너란 목줄을 채운 난

MUN INFO

name/alias: belle age: 21+ pronouns: s/h timezone: gmt+9 discord: just ask!! little trivia fact about yourself: i am incapable of pouring water into a cup evidence by the fact that i just poured it all over my counter instead, like, 5 minutes ago.

CHARACTER INFO

character name: kang moon (he is basically the same from v1 ug if anyone was here except i changed the romanization bc i got tired of saying hi this is mun’s mun hahaha, it felt like i was in cashier hell being told the price is 0 bc there’s no sticker) stage name: he just goes by moon age: 28 zodiac sign: virgo sun / cancer moon / pisces ascendant 🔥 group/band/position: solo_02 info links or quick points about your character: his about page / his info page plots or any development you’d like to see for your character:

i’m a sucker for antagonistic plots and moon has a personality that can easily cause…conflict. so anything rooted in some kind of problem that blows up, or a long-time grudge, or a short-time grudge, or anything that involves someone punching him in the face i am down for.

friendships that feel a little one sided. can go either way, really, depending on circumstances. either moon doesn’t afford them as much attention as he could, or he decides to fixate on them and invests too much into the friendship.

he also gets jealous easily, so despite him pretending that he’s just Too Good For Fame he doesn’t actually think that at all and might act like a dick to someone hitting above his average within their music scene depending on their interactions or how well/not they mesh.

alternatively, will definitely try to leverage Their fame to help him. he is on instagram Way too much and he Will try and sneak his face onto other people’s feeds. moon Loves having fake friends when it can further his own career.

moon is/was very much a serial dater so if anyone wants an ex plot we can see if they would’ve dated, but i have a feeling it’ll have ended poorly. like i said, self-obsessed, likely was a trash bf once the honeymoon phase wore off. he tends to ignore any and all red flags in the self-proclaimed name of love. can be one of those people who goes from 0 to 100 way too fast. can also disengage just as fast if he decides he’s over it, so there’s really a lot of ways things could have collapsed spectacularly. girl or guy is fine, he’s into anyone that’s pretty, tho usually goes for people older than him. he doesn’t like the expectation that he should have to take care of Anyone other than himself. i’m open to current feelings for each other, neutral or friends or hatred etc.

people he vibes with music-wise, who he enjoys throwing ideas back and forth with or kind of hanging out and jamming around together.

i’m pretty flexible plots wise, i just do prefer things seeped in drama, angst, antagonism, etc. mun is pretty High Energy, High Emotion and he does Poorly when someone isn’t giving him their full attention or acts too cool to be around him, he’ll just dramatically exit and never return.

“or i guess we can do both,” he amends, because it’s not like he’s likely to sleep as soon as they get to moon’s cramped apartment. they make their way down the street; the doors of the store open with a whoosh. “i think i want, like, sour gummies or something. fun stuff. your bread is so boring.” a squeeze to mun’s shoulder so accompany that last comment, to make sure the delivery comes across as teasing instead of picky. “i guess if we’re here already we should probably get something for breakfast, too.”

“Yeah, well. Why would I want to sleep when it’s still basically your birthday?”

The clock might’ve officially rolled them into the next morning, but it never feels like that until the sun starts settling across the city, leaving night to lock itself up in murky memories. “It’s still dark, so it counts.” Moon says it just in case Sungbin tries to start up an argument on technicalities. “And anyway, birthdays are more fun than most regular days, so we might as well drag it out. Do you want more cake?” he’s pretty sure if they walk far enough on that turn to the right there’s a 24 hour Paris Baguette that must have something still left.

“I have plenty of time to get more stickers, and I’ve already gotten like, the blanket. So. You can’t convince me out of more caffeine. You just have to watch me make terrible life choices in real time.” he pulls his hands up in front of his face, fingers tipped into a square in a makeshift lens, a play-pretend version of a docu-drama he’s not famous enough for. (Ridiculous).

Moon’s arms are knocked back to his sides under the weight of Sungbin’s arm, and they veer toward the store instead of either A. Finding a cab, or B. Reorienting themselves enough to actually try walking home (it’s not that far, but Moon’s in new shoes with a rubbed raw heel and he’s guessing Sungbin doesn’t want to hear him complain about it for twenty-five minutes straight).

“I’m not going to buy regular bread, Jesus. But fine. Buy candy." He tosses a few bags of jellies toward Sungbin to catch, mostly goes unnoticed by the guy behind the counter who looks far more invested in whatever live stream he has propped open on his phone. “What d’you want for it then, noodles?” he asks in reference to breakfast, taps at the hollow-paper lid of a instant noodle cup as he walks further into the fluorescent spill of the cooler lining the back wall.

Containers propped up in an orderly-enough topple and Moon grabs two cans of coffee in the small heater near the register before he pays, cuts of the chance of Sungbin digging through his pockets for his card or a wad of cash with a “you can just carry the bag.” because that makes it even (everyone knows).

“Okay, home.”

At a bar, late, ft. Yena @cvetus

Moon’s got too many drinks in him, all sloshing together in a frothy mess that will lead to warped and water stained memories in the morning. Does he do it as much as he used to three, five years ago? No. Is it out of the realm of normalcy? Also no. That party habit sure took a long step to the side though, filed its way right into a ill-suggested coping mechanism without Moon even realizing it. It’s fine though, how many start-up musicians are willing to drink themselves into half the man they’re supposed to be? Who’s he to break the tradition.

They’d started off with more company. People whose faces he recognized, some he could match names to. Or songs, or venues, or off-kilter moments that started out the same as this one.  Another peels off, time culling the herd, and it should be urging him forward too. Off the bar stool, out the door, into his bed. He takes another sip instead, ignores the wobble of the room because everything’s been feeling so off balance in his life lately that it doesn’t matter if his vision finally decides to match.

At least Yena’s still there. Though he mostly knows why Yena’s still there. Keeps himself busy ignoring why Yena’s still there as he tries to work his way through whether or not he needs another drink.

(He doesn’t).

“You know,” starts, stops, and starts again. Gives his words enough time to catch up with his head. “You know. I didn’t know half those people.” it’s not a secret, it’s just that Moon has always talked an awful lot. Especially when drunk. There needs to be something to stop up all that silence with, it doesn’t matter if it’s meaningless.

“I guess I don’t really know you much either.” he concedes before he swallows down the rest of that drink. He knows Yena like he knows a lot of people; what she likes to eat, her favorite club, and who she says her favorite musicians are. Dig down deep toward anything that might matter and that’s a different story. Moon doesn’t really want her digging around at his feet either though, isn’t looking to make himself a willing body to topple backward into some manmade career-grave of a shock-article. He does her the decency of doing the same. 

“I guess that’s what makes everything fun, right? Nobody reads as nice once you really get to know them.”

Outside a club, late, ft. Sungbin, @sunneburn

It’s the kind of late where the pollution melds into atmospheric and the neon lights strung up and down the alleyway are buzzing themselves into ferocious life with a strained fizz-pop of electricity. It’s a regular sort of night, or, it should be. Rounding onto some prime-numbered early morning hell, but not light enough to figure out which yet. A club at his back with fractured music and staff waiting for the dregs of party-goers to go home. His tongue tastes like alcohol-soaked licorice sticks, but he’s not drunk. Maybe that’s the difference from regular. His head’s too clear, and when he skirts the dip of the chipped sidewalk he doesn’t stumble. 

Moon’s not at the point of his life where he can point to whether this is a good or a bad thing, the responsible drinking. It should be, responsible is right there in the name. Dousing his life in alcohol and half-hoping it catches on in a burn doesn’t fit neatly into boxes of responsibility-good, irresponsibility-bad, however, and so he just is, at the moment, mostly sober.

He fits a hand to the small of Sungbin’s back as he trails after him anyway, because that’s what he’s always done, and it seems a shame to break tradition. This is another one of those things that is regular but isn’t. Sungbin has been ever-present in his life for long enough now that he could close his eyes and give a dead-read for a police sketch artist. But it’s not regular, because things have been shifted forward, like a piece in a furniture set Moon hadn’t known was moveable, where it changes the trajectory just slightly enough. Caught wondering if it makes a difference at all. That conversation. That realization. 

“I want bread.” they haven’t found a cab yet, and Moon’s distracted by the 7/11 illuminated on the edge of the blocky cornered street. He’s not drunk enough to need it, but he still wants it. Or he wants to spend more time with Sungbin in the twilight-zoned span of time where the sun hasn’t dragged itself up yet, cast everything in a light that always feels more real. “And coffee.” He shouldn’t drink coffee, but there’s a great many things that Moon shouldn’t do. He does them anyway, with a stubborn drive that refuses to make much sense at all. 

sungbin:

at this point, he feels so sure that nothing will spill when he moves that sungbin shifts until he’s propped up against mun, head pressed to his side in a way that should feel awkward but is comfortable instead, at least until he’s awake enough to get up. “any fun stories from last night? gossip?”

Mun stretches, a lazy curve of of bone as he arches his spine closer. Seeks out comfort in physical touch (he always has), the weight of the warmth Sunbin provides, as fleeting a thing as it is. Like this, anyway. Dipping toes in the water of intimacy, under layer of clothes and barriers built out of the expectations of a platonic sort of love. The blunt drag of Sunbin’s nails as he imprints patterns across his skin nearly pulls Mun back into the comfortable embrace of sleep. Almost, because Mun’s tugging on fabric and pushing himself into motion. Unsticking Sungbin’s palm from his skin in a way that would’ve left Mun grumpy if it wasn’t half-done of his own accord (and he’s contrary enough where it might leave him grumpy yet).

“This is a form of bullying. I’m going to reveal your true nature to your fans.” a squinting glare, though Sungbin’s too busy rolling over to steal the heat Mun had left behind, buried in the blankets, to see. He wonders if Sungbin minds the smell of stale smoke and overwhelming floral of the new conditioner he’d bought (thirty percent off, would’ve been a bargain if he didn’t decide he hated it).

Mun shelves those thoughts though; if he doesn’t he worries at them the same way he might a hangnail. Picking and prodding and peeling until his finger is welled over in blood, skin hot and swelling. Mindlessly moves through a shower instead, replaces the taste of acid on his tongue with mint and lets himself doze into a daydream as he waits for the coffee to drip.

“Wow, thanks. I’ve never considered it before.” feigned surprise, leans into the joke along with Sungbin’s shoulder as he reorients himself back onto the bed. “You must’ve saved a king in a past life in order to be drinking my coffee now.” a quick laugh escapes from behind his teeth as Mun lets himself sink into a slouch, waits for the steam coiling off the top of the mug to lessen before he takes a sip. Small, hesitant, the kind of sip that reads of someone who’d burned their tongue in the near past. 

sebin​

She withholds a sigh of relief, softening her intensely focused expression into a friendly smile. The worst part is over. “Tonight was my first chance to see you live, actually. You were great.” 

Mun’s got one arm in the sleeve of a leather jacket. It drapes near the shoulder; worn, rubbed a raw grey. He fishes around the pocket with his other hand, is busy fumbling out a cigarette to smoke, order of operations nonsensical. He spares a laugh to one of his friends (read: acquaintances, what was his name again?) in between pulling just one out of the pack, nearly spills a few to the floor in his one-armed, clumsy process. “Can we smoke back here?” says a voice behind his left shoulder. No, and that’s a nice way of informing Mun of a rule without challenging his desired authority over this situation, the small sphere of his performance, this night. 

He’s testy coming off the stage post-show, and his tiny mass of friends (read: backdrop of people to set himself against) already know this. That unpredictable electro-jolt from high to low, supercharged emotions and Mun doesn’t do well with them in the best of circumstances, let alone when you add in an adrenaline rush and the adoration-fueled high of performing to a crowd of his fans. 

But there’s a party to go to, too many people, the promise of alcohol, and music to drown out the kind of thoughts that threaten a depressive stumble. He tucks the cigarette back behind one ear, a reminder to smoke it by the time they squeeze their way out back into the alley. Finally remembers to jam a hand through the other half of his jacket. Three steps down the hall and a presence acts as a pitfall. Keeps him stuck in place, stomach gnawing away at that undigested high; in a minute he’ll be hungry for more, nothing to satiate that apatite. Mun hates feeling empty.

“Oh, yeah. Sure, of course.” one hand slips into his pocket, touches the hard edge of plastic, a lighter. Wraps a few fingers around it almost compulsively. That knowing that in four and a half minutes he’ll be able to slip outside and smoke. Throw his body headlong into bad habits and the promise of an addled mind. “I’m Mun, you played earlier right?” in reality, Mun is saying this based off assumption. He hadn’t been waiting in the wings watching the full setlist, he’d been sitting backstage posing for pictures and sneaking a few sips of grape soju before it was his turn on stage. 

“Thanks. You want a picture together or something?”

sungbin​:

more than that, and he knows he’ll get antsy, but for once he’s feeling relaxed – sleepy in a way that’s not tired, which happens so rarely he’s determined to keep a hold on it. but now that he’s thinking he can’t stop, so he tugs at the blanket until it’s covering his shoulder again and lets the quietude of the morning fade away. “are you hungover?” mun hadn’t seemed too drunk the night before, but that’s hardly any indication, and there must’ve been something going on for him to end up on sungbin’s doorstep.

“Mm, go back to sleep then,” the words all stumble off his tongue as sleep-clumsy as Mun feels. Sungbin, in profile with his eyes still closed, is familiar. It’s the kind of face Mun can drag to the forefront of his mind when recalling the past  — the past he wants to think of. Neatly stepping over all those hastily packed-up boxes of less-than picture perfect arguments, feelings he’d let consume him, them. It’s familiar in the now, too. They’re still close, Mun still occasionally falls asleep, his head a heavy (and perhaps obnoxious) weight on Sungbin’s shoulder. But now, half-asleep and tucked in the comfort of what feels like a waking dream, it's familiar in that old way. Artificially sweet, with that tang of addiction that always has Mun reaching out for more. 

He likes feeling nice (doesn’t everyone?).

The weight of Sungbin’s arm is welcome, and Mun ignores the stiff press of denim bunched up against his thigh. Lets himself laze in closer instead, seeped in the scent of Sungbin’s laundry detergent (that mostly drowns out the faint, stale smell of smoke that Mun had brought in with him, still sticking to his clothes from the night before). “Dunno, seems like it’s probably past eight or nine.” A guess with his back to Sungbin’s clock, and it has Mun wondering where his phone is. He hopes it’s still tucked into the pocket of the jean jacket he’d shed in a messy pile three steps into Sungbin’s apartment, but he doesn’t yet feel motivated enough to venture out of bed and check.

“Right now?” there’s a whining lilt that hovers at the end like a punctuation mark. One hand sneaks up, fingers plucking just barely at the fabric of Sungbin’s shirt near his shoulder, almost like he’s trying to find a loose string to pull. An excuse to touch; but that’s not new. Mun seems to be on a constant conquest in life to be attached to someone. Like they’ll keep him grounded, tied down to earth long enough that he won’t float away into the suffocation of his own head.

“So demanding.” grumbled into a wad of sheets when Sungbin’s arm slides away. A beat that last two slow, taffy-stretched inhales before Mun wedges himself up on an elbow and hides his yawn into his wrist. 

“You waiting until I sat up to say that is actually the worst. In case you wanted to know.” Sungbin’s eyes are fluttering shut again though, and Mun is pretty sure he’s not focused in on his voice. He’s not serious though, so it doesn’t really matter. Just reaches out to card his fingers through Sungbin’s hair like it’s second nature. Waits for the contented little sigh he knows will come from it before he peels himself out of bed. “Not hungover, I didn’t drink too much yesterday. Just didn’t want to go home.”

He might’ve taken up the belated offer to stay if he hadn’t rolled up to Sungbin’s house straight from an afterparty. Steals his shower (and leaves his hair damp), and then his mouthwash. Hunts through his drawers after too in search of more comfortable clothes to steal and kicks his own in a messy pile by the door to join his jacket (and phone, thank god). Coffee next, a quiet grind, and then a familiar path through Sungbin’s kitchen (because he knows how Sunbin likes it, it’s one of those things that will probably never leave him).

Sungbin’s apartment, mid-morning - ft. @ugksb

The sun melts in a glaze of thick caramel that streaks across their skin. A candy-sweet warmth that settles in a sticky pool that Mun finds hard to pull himself from. That alluring laziness of a morning without responsibilities. Toes curling in at the jut of an ankle, a tangle of sheets, the slow reorientation of consciousness prying Mun’s eyes open. And, in that way of waking up in unfamiliarity, it takes him a moment to shake away the dregs of dreams and sleep and the bliss of nothing. Mun happens to be quite familiar with the expectation of unfamiliarity in the morning, and so it throws him just a bit off-kilter when this brand of unfamiliar seems to be on the cusp of expected.

It’s too early to untangle those thoughts, the kind that require him to delve into his own mind and make sense of reality. Instead, Mun rolls over. Elbow knocks to ribs, startles out a shivering inhale from whoever’s sleeping next to him. But it’s not whoever, it’s Sungbin. His bed’s barely wide enough for the two of them, though they’re both fully dressed; Mun just beginning to realize the pinched discomfort of sleeping in jeans. 

This moment is familiar. He’s felt it before, lived it before. But this time he won’t reach out and wake him with a sleepy-mouthed kiss. That’s a memory locked in the past, something set to the tracks of a different timeline, that train having - proverbially - left the station. Instead, Mun tangles his fingers in a wad of blankets and skates his tongue across the backs of his teeth. It’s sour, and belies that soft morning haze. 

His memories of the night before are foggy, murky things. Threatening to drag themselves to the forefront of Mun’s attention like some great 80′s monster movie reveal, tied together with a Wilhem scream. He breathes in, tries to force them down deep, away from this time where everything seems...nice. If only because it’s washed over in familiarity, nostalgia. 

“Are you awake?” he says it only after Sungbin’s forehead creases, an annoyed flutter of his lashes. Mun’s voice is raw with the acidic remnants of last night’s bad decisions. 

“I didn’t annoy you last night. Right?”

At a club, drunk and desperate, ft @ugkaito

Mun is in his head, he has been for the greater part of the past two weeks. About his relationships, about his music, about his upcoming album he’s been working on. About being stuck between maintaining his fame and growing it, and then that all-consuming fear that whatever he constructs in this purgatorial time will ruin him completely. Lackluster, and not living up to the reputation he’s built up for himself. It’s unstable. It feels unstable. A ship rattling around in the middle of storm-chopped waves. 

It could be why he’s trying to drown out those thoughts more and more lately. Moors himself in at a club post-show of a friend’s band and pours more inebriation into the mix. Like that’ll clear everything up, keep him together and floating in bliss for a while longer. It doesn’t work though, not tonight. His thoughts circle him shark-like, starved and eager to consume; but what is left for Mun to consume? Is trapped in the crowded loneliness of 2 AM on a Friday night.

So what choice is there but to drink more? To try and flush himself out like the world’s most unadvisable detox. Is caught trying to fumble a skinny straw between his lips and drunk dial a friend at the same time when familiarity rings him like a bell. Kaito. Fucking Kaito. 

Mun says it, too, under his breath and lost to the music. “Fucking Kaito,” as if their relationship is anything but Mun’s own fault. 

It’s with a drunken confidence that Mun slinks his way over, manages to scrape the bottom of his soul for enough humility to greet him with a bashful sort of smile and a hand placed delicately to the joint of Kaito’s elbow. Mun is anything but delicate in reality, but whatever they were in the past wasn’t based in reality. It was a trip-wire spill into a notion of what they could’ve been if Mun were genuine instead of fame hungry and working an angle.

Proves he hasn’t changed much when his immediate impulse is to work one again. Curls the blunt tips of his fingers into Kaito’s bicep to keep him in place. He needs a producer. He needs a good producer. He needs a good producer that doesn’t hate him. And is Mun above throwing morality out the window to do so? Well, he’s already proven that no. He isn’t.

“Hey. It’s been a while. I’ve been thinking, lately, about calling you.”

sungbin

and it shows in this, too, in the way he’s giving sungbin an out he doesn’t need. “i’ll call if my affection for you suddenly decides to leave the premises. three quarter hours, so i can be back here around like…. one-ish? and then you’re stuck with me for an undetermined timeframe.” that means he’ll be back while mun’s still on clock, but it’s not like that’s ever been an issue.

“But you’re showing up and then disappearing before I’ve had my fill. Unfair. Pointedly unfair.” Playfully accusatory, though something in his eyes feels like Mun might believe in it, just a little. Maybe that’s part of why they never really worked out; is it ever possible for Mun to completely have his fill of someone before they’ve started to feel like they’ve been wrung out dry, clutched too tight and possessive in his grip? Boundaries are something he considers now though, but that consideration sometimes feels like a best guess. Like whatever they’re all drawn out of is comprised of some shade he’s color-blinded towards. Even now, he wants to reach out, curl his fingers around Sungbin’s wrist, shackle him in place. Keep him from splitting off and leaving. 

Boundaries. Mun tucks the coffee lid back and busies himself with swallowing down a mouthful instead.

“You know I hate that. I want too much.” Mun has enough sense to cast his eyes off toward a dust-covered display as he says it. Even he can tell he sounds entitled at worst. At best? Well, something pathetic, he supposes. Sungbin could assume the worst, he has every right too. Pulls his attention back only at that breach of physical space. Shifts enough to bump Sungbin, calms when it’s returned, something familiar enough to placate the stirrings of potential anxiety. The kind that grip and shake and usually send Mun into impulsively buying something new. Retail therapy and all that, an imitation of the real thing, but it starts to feel flimsy when he’s been around Sungbin for too long (and maybe that’s also part of why they hadn’t worked out, too).

“Mm, drink less coffee, maybe.” smiles up at him like Mun already knows the answer Sungbin will kick back at him. 

“But it’ll help my ego oh so much, I hear you like charity work.” A joke, and Mun laughs to himself as he pulls a half-step away from the counter. Almost turns to actually unpack the remnants of the product he’d started re-supplying earlier, but then Sungbin’s voice has him stilling. Mun sort-of hates when he gets like this, seeped thick in some kind of emotion that feels like too much for what they are (at least to him, but Mun knows all too well that he has an inability to keep himself from crossing over all those Boundaries). 

“Fine, just take it all on yourself to build my ego up higher then.” Mun reaches over to shove at Sungbin’s shoulder, jostles him enough that he breaks his gaze. “It’ll be all your fault when I have a full-fledged celebrity complex. Remember that.”

He finds the clock, nods more to himself than at what Sungbin’s saying. He wants to divvy it up in his head, figure out what percent it’ll work out to, whether or not Sungbin will be too exhausted to find him again in that nebulous span of an after. “Yeah, let me know. I’ll be here.” He thinks he will anyway, but now he has half a mind for a drink, a splash of something strong in a convenience store bottle of juice. He wonders, in this moment of knowing where Sungbin is going, if he would disapprove. If he knew all those rat-like thoughts scurrying around in his head, diseased and dirty. What would he say? But Mun doesn’t really want to know, so Mun doesn’t ask. 

haera​

she eyes him – he looks almost as bad as she feels. makes her wonder if he’s had a night as rough as hers; he should have, considering that he ended up in some shitty sauna instead of bae rina’s house (she, along with anyone with eyes and ears knows about his relationship or whatever the fuck they have going with rina. plus, she did have that encounter with rina in gangnam.) “you look like shit too,” she retorts, “but it’s kind of a look?” (haera doesn’t really know what she’s doing at this point, especially with a worsening headache but maybe, it’s a direct result of the horrors of her actions from the night before and a sick, twisted need for her to reclaim control and also, maybe, to piss a certain person off.) “do you want to post something on ig? make ‘em think we fucked or something.”

Everything’s rough. The sound of his voice, the creaky-jointed posture of his body. Haera’s expression, and her laugh that sounds a little too raw. The kind of pitch that comes from stomach acid welled up in places that it shouldn’t belong. Mun only knows because he’s been in that position, a sore throat to match a churning gut, angry and glaring back at the sun instead of himself (because it’s always easier, isn’t it?).

“Make me.” He says it only because she won’t, sways on her feet like they might be lost on the ocean instead of stuck to dirtied cement. His fingers flicker, that anxious tell of a craving, and it has Mun casting his eyes uphill once again, to the promise of nicotine that his (lost, apparently) vape pen can’t provide at the moment. He should cut back. On that and on energy drinks. On caffeine and compulsive spending. But once he starts piling up all those bad habits it seems overwhelming. Throws the blinds and ignores the construction of his eventual downfall (because it’s always easier, isn’t it?).

Mun nods instead of talking, funny, considering the pseudo-threat he’d just pushed out. But he’s banged up in his own right with a headache as a distraction, and so witty banter isn’t feeling like a winning skill at the moment. The quiet more of a comfort than his own voice, a rarity to be sure. “Sloppy chic is coming back in isn’t it? We’re just staying on trend.” That excuse sounds as good as any, and Mun will take near any reasoning he can’t to deflect away from the bad choices he’s constantly making. Like there might me some driving force or logical reason behind what he does, why he does it (because it’s always easier, isn’t it?).

“Now we all want to be 2000’s gutter trash.” he lifts a brow at the offer, tips his head down and drags fingers through messy hair. The chunks of blonde highlights he’d dyed in have started growing out near the roots. It probably doesn’t look as good as the stylist once intended, especially under the morning sun’s unforgiving glow. But photo-apps have filtered solutions for that. “I need to buy a pack, but sure, let’s take some pictures after.” Mun shakes his bangs out of his eyes, steps in enough that it might look to anyone that they’re close; he has a way of doing that, acting over-familiar. “Make it seem like we fucked and Rina will strangle me in my sleep. I’m gonna need a platonic vibe here.” the corner of his mouth quirks up as he says it, like it’s a joke. Like whatever intersectional web of flimsy relationships they all have mapped out isn’t completely fucked. 

jinhyuk

He’s immediately uncomfortable but, as he always does, he manages to keep an indifferent expression on his face. A leftover skill from his idol days, it serves him well being able to hide his emotions. He likes to think that it helps smooth over the natural awkwardness he worries he has when interacting with people he isn’t used to.

wonjae​

he stops mid-stride when he sees a wall sectioned off and covered in graffiti. he doesn’t remember it being there last week, but then again, his memory’s not the greatest. still, he points it out to mun. “look. that looks fuckin’ cool, huh? it would be a sick backdrop for instagram, too — should i take a picture of you? or do you want to take one of me?”

Mun’s relationship with money  — like all his relationships  — is excessive. Money, like water, is a resource. Money, unlike water, doesn’t flow free and unbidden hinged on a monthly ₩20,000 utility bill. Despite this, Mun has trouble in treating them differently. The only reason that his poor proclivities toward money haven't caught up with him yet is simply to his good luck, a handful of songs that churn out a small sum of money for him every now and again, and a part time job he has sense enough to realize would be unwise to give up on. 

So it’s rather unsurprising to find him tucked in between Wonjae and clothing rack, phone balanced precarious on his palm, threatening the chance of (another) cracked screen, almost like he wants to give himself an excuse to buy a new phone, even when he hasn’t paid this one off in full yet. 

“That’s cheap though, are you that broke?” Mun flicks at the ticket looped through plastic dangling near the collar. Not that he has any room to talk, has scraped to barrel and been late on more than one bill in his life. But that doesn’t mean he’s not usually wearing at least one piece of designer clothing impulsively bought, or even better, gifted.

“I don’t like this store anyway though, we can find somewhere else.”

The lack of hangers cluttering his wrist is indication enough of this, a rarity given Mun’s poor impulse control. Raises a brow at Wonjae and waits that pivotal beat to see if he’ll tuck the shirt away or stomp off and buy it like he’s proving a point. It disappears, and so Mun follows suit and slips back outside, into air churning its way into spring, thankful that he’d clawed out a lighter jacket when Wonjae had convinced him out of his apartment (not that it ever takes much). 

There’s a thrift store a five minute walk down, and it takes a moment to remember the way. Not that they even manage that before they’re sidetracked again. Paint scrawled vivid across the wall, and Mun, like a magpie presented with a shiny coin, stops to cock his head at Wonjae’s suggestion. Shoots him a brief look of incredulity at how the question’s posed. 

“Of course I want you to take a picture of me. I’ll take a turn as your photographer if you manage to take something decent.”

sungbin​

there’s a moment passing while he considers, then he shrugs. “i’ve got nothing else today if you want company after.” a fuckin’ draining day, indeed, and company would help alleviate that. “you stuck here ‘til closing or what?”

“Nothing says the high life like extreme discomfort.” The steam drifts up from his coffee, and Mun inches a finger along the condensation lining the cap. Sungbin’s music sounds like shit from four feet away and on earphones, but he doesn’t tell him to turn it off. Even if Sungbin liked it, would it be a comfortable silence? It’s not quite awkward, Mun thinks. Just different, a different he hasn’t been able to paint over in those wide, white stripes of a stripped past.

“You're doing the equivalent of socially blue balling me, I hope you know that.” he’s being dramatic, and he may very well whine as soon as Sungbin picks himself up to wander off, but Mun’s never liked measuring his friendships out in small doses. “What’s up, zombie boy — having trouble sleeping?” Mun reaches across the counter to play out a quick, two-fingered tap against the bony juts of Sungbin’s knuckles. Mun’s always been physical, he likes it more than talking. Explaining his emotions out with words that aren’t attached to a reworked song. So here he is, offering up his reassurance in the calloused nudge of his finger tips. 

At least Sungbin will understand that.

“I’ll have you know I’m an excellent third wheel. You’re just paranoid I’ll steal your date.” their tones match, just as wry and Mun hides his smile behind the coffee cup lid when he pops it back on and takes a sip. It’s laced with sugar, something he likely wouldn’t order for himself in the name of a diet. Something he’ll thoroughly enjoy in the circumstance of a gift he just cannot turn down. 

It quiets, enough so that Mun tries to pick out the words of the the next song on Sungbin’s phone despite the muffled bass that reads like static. He understands it all, where Sungbin’s going (not the song). He understood it back then, too. Understands their change, and while he can’t categorize between better or worse or anything in between, he just remembers he doesn’t like the taste of some of those memories. Much prefers the ones he keeps in an easy reaching distance, the kind of recollection that’s wearing nostalgia, a warped memory blurred under Mun’s heavy-loaded emotions.

Sungbin probably wouldn’t remember half of it the same. That’s the way that memories go, isn’t it?

“Mm, yeah. If you’re up for it.” Mun glances up at him from the corners of his eyes, tries not to make it obvious he’s hunting out his expression. Therapy isn’t always the easiest thing, that’s not what it seemed like sometimes, back then (and maybe that’s what’s still got Mun adamant on his refusal to try it out).