#throughandthrough.

[ x ]

turn it down. turn it down.

that’s what the walls must sound like. he imagines, and he laughs somewhere between the knocks on the door and the whines he makes out from memory. not that jaebin is a whiner, not that daehyun memorizes his noises. pfft. ha. fuck.

maybe he does. maybe he does but that’s not too weird. that’s proximity. that’s friendship and memory. that’s him.

he imagines, that jaebin’s hand is knocking on the side again. after agreeing to a shared apartment that means shared and separate space all the time. shared bodies, separate thoughts. that’s a friend thing, though they still share a few thoughts they’re a little disconnected in all. when daehyun comes home late, stays up later, and sounds like there’s a mini party in his room. a mini something. mini loathing, mini marathon of thoughts. or really just the sound of feet padding around so much as he dances drunk to a tune.

(he’s not a very good dancer)

he’s not good at this. bottling things. so he blasts them out, sings his throat dry but soft as ever.

daehyun imagines, this is when jaebin feels the least connected to him. when he stands a little too long on the other side of the wall. when the music mutes even though it blasts and he tries to make out even though he’s blocked. make out whatever daehyun’s trapped himself in ( as he himself makes out with a pillow ). such is life.

well not as it feels. life doesn’t look like this feeling. like this purple haze and drunk glow. the wavy kind. the 70′s show kind that they tell you doesn’t exist. the wish of bleeding moonlight that’s only the crack of an old lamp on the desk. footsteps to a tune that’s a more felt than heard. more bass than words.

that’s cool. he’s memorized it to the soul anyway.

'turn it doooooown' when he does turn it down he makes out the words. a little distorted. effects of the bass still ringing and playing. tricking daehyun into a past and from a reality. but, he hasn’t heard jaebin all day (false) so he tunes to him (true, always true).

'you’re not childish gambino.' jaebin’s voice does always have that whine to it. it’s got the usual confusion. the kind that lets daehyun know he’s a little weird but jaebin’s weird too so it’s weird enough. 

“but what if I was.” is what he says when he opens the door. 

‘we wouldn’t worry about the fine we’d pay for a noise complaint.’

fair.

“fair.”

daehyun’s washing up now. washing off sweat and weed ashes, wiping his face and bringing himself back into the reality. of approaching midterms and scattered responsibilities. he wasn’t escaping intentionally, though he does feel better after stepping out for a bit. or stepping in. away. whatever it’s called.

something.

anything.

tagged by: @pijichu, @jkbaws, @flowereum ( <3 ty! ) tagging: maaaaaaaaaaan idk @byeolsosa @hyeshire @thusvitaest @urbnissy @noryi

scribbles across a paper. worn by what they carry, light by how fresh. it’s seven am on a Tuesday morning and he can’t sleep. he’s thinking about an ache he doesn’t quite know, less familiar than the weight on his chest. not much of a weight, it’s pretty light right now. like her hair. she’s dyed it a lighter blonde - or is bleaching? daehyun doesn’t get the mechanics of all that, just that when he says he likes it she doesn’t seem to care. she even tells him she doesn’t.

“what are you doing it’s seven in the morning.” she’s husky voices and morning spills. kinda dirty, kinda lovely and the only thing he knows. “writing.” “well stop, your arm is waking me up.” he moves his arm some more. she laughs. he clears his his head for the moment.

in the beginning, ignorance is more than bliss. it’s beautiful and it’s limbs tangled and arms cold. it’s people pushing through and hope shining above all. it’s hope without reality.

in the beginning daehyun loved her and in the end he did as well.

the end comes close to a Tuesday morning. he’s not in bed, but he’s making one. call it dramatics but it’s something of a funeral, for hopes and a future. for a pair and for a love. she tells him she can’t bury what was never there. she tells him a lot of things but it’s all blurred into noise. he’s used to detaching, gently, never fully. it’s dark outside. like her eyes and if he were mad enough - like her heart. but he’s not mad. he’s confused.

“I thought you wanted this,” she pauses. he stills, smoke wrapped around his fingers. “I thought you wanted, to breathe,” ( a chest caved in ) “to forget,” ( a mind hollowed out ) now he’s got fingers wrapped around his wrists. words in his ears, a terribly replay. a sickening revelation. “to love.” ( she breaks him ). 

then she smiles. that pretty pretty smile that all the girls and guys have. the one that could build him up and now tears him down. she smiles over pieces and he’s got a melody running in his head, words crossing his eyelids.

memories and remembering them shouldn’t be this painful. it should be for some things but not this. it’s a bit like a light bulb, burning across his eyelids, trying to catch up with the rest of him, shattered pieces and all.

this particular morning, the weight sits heavy on his chest. it’s a morning where he doesn’t sleep, where he’s gotta try and make peace with everything flying around him. he makes peace in the form of notes and notes typed in his phone but his eyes and his body suffer. even though he breathes for the first morning the air is exhausting and relieving at the same time. he sucks on it in case it decides to leave again and makes his way to the pool a bag as an excuse for his hunched shoulders.

he’s supposed to be not first but close to it. but he’s running a little late. their captain’s been skipping as of late and everyone’s been a little on edge. 'oooh co-captain’s a little late today.' he tries. he really tries to bring a smile to his face and it comes, just takes more enough. enough to block the friendly undertone he’d been hoping for. the one he can’t seem to hear. 

everyone else gets it though. sees it and feels it with the steps he takes through the lockers.

‘it’s because he was out late last night.’ there’s an arm around his shoulder the minute his shirt’s off and it’s his captain. all smiles and apologies and things he hasn’t seen before. ‘right? you were out with - what’s that girl’s name....eunha? sunhwa?’ daehyun can’t process it fast enough to notice they’re walking towards the pool. he just shrugs into the hold, his smile sheepish and belonging to another version of him.

‘you know the best way to ease a hangover boys?” dae doesn’t see it coming and that’s probably for the best. he’s got two seconds, he breathes in when he realizes but he gets air first and water second. water so deep his feels it in his chest. the impact. the clearing out. he doesn’t realize he’s swallowed too much until he’s rising to the top. faster than he’d like but the ringing from the impact is enough. the yells and laughter when he rises is enough. 

daehyun spends his birthday in shame.

// @byeolsosa

i don’t wanna be alone tonight, so can you come with me i don’t wanna be alone tonight, can you keep me company

some things start out as an idea. simple and less complicated. daehyun tries to keep them that way. over-complicated things give him a headache. family stuff? business stuff? all that shit’s noise for his head, complicated and stressful. not the good noise that fades into recesses of the brain, clings to the wall for life and numbs everything. the noise he’d do without, that bounces and breaks and the one he’s not used to. when things sit in his head he’s used to them, when they enter and they’re foreign, they ache more.

he doesn’t even know how he ended up like this. sprawled over a couch in the lounge and looking through everyone. he raises his head ever now and then, acknowledges friends, colleagues, exes. nothing too serious, nothing too harsh. only harsh thing is the light of the lounge, bright and pulsating against skin. that’s fine. the tv dims in the back, everything sort of dims into one when dae’s like this, remnants of a blunt nothing but ash on his fingers. 

ash but alive in his lungs. potent and enough to smell if someone walked towards him. no one does. most of them know, by the lazy wave and the half-assed grin that it’s best to leave him like this. despite the urge in his body to join and call over he prefers it like this. prefers letting the echoes of his call from earlier fade back.

‘why are you still studying communications?’ ‘you should be studying medicine’ ‘do something useful’ ‘be useful’

if he had another blunt he’d finish it just through thoughts alone. fact is, it’s not enough to stop them from coursing, just stop the blow. they keep coming and coming and he can bury his face in the pillow all he wants but they don’t stop. the brain is a bitch with repetition, always been. that’s why they know though, sometimes daehyun is stoned and chill. chilling and laughing and casting smiles like presents to the lonely. other times he’s stoned and it hits him light, smoke inhaled and thoughts rushing to the top. it’s an opposite effect and it beats the fucking purpose. 

people are so damn selfish, they let him wallow like this because they only want a smile when it helps them.

he doesn’t mind.

( yeah he does )

he slouches into the couch, trying to forget, trying to sleep, trying to do something when words catch his ear. words, then a name though the name is probably first. the name is his and the voice registers quicker than anything else.

‘hyung?’

jaebin.

commands are shit when he’s like this. most of the time he tries not to let jaebin see him like that. he plays up his personas to the most. he’s at his best with the other, most relaxed too but most behaved. put together for the sake of keeping an image. then he pretends not to care. that’s why it all falls apart.

“hey kiddo.” it goes wrong with the first words out his mouth. daehyun glances up, chin planted firmly in the pillow and jaebin looking down at him from the edge of the armrest. he looks, well he looks like a lot of things. confused, comfy, curious. he looks like jaebin. uniform probably discarded in favor of sweats and a t-shirt. he probably just got off work. he probably came looking for him.

‘why’re you sprawled over the couch and not your bed? did you just get out practice? you look tired - hyung that’s not a good position.’

( everyone is selfish )

 usually in this case, things just attack, the words. it’s why no one approaches him, he has a tendency to get irritated with too much. especially when all he wants is white noise. but he finds himself smiling at the questions, the sincerity in it, lack of judgement.

( jaebin isn’t )

“couch is comfy. practice was yesterday.”  

‘are you okay? you sound tired?’  

usually when he needs a smoke, he’ll be out with his friends. chill at a friend’s place before going back to the dorm. stay at a friend’s place if the smoke sits on him too long. apologize for not meeting up with jaebin with his favorite snack and a hug. he’s not sure why the persona manifested around the jaebin, some responsibility shit or something. he’s not entitled to be respectful to anyone and somehow he cares about the light that jaebin always seems to carry with him. worries about preserving it. jaebin’s never in all the time they’ve been roommates, seen daehyun this stoned.

because he’s slurring but not the drunk kinda slur. but the lazy slow kind. it’s usually pretty well pieced together because daehyun’s perfected the act of hiding his vices. it’s just right now, he can’t be bothered. in the open space of the lounge somehow it’s just him and his friend. it’s a contrast immediately noticeable. jaebin, ever curious and ever sharp picks up on it. not all the way but enough.

( no one sees him like this )

“ ‘m tired as shit”

( jaebin does )

‘why don’t you come to the room? I was looking everywhere for you.’ “can’t feel my legs.”

admittedly, this could go worse.

‘oh my god hyung what do you mean you can’t feel them? do you need a doctor? did you hurt yourself in practice? sprain something?’ everything’s quick, jaebin’s movement, his rise in tone, his body beside daehyun, daehyun’s laughter. quick and easier than he thought. 

“no i’m good, just sinking in the couch.” because he does feel like it, like he’s bod going through and through. pleasantly. finally. maybe the laughter did it. maybe ****** *** **. maybe. he should get up.

‘hyung what’s wrong....’ daehyun can’t understand why parts of him says look up but he does. finally turns his head to view jaebin. jaebin jaebin, eyes wide, brows furrowed, gaze ignorant of the situation. worried. daehyun wants to laugh again, how the boy manages to be the pure surrounded by all the mud. not that daehyun’s mud but well. 

he manages a smile, slow but genuine. silly too.

“I’ll be honest. I’m high as hell.”

silence.

‘you’re-----?’ ... .. . “I smoked.” ‘drugs?’ a nod. ... .. . ‘hyung!’ “you gonna help me up?”

and for all daehyun’s worries. the worries he didn’t know he had. for the nagging in his brain telling him to send jaebin away, the stress of personas clashing and a little bit in his brain saying he was being ridiculous. for all that and more he’s proved wrong. because despite the look in his eyes, whatever look that is daehyun will decipher it later - despite the look jaebin just clicks his tongue and holds a hand down. 

daehyun’s up on his feet, stretching out loud and obnoxious, feeling parts of him pull back together.

‘hungry?’ “starving.”

they keep walking. daehyun lagging just a bit.

‘I brought food from the cafeteria.’ “Jaeeebiiin my favorite dongsaeng, best person in the whole world!!!”