@iso1600 . . . !
the walkman's old. seonjae picked it up in some thrift shop where he found the thing languishing away in one of the plastic bins of older technology, in which he'd taken it back home, and carefully refurbished it as well as he could to shiny and new. it's a little banged up, but it works, and somehow the audio sounds.. different, better, in a way, and so seonjae gets a little attached to listening to any of his new tracks on it before he releases them. it's a bit of a routine for him, but he starts making other little tapes, too, importing playlists onto the ones he finds, and soon it goes with him everywhere in his pocket.
it's nice, to have something that he attaches his own memory to. he still only touches it with gloved fingersโ it was one of the few times he considered actually touching it without, after carrying it around so long, still wondering if it carried any memory of those who had loved it before him. but at the end of the day, it was seonjae's now. seonjae who had refurbished the thing, and carried it around with him, and listened to his music on it. so he made it his.
over the years, it's accumulated quite a few stickers. seonjae collects them out of coin machines and magazines and sticker sheets he finds and buys, even less remnants of memories before, just seonjae, now.
so when he gets seonyul to listen to it, it hadn't really been anything but his since he got it. he came around often, to nite rite, and seonjae had tentatively found friendship in the way he recognized the music seonjae played on the speakers, to dull out the long, empty hours. regular convenience store music got grating after awhile, and he got to the point that he was personally going to march into the back and ruin the speakers if he had to listen to the same five songs over and over againโ so, he'd figured out a way to hook up to the audio system, and play his favorite stuff.
he didn't expect anyone to recognize it, though. or to enjoy whatever he played. music had always been something he'd fled to in the moments where he felt lost for anything else, so to have someone else that understood that in a way, well. how could he not have him listen to what it sounded like on his walkman?
it's slid over the table, earphones in a tangled mess around the myriad of stickers and worn buttons. seonjae's on break, technically, a bottle of coffee sweating condensation and a discarded bag of chips he'd finished as they'd caught up.
"i added a new track on it. it's after this other song i found i thought maybe you'd like. i'm not sure about posting it, though.. it's like. i dunno. i haven't posted anything in a couple of months." he hadn't since he'd moved in, actually, because between it all, returning to music felt like a habit he did when he was running from things, and it's the first time he actually hadn't wanted to run at all. eunjae's with him, and he's never really cared for anything much past that, getting back to his sister and trying to move on.
his gloved fingers leave the walkman, and he sees a flash of pink. a bunny, he thinks, dangling off a backpack, led through the aisles. he's going to have to get up and ring the person up, since he's the only one here, even if he is on break. a glimpse of red, from inbetween the rows of chips, half paying attention to them in case they needed help.
a moment. a flash, and the walkman is gone off the table, a blur beside him when he doesn't look in time and the bells of the door are ringing, frame banging shut, figure gone just as quickly as seonjae had realized the table's empty.
"waitโ hey!"
