)

I’m not a munchkin, (/his voice is dull and throaty like it hasn’t been used in a long time and he raises his head in shock because he realizes he doesn’t even know if this is what his voice has always sounded like.) I remember you. (/he says, but details are something he can’t quite reach. what was he like, how long did they know each other, and what was his name. he swallows and the back of head throbs. if it’s this painful, he doesn’t know if he wants to remember anything else.)

[/oh shit, heechul thinks, standing up straight and running a finger over his jaw line before coming to a rest on his chin, where it stays, tapping thoughtfully as his head churns with all sorts of questions. he doesn’t voice any, though, and instead sits next to the little punk he’d tortured only, what, a few weeks back, with style and new clothes - all of which he accepted, if only a bit begrudgingly. heechul leans over a bit to look at the other closer, observing the fragile-seeming state of him and snorts when the other replies to him with a familiar bite but the way his voice sounds makes heechul frown all the same.]

Yah, you better remember. I’m only the one who transformed you into my beautiful creation of style and good common sense. Yet, I see.. None of it stuck.

[/fingers the low-quality polyester on the other’s outfit, running his hand down until he lightly taps the bandaged arm] What’s this? Did you get in a fight or something? It isn’t good for munchkins to get into fights, you know. [/looking around before, he leans in conspiratorially and whispers,] Did you at least win? [/gives him one of those shit-eating smiles he always has in stock, tilting his head to one side to get a better look at chanho]

MOURGE

mourge

halfway down the stairs

chanhore:

(/limps listlessly around, letting his body guide him through the streets he only vaguely remembers. he feels like he’s been dead for a long time and was resurrect for a reason he can’t quite recall. his vision is still blurry, and even if the doctor told him he couldn’t take the sunglasses off until it got better, he was impatient. his chest hurts every time he takes a breath, and his arm is wrapped tightly in a bandage, movement difficult even though the bandage was thin.

his legs take him to a train station. it’s generally empty, only a few kids loitering around the tracks until the sound of the whistle scatters them in opposite directions. he sits down at the benches, watching the train slow down until it hissed its arrival. almost no one gets off, but he watches the few people slowly trickle out. one of them looks at him strangely, but leaves with the others. chanho’s eyes flicker down to the end of the track, a familiar figure walking toward him but the world is too blurry for him to be sure.)

[/the strong smell of hair dye still clinging makes his eyes water as it mixes with the odors of the train station. heechul coughs, screwing his eyes shut for a moment as he hikes his bag up higher on his shoulder, and takes a moment to readjust the dark sunglasses that cover over half of his face. he runs a smoothing hand over the front of his tucked in shirt and runs a quick hand through his rust red hair as he catches sight of his reflection against the window next to him. he absolutely detests public transportation. it’s too.. public, in his opinion. there is no separation and he’s always found himself uncomfortably stuck in between a nosy teenager and a pervert who can’t seem to keep his eyes or his hands off of him. he’s lucky the train he had just ridden was completely empty. not that it ever got filled up.

heechul looks around, a small sigh escaping his lips, probably the hundredth time that day that he’s done so. he doesn’t turn around because he knows what he’s leaving behind and there’s a small movement in his chest that reminds of how much it always hurts to move on. but he shakes his reddened locks and with a bite of his lips and a semi-determined frown, he starts to move forward, to the future, to china.

until he takes two steps forward and nearly breaks his neck as he stumbles forward, tripping on nothing but his own two feet. yeah, smooth. he looks around nervously, scratching the back of his neck it reddens from embarrassment and is relieved when he spots no one near. good no one saw hi-

oh.

he purses his lips as he spots a very very familiar looking munchkin sitting on a nearby bench, overlooking the train. he hadn’t seen that kid since, since probably after he finally let him go after heechul had served him a complete make-over. usually he’d be annoyed by the worn out sweaters the younger kid wore, but he’s suddenly more concerned about the other’s condition. heechul walks until he’s standing just in front of the other and leans down, slowly taking his glasses off with one hand]

hey, munchkin. what are you doing? [/he snorts as he pulls a smirk on his face, unable to disguise the trace of concern in his voice.]