#;act

@ihkihyun​

[february 13th, 2012]

It’s been a bad day.

The morning started with a broken plate, little slivers of glass cutting thin lines against his fingertips as he cleans up while on the phone with his mother. She’s crying about his dad getting snapped by the paparazzi again, with a costar this time, and he tears up too - for her and for himself. It’s unlike him to be so clumsy, his hands were normally so steady and sure. That leads to some almost trips, startling, but more or less harmless even when he refuses to double knot his laces out of pure stubbornness. That is, until he drops the bundle of sketchbooks tucked under an arm as he walks out of cafe after a meeting. It takes ten minutes of paper chasing for him to give in.

So yeah, it’s been a no good, very bad day for Uui.

There are ten different pastries set up on the table in front of him, a variety of miniature cakes, tarts, and pies. Four different drinks, hot and cold, a rich mocha, one very strong espresso, a glass of milk, and one strawberry smoothie. He looks only a little ridiculous in the corner all alone in his oversized grey hoodie and messy white blonde hair, slowly chewing on cake as he used the end of his sleeve to wipe over big tears before they could drip down.

@ihhanbin

3 AM is his golden hour.

If golden hour meant his prime time for scrolling through weird youtube videos and random soundcloud artists, leading to tab after tab in his browser window until he couldn’t even read the page titles. There’s Ai sitting beside him, idly batting at his own shadow created by the glass yellow lamp on the corner of his desk.

By 4, everything starts sounding the same and Ai’s tired himself out trying to chase the reflecting light of Uui’s silver bracelet, settling for taking up 55% of the desk space for a good nap. Nothing intrigues him until 5 AM rolls around, he spends a good half hour or so listening to every track uploaded by itshanbin. If he’s honest, it’s not mind-blowing, it’s not even that good - just pretty decent, but Uui can hear something that’s convincing enough for him. He doesn’t make this a habit, he’d learned early on that it usually ended up in more negative consequences and headaches than he could handle, but - he’s willing to risk it.

So it starts like this:

xuui

-  Hi,

Your music has a lot of potential and I would be really interested in doing some work together.

Let me know if you’re up for that?

Here’s my website and email:

W: shin-uui.com

@jieunih

december 3rd, 2013. 

It’s colder in Seoul than it is in London this time of year, or at least that’s what he feels like, standing on the mountainside with Jieun’s hand held tightly in his own, watching the other guests paying their respects. They’d both already had their turn to bow, the wet, dirt stains on his black trousers a clear sign of how long he’d spent on his knees. 

Men aren’t traditionally supposed to cry during funerals, they’re supposed to be emotionless, and while he’s typically skilled at masking his feelings, he can’t seem to help the way his eyes keep watering (he blames the cold when his mom hands him her handkerchief later). He looks over at Jieun to see whether she’s crying or not threads their fingers together to hold on tighter, shifts a step closer to her. 

The funeral lasts hours, until everyone’s noses are bright red from the cold, and Uui is pretty sure his feet are permanently frozen in his shiny black Diors. Jieun has it worse, a hanbok provides hardly any insulation even on a mildly breezy day in Spring and his wool coat isn’t going to be enough to keep her just moderately warm. It’s a relief when everyone starts filing down the mountain and when he turns back to take one last look, the grassy mound, no matter how elegant it looks with all the flowers and the offerings, seems lonely. 

                            Knowing Ronan.