[ YUKWON ] : OUR PROTAGONIST FINDS HIMSELF BATTERED ON A ROOFTOP.

The stars are bright. 

There’s blood on his hands. The iridescent blue sheen drips off the tips of his fingers as he begins to think:

The stars are bright. 

A breeze blows through the dark waves of his hair to remind him to breathe. The crisp frozen air fills his lungs in a way that sends shivers over the graying overtones of his skin and he thinks:

The stars are bright. 

His eyes once so vibrant in pools of milk chocolate fight for a seat in his irises against the ink that spreads across the veins in his eyes. It threatens to seal away the humanity that clings to the water's surface - emotions welling. His tears mimic his blood and they drip off the edge of his jaw and onto the edge of concrete. Again, he thinks:

The stars are bright. 

Fear. Comfort. Illusion. He yearns for the twinkle of lights among the canvas of a black night. They remind him of her. That girl. Her name sat on the tip of his tongue the way he sat in her apartment so many years ago. Is that her? he wonders. Is that her? Because:

The stars are bright.

Blinding. A memory shifts to the forefront of his mind and he remembers the last time she stared at him. The last time she stood where he stood and he wonders if she thought the same thing. 

The stars are bright. 

It’s been so long. Would she remember him? 

The funny thing about death is that the world becomes brighter. 

The stars.

it's envious of the starlight that splashes across the concrete. and when it inhales it swallows everything , greedy but languid in its being.

it just gulps and bellows around you little star, it knows it will envelope you too.

but everything worth something means nothing once all the light goes out.

it says it likes to suffocate its victims.

every person or thing knows everything that there is to know, but still, it is sneaky when it eats .

and well, the taste of existence becomes like a fever that clings desperately to it, after all they are one and the same.

destructive. lazy. intense.

it wants to hug you.

instead it seeps into the fiber of what makes you real.

but its the unsettling pleasure it gets to run right through you. it gets a longing for your tears that cascade seamlessly inside it.

"give in," gasoline trickles , then floods out a lead pipe. it threatens to burn you for being so bright.

luckxmi‌:

Minhyuk reached into the truck, unlocking the door from the after squeezing his arm inside the half rolled window. Opening the van, immediately the smell of familiarity washes over him but he doesn’t stop there, grabbing the half drank water bottle from the holster and unscrewing the cap. “Here, let me see it,” he doesn’t wait for the other to give him his hand or his permission though, taking it in his own once he’s back outside that van after having disappeared inside momentarily. The hand he holds face up in his, he thinks hes always craved to touch them so simply, with ease, like right then, brushing the back of it gently as he pours water over the cut across his wrist.

“Hurts? Eh not really…” He gave his hand a hard shake in annoyance after withdrawing it from the box in the truck. The jagged cardboard edge had made a clean thin laceration that encircled his wrist nearly the full way around. Irritating certainly and would probably burn like the entirety of Hades later, but he’s had worse and definitely done worse to himself just living from one day to the next as he invariably did. 

At least the damn box fit in the truck now…

The surprise on his face was genuine, when Minhyuk reappeared with the water bottle in hand. He started to open his mouth in protest, but the other man already had his hand out and was pouring water that had gone warm from the heat of the van over his superficial wound. Resigned to the makeshift first-aid session for the moment by his impromptu nurse, he explained the futility anyway. “I’m fine really Lee-san. I mean I’ve done worse just teaching the kids at the center, so it’s no big deal. It’s just a paper cut honestly. Probably will close up all on it’s own by the time I’m on the road again. Thanks for the concern, but you really don’t gotta go through all the trouble, my skin’s made of pretty tough stuff.”

“Hey what’s this brand? I’ve never seen these before.” Already the cut on his wrist was half forgotten, and Kaisei reached with his other hand for the beer bottle the shop owner had perched on the van bed. It was definitely not any he’d had before. He set the bottle back with a smirk. “This is generous of you Lee-san, really—but to tell you the truth, I’ll probably just keep the beers, and take ‘em home. The community center is gonna have enough trouble as it is monitoring the wine consumption tonight.”

“Anyway…” He nodded thanks again for the water, before simply sticking both hands in his pockets casually. “You should come by tonight’s event. I’m sure the director at the center would be happy to thank you in person for supporting us. Bring your family too. I teach the self-defense for ladies and shinshin toitsudo for kids. You can sign-up your wife, sister even your mom and the kids, I promise they’ll be in good hands in my classes. No punched in boxes or nothing like that!”.  

When he said that it didn’t hurt, Minhyuk doesn't push it, capping the water bottle quickly soon after, though he would have rather kept his hands on him and continued to wash the cut until the water ran clear. Minhyuk, with both hands now on the half full bottle in his palms however was still enamored with weight of the wrist and how it felt to simply touch. “It’s too bad we don't keep first aid kits with us though,” he breathed out, shaking his left hand off the water that hadn’t immediately evaporated in the heat like he thought it should have with just how hot it was. “Bright side, you got everything inside the truck and you get free beer.” 

Minhyuk pushed the hair from his eyes, resting this time against the truck and hearing the boxes squeak slightly just from all the extra weight. He paid them no mind honestly, though the metal against his back was hot and burned all the way through his shirt. The feeling didn’t hurt much, the real ache was in his chest, and the turbulence that settled there and gradually increased like a school boy crush. It was something he’s only ever felt every once in a while--and only when his eyes found moments in time like gems he’d very much like to keep. “However-” he shifted slightly, feeling himself slip, shirt riding up uncomfortably until he moved to pick up one on his own. “I’d prefer it if you shared one with me,” he finds himself thumbing the label, the moon already starting to sweat to match to atmosphere. 

190808 MH TWITTER UPDATE

190808 @ JIMMY KIMMEL SHOW

we have different personalities, but in a harmonious way, i’d say. anyway, we were booked to play at the festival as a duo; and we decided we wouldn’t have any rehearsal.                                                                                            - benny green

“On the surface, LEE MINHYUK is a twenty-six-year-old WINE AND SPIRIT SHOP OWNER. Dig a little deeper and you’ll discover that he’s also a HITMAN andSALESMAN that goes by the alias LUCK. His allegiance lies with HYDRUS.”

《 WHO ARE YOU? 》

“Who are you?,” her voice is soft, lacking the sort of incredulous tone that Minhyuk was accustomed to hearing on days where there was more than just venom laced on his tongue. Pool blue reflects off her dark brown eyes, her lashes inky and water heavy but he’s distracted by the way she tucks a section of her hair behind her ear.  “Minhyuk,” a smile paints itself on his lips, gentle and infallible as he tucks his arms further across her son’s chest and with a plop, plucks him out of the water, earning him a feathery light giggle from the two year old. “You’re Hideki’s mother?” he stifled his own laugh, it settles down, bubbling quickly in his chest, a soft, breathy chuckle and a question rhetorical in nature. “It’s a first,- you drop him off usually, did you finally get a Friday to yourself?“the toddler climbs his charcoal grey singlet to play in Minhyuk’s damp hair, yanking it into a long sprout to match his own, his feet pooled in the collar of it for more purchase Minhyuk’s own hands don’t offer. 

The demure expression she makes, perhaps embarrassed by her workload shows also in the way she fiddles with the shoulder of her one piece bathing suit and bobs further into the chlorine stained waters. ”I wanted to make time with him, he’s always trouble without his mother,“ Attractively so, he catches glimpse of a pair of beauty marks,– diagonal from each-other above the swell of her chest, rippling water distorting their edge. The Yeongi Community Center however, is bustling with noise and he barely hears her over the sound of the other children, some of which he glances over his shoulder to look out for, their adventurous habits too much for even their own parents, but not for an energetic Minhyuk. He speaks louder, his voice is only slightly lower in intonation when he slips into fading familiarity of Japanese, slightly out of practice from his more youthful years.   ”I volunteer, two days a week — the sessions are only an hour long, but it’s long enough to learn Hideki? He loves water more than snack time!“ she seems impressed, pressing her palms together in anticipation for more of that casual, social intimacy that she can relate.

《 HOW DID YOU GET HERE? 》

”How did you get here?“ she looks worried despite her acknowledgement of her son, her gaze aimless as she reaches out for him when Minhyuk winces from a particularly hard yank to his choppy bangs. ”A-aah, –“ he squints, water trickling down through his lashes, burning his left eye. ”Born n raised, you haven’t been here long huh?“ Minhyuk snorts, his brows furrowed and his forehead wrinkling as he dips under the water fully. Hideki’s soft plump belly smacking the water lightly above him and he slaps his tiny palms down on Minhyuk’s head in retaliation, excitement of the water reaching him once again. Hideki laps forward, and this time Minhyuk earns a well endowed kick to the chin when he resurfaces. He laughs, wiping the water from his face with an open palm. The toddler makes his way back into his mother’s arms, and floating does he cutely gurgle and blow spit bubbles at them both.

Individually, everything is doable — the throbbing bruises on his neck that Hyungwon desperately wants to ask about, the blood on his hands that looks and feels dried yet he keeps finding more in other places of his defeated state, and the absence of space awareness as he falls over the bed. Idiot. “Did you hurt your right arm, too?” He asks; clearly unimpressed with the turn of events. Straightening the patient is harder on him due to his lack of physical prowess, but the nurses have it covered. Looking around after he’s offered an inconspicuous tablet of relief to the bedded man, one of the nurses has completely left the curtained space before he came to the realization of it, having already cleaned the patient’s arms in his wake, and the other two are teetering on the edge, deciding whether to finish the job or go help the onslaught of wrecked bodies. Just go. He thinks with miffed features, borderline glaring, yet his thoughts seem to have voiced out as their backs become mere memories. 

Hyungwon can take care of a sorry-looking patient just fine on his own; all dead weight adrenaline and slurred words. But with the sound picking up around the emergency room — demands for help, groaning, tables-on-wheels passing, needle inserts, and the yelling of nurses over it all in attempt to communicate effectively — he feels like he should be somewhere else, with someone else, and not absentmindedly trying to relax his current patient by massaging his shoulder and left arm, but that’s what Hyungwon’s hands automatically played into, as soon as he heard arm and attack in the same cursed sentence, since civilians prefer not to hurt, and he equally prefers not to hear more screams ringing in his ear drums at the moment; especially not mere inches away. He has other methods for dealing with a popped off arm, the limb that hangs uselessly at the side that he’s seen and taken care of far too many times in his albeit short career — hippocratic or eskimo techniques would work just fine, but he needs another person here, spaso, but this man isn’t going to stay still as far as he can tell, then there’s always kocher’s method, the oldest trick in the book with the highest success rate and equally as painful.

Despite his wonderful options for administering pain in the guise of healing, he instructs the patient to breathe with him in calm, soothing motions, and away from the distractions of his shoulder with talks of what Hyungwon’s going to do about his wounds; heal them, of course, but he takes him through the tedious process and soon enough pops his joint back in place in one, painless motion before fishing out a sterile bandage from his lab coat to start properly treating the man’s wretched arm. “Mind telling me what you did to get that purple around your neck?” He enthused, because knowing how these things occur is more of a joy for him than trying to patch it. “Be a doll and don’t spare the details,” he smiles for the first time that day; no matter how strange it might be in the circumstances.

If Minhyuk is honest with himself, he feels like absolute shit. He should have drank a six pack or bought something less messy and more like seeing clouds of smoke and feeling nothing but niggling awareness and maybe wanting doughnuts--and getting those fucking doughnuts instead of whatever crack pipe show this was. There’s probably spit or blood on his face, he’s not sure, and looking around the small makeshift enclosed space there’s no mirror for him to look at either.  He wondered if it were always like that, never a glimpse to see just how fucked you are, more surprise for when you get home with all the gauze and cotton they patch you up with. The idea is unsettling in theory, it’s not a kind thing to do to patients, -- hysteria is best dealt with under watchful eyes he knew,  but maybe they want to fill the shit hole with patients going through mental breaks too. More money to line their pockets with at least, -- more pills to pump, anesthetics and needles to buy, beds to fill.  He thinks he feels sick, and maybe it’s the thought of the doughnuts, but the sweet idea of them and the smell of bleach churned his stomach sour, despite the fact that he hadn’t eaten since the other day. So maybe, it’s the ethics -- or the way arms and wire thin fingers pull him from his marble grave and help him stumble back onto that bed,  metal bars up. But he doesn’t care about ethics, or patients or corrupt facilities-- but he cares about getting in, and getting out,  people minding their fucking business, people not touching him all at once, with emptiness in their palms and disdain in their voices. 

“Leave,” there’s not a grateful syllable in the way he speaks and, pushes the nurses away from him with his free --only usable hand, and had it not been for his fucked up shoulder, he would have gladly done it with two. He was in no mood, at least, not any more for games--for going over more information that was already easily accessible via the internet or data systems. Yes he smoked occasionally, no he didn’t do drugs, Yes he was allergic to stupidity, no he didn’t have a history of high blood pressure, but if he had it now, it was because of them, and this, and the entire situation. He was tired, he was hurting, he didn’t want to be here, they didn’t want to be here, so if that was the case, they could leave him alone with the only person capable of offering him anything else but truth be told, he didn’t want him touching him either. The nurses barely move, --they stumble back a bit, maybe in fear of being hit, one shielding herself with the other, but it makes him more angry. More of those flashes beneath his eyelids, more of that pounding incessant noise in his ears. He wanted it to end, and shaking pills at him was not helping, the actual fuck was tylenol going to do, nothing,  not a damn thing. “You know what would be great, oxy, percs, hell even vicodin, you have any of that?” 

“yeah, but mi-ah’s legs aren’t.“ she says with a small sigh and looks up at minhyuk just to prove their height difference. it was about a solid 10cm in her opinion, but they never really checked it, hyunmi wasn’t that petty. at his comment about the smell of sugar, she can’t help but smile and inhale, just to make sure he wasn’t making things up, and it was true. it smelled like hot chocolate, like vanilla, strawberry, it almost made her mouth water, because yes, she really liked this kind of thing. she couldn’t handle her liquor, neither did she like caffeine, so sugar was a good drug in her opinion. legal, and most of the time harmless.

“yes, oppa, i do. strawberry milkshake, with some chocolate cake? it’s amazing. “ hyunmi answers, going on her tip toes and trying to look over the line but failing, and quickly dropping her heels back to the ground. her hand still stays around his wrist, fingers a tad loose, but holding his hand there on her shoulder. “plus, you said we should come and visit this place, after all, you promised to treat me to something.“ she points out, giving his wrist a squeeze before finally letting it go and lifts her other hand, folding her arms over her chest as she smiles at minhyuk’s comment about carrying her. “it’s okay, you always carry me, i just have to ask politely.“ she teases, looking yet again at the male and leaning into his side teasingly, body pressed against his for a short second before leaning away from him and looking at the line as it starts to move “see, it’s moving quickly, no need to be sulky over waiting a bit.“

When Hyunmi looks at Minhyuk like she did right now,  he probably felt how jello felt when some six year old gives it a good, rambunctious shake and he often wondered if she knew what the soft browns of her eyes did to his knees, to his heart. Not many girls, -- women were like her, that made him feel childish enough to even want to pull her hair in retaliation to her charms, ( and maybe if she did sport those pigtails today he would have yanked out a rubber band or scrunchy and tie his own bangs up with it, knowing how difficult it would have been for her to get them so perfect the way she always did. ) “Well hurry up and have a growth spurt already and i won’t have to pull you along or piggy back you,”  he reaches down to try and tug on both of her ears,  because he could,  because they were there and he wanted to touch her too without her permission.