无声天使

        “how should i know!”  he yells back.  never in his life has he ever heard something so loud and obnoxious  ( save for his mother when she’s talking on the phone with her best friend from australia, but hey, that’s another story ).  “can you just—i don’t know—take it out!”  surely, the smoke detector operates on batteries, so that should do the trick.  but ah, he’ll leave eunsang to it, ‘cause he’s currently preoccupied with making sure their apartment doesn’t burn down—which is arguably of higher importance here than their poor ears.

        his arms flail out again, and he attempts to wave out all the smoke in a rather comedic dance number.  as he’s doing so, he catches a glimpse of an oddly curious elderly woman staring up at him from the vacant street.  he waves  ( because he has manners, okay? ).  in return, she shouts something, and if not for her concerned expression, he would’ve thought she was scolding him.

        “sorry, what was that!”  he shouts at her.  “—we’re trying to!  it won’t turn off!  oh, seriously?  got it, thanks!”  he then turns to eunsang, and in the same volume that’s sure to wane his vocal cords later, he continues to shout,  “she says to just let the smoke out and eventually it’ll stop!”  and true to her words, a few moments thereafter, the smoke detector stops.

        he blinks, his ears ringing just a bit from the commotion.

        then he peers over at eunsang, a look of guilt crossing his features  ( for once ).  “so . . i might have burnt the spaghetti—and we might need a new pot, too.”  his eyes flicker over to the smokey, darkened tragedy.  “. . you shouldn’t have left me unsupervised.”

“take what out?! the batteries?!” well, of course the batteries, but it’s not like they have a screwdriver on hand or anything (neither of them are particularly good at technician things). trying not to inhale the smoke is taking up too much of his brain’s processing power, and he’s not sure if he feels woozy from inhaling too much of it, or from holding his breath. either way, the smell of burnt starch is so going to linger after this is over. not the worst thing their apartment’s smelt like, to be fair, but still bad. 

he hears bin yelling something as he’s fiddling with the smoke detector, and barely registers him being addressed before the noise finally dies down. his ears feel numb, and his head throbs painfully. 

“yeah...i noticed,” he returns after staring blankly into the distance to rewire the busted circuits in his brain. it’s only after the last thought’s been wrangled back into place, that eunsang realizes something very obvious. “wait. how did you set pasta on fire. isn’t there like, water?” the frown comes from a mix of physical and emotional pain. 

@eunsangrk

spending time with family makes his mom happy, and its been jungmo’s mission to put a smile on that woman’s face as often as possible since his father left them. sometimes it’s at his own expense, like agreeing to family dinner with his new stepfather who hates his guts. other times, it’s not so hard and maybe he even manages to enjoy it himself. right now, he’ll tentatively categorize the experience as the latter. eunsang is his cousin, and younger, but not so annoying as it might sound on paper. they might not have a ton in common, at least not that jungmo knows of, but the boy has a laidback attitude and is easy enough to get along with.

plus, the family had asked him to keep an eye out for the kid. jungmo doesn’t quite grasp what exactly they expect him to do, but at least he can hang out with him sometimes and keep him company.

he appreciates the gesture anyway, and he does he best to accommodate woong in his schedule. it’s awkward though, as eunsang taps away quietly on his laptop working on his latest song as his cousin had previously dismissed his attempts at being a good host. his attention is split between the project and the other person in the room, but thankfully, he speaks up first. 

junho thought about wearing a scarier costume but at eunsang’s reaction to his outrageous costume, junho breaks out in a wide smile. it was definitely a good choice that he went with the alien-human combo. he’s happy he chose a costume that could elicit such a good reaction. he’s always liked halloween as one of his favorite holidays and his goals were simply to have a good costume that people enjoyed be if it was scary enough or just plain brilliant in general. “hehehe, don’t worry, pal! i got you!”

“oh, sure! i’ll go first and then i’ll take a picture of you, okay? make sure you upload it to instagram later. we’re the age of social media so it’s like our thing to be putting everything out there on the interwebs.” before he could even finish his entire sentence, junho’s already waddled up to the front of the gates with a peace sign held up to his face, ready with his pose. “capture my good sides. my whole face is my good side, hehehe.”

“you sure have ‘got me’,” eunsang straightens back up, though still out of breath. looking at the costume again makes a giggle start up in his throat, but he manages to suppress it this time. perhaps he’s building up an immunity to it already. 

he pulls out his phone as junho gets in position, struggling not to take a video of the cute waddling instead. “sure, sure,” he assures his friend. social media hadn’t been high up on his list of priorities before moving to korea, but meeting everyone had got him into the trend. “wouldn’t it be bad if the aliens saw your costume? if they were hypothetically on instagram,” he says mindlessly before snapping a couple of pictures. “they might get offended or something. or maybe they’d find it funny too,” he shrugs off the little tangent. 

@eunsangrk

if minhee’s being completely honest, he doesn’t believe in ghosts. among all the random superstitions people could believe in and they believe in … ghosts? he doesn’t quite get it. the scariest things are humans, but when he’d told his mother that she’d just slapped him at the back of his head and told him to hurry up and wear his costume if he wanted to meet up with his friends on time.

he’s dressed as a guard from area 51 (a long story, really –– or well, maybe not that long at all. he decided to go with something that probably wouldn’t require much effort and was funny; he likes to keep up with meme trends after all). 

point being—he came to this event severely under-dressed. not even like a shitty costume or anything, no. he’s come dressed in an outfit so casual, it might as well have been on a mannequin in front of h&m. it wasn’t that he missed the festive mood train or anything, but he had forgotten about the holiday all together until it was too late to go costume hunting. a disappointment, he knows, but hey, at least he gets to hang out with his friends.

rkzombienight starter for @eunsangrk

junho doesn’t like to celebrate a lot of holidays but halloween’s one of the holidays where he’ll actively go out of his way. finding a costume, eating candy, scary movies and everything else associated with it. the halloween aesthetic is a personal favorite. it’s why he chooses to go with some friends to zombie night hosted by cnet korea. he makes his way on over to seoul station where the event was being held.

“i can’t,” eunsang’s wheezes in response to the question, attempting deep breaths but failing every time he looks back at his friend. “i can’t breath. i’m literally going to pass out,” he grins as he rests his hands on his knees. “if anything happens to me i’m haunting you.”

        see, here’s the thing:  if this is a scam, and they take this object as the woman so vehemently demands, then she can accuse them of theft, and they can get in a lot trouble.  it’ll be the shop owner’s word against theirs, and seeing that this little town speaks primarily in another dialect, it’s only fair to assume that officers in the area would listen to a fellow resident over them.  that’s just not a gamble he’s willing to take.

        “put it down,”  he tells eunsang, eyes narrowing on the woman.  “we’ll take our leave now, thank you.”  he grabs a hold of eunsang’s wrist then and tugs them toward the exit—only to be stopped by the shop owner once more.

        ‘it seeks misfortune,’  she echoes.  ‘you touch it, you will take it.’

        “and what happens if we don’t?”

        she bristles, muttering something in her own tongue before motioning at the jade pendant.  ‘do as i say.  i will not report for theft.’

        his skin tingles at the familiarity of the last comment, but he pushes any inkling of fear down and tightens his grip around eunsang’s wrist.  “just take it.  let’s go.”

        the shop keeper doesn’t stop them this time as they make their way out.  and it’s only then, when he sucks in the dry air, that he realizes he’s been holding in his breath.  “that … what the hell was that?  was she on drugs?”

eunsang sets the pendant down quickly in compliance with zhengting’s words. his nervousness rises with the stern tone of the other’s voice, especially as he’s grabbed and tugged along out of the store. he wonders just what the old lady’s problem is, with the way her eyes bulge out in panic as she stops them from leaving. more words are exchanged between the two, and for the first time in awhile, eunsang feels like a lost child again. he could pick out bits and pieces of the conversation, but the topic sounds nonsensical anyway. 

he opens his mouth to interject, but she gestures at the pendant again, and he looks at zhengting curiously. the older seems defeated, as his grip around eunsang’s wrist tightens almost painfully, but he’s more worried about the situation. is she that mad that he had touched it? it’s a store isn’t it? aren’t you allowed to pick things up? is this a culture difference thing?

he’s a bit hesitant to retrieve the pendant after everything, but chooses to trust zhengting’s words as the item finds its way back in his hand. its cool feeling feels more sinister than anything now, and he swears it’s sapping his body heat. not the worst thing that could happen in this weather, but hopefully it’s just his imagination anyway. 

junho lets his gaze wander around them to soak in everything. there’s a quiet grin upon his face. at whom or what is the question. scattered about here and there are a mixture of the busker performers; the excitable ones who seem like they’ve done this kind of thing before and of course, the nervous ones who seem like they could pass out at any minute. one of the nervous ones has a grip on junho’s free hand, but he doesn’t mind. it’s just eunsang, after all. 

his occupied hand is carrying a camera that’s meant to be for his vlogging purposes. he’s hoping to get enough footage of today and film his friend busking. however, he stops filming for now and squeezes his friend’s hand for reassurance. “even if the entire crowd doesn’t like it, you still have me. i know i’ll like it but if i catch anybody booing you, i’ll fight them myself. it’s a promise, yeah?”

like a puppy, junho tilts his head at the mention of their other friend. he came in with the other but the boy just up and disappeared from his sights. oh well, he’s certain that once it comes time for eunsang to go on stage that minhee will show up. junho shakes his head. “yeah, don’t mention, buddy. what are friends for? but for real, you really gotta stop worrying. it’s so not cash money of you. we’re trying to be cash money, remember?” 

there’s a slight pause after his last comment before junho’s eyebrows furrow together. “sorry, was that weird to say? i’m trying to figure out a new catchphrase for my vlogs, but nothing’s been sticking.” he sticks up straight and clears his throat before a bright smile overtakes his lips. “heeeey, let’s get cash money~ it’s your pretty boy, chacha, here and welcome back to my channel!” his expression changes back to normal and looks expectantly at eunsang. if he was trying to get his friend’s mind off of the busking festival for a quick second, then he hopes his intentions were clear. 

eunsang smiles sheepishly as junho reassures him, feeling the nervousness in the pit of his stomach settling down already. “don’t actually fight people...i don’t want you to get in trouble,” he jokes gently, though he’s about thirty-percent sure junho might actually go for it—maybe film it for his channel or something. 

“yeah, i—” he pauses and blinks in confusion at the ‘cash money’ phrase, eyes wide as he stares at junho for an explanation. “but like, what does it even mean?” he furrows his brows, trying to process it in his mind. “we’re not getting paid, are we?” well, maybe junho is indirectly after he uploads the video from today, but eunsang’s doing this for free. 

as junho does his intro, though, he bursts into laughter at how ridiculous it sounds. he doesn’t want to make junho feel bad, in case he actually means it, but it escapes him before he can stop it. “i hate it! how did you just say that out loud publicly?” he wishes minhee had been here to hear it. “are you actually going to use that? please don’t,” there’s an amused smile on his face though, clearly having too much fun with this. “you sound like a rapper or something.”

hey everyone! i really need to plot more in general for eunsang soooo this is a plot call! there’ll be more info under the cut but please like this post if you’re interested in plotting or threading with him! this includes both new faces and old ones if you wanna start up a new thread based off previous plotting, or just start anew!

i’m available through tumblr ims but prefer discord if you use it! i’m fine with either though.