![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indiesnoppRating: PG-13 (Warnings: Canonfuck, basically)
Summary: (SUFBB!AU, Hyunsoo, Sungyeol, Woohyun et al)
Lee Hyunsoo learns about secrets and what is real. Learns about friendship and how to live for yourself. Learns about other people’s mistakes and how to make his own.
Part 1/3
-r u finished soon? Byunghee wants us-
Hyunsoo sighs and swiped a pinky across his eyelid, his clumsy fingers had still never quite managed to perfect the art of applying eyeliner without a mirror like Byunghee had. That’s another one for Byunghee.
Hyunsoo gets as far as typing two letters in response before a body slams into his shoulder and he gets to witness his phone slip out of his fingers, almost falling to the ground before the hand that steadied him clumsily dives for it, managing to prevent it’s death by mere inches.
“Wow, that was close,” the stranger laughs, surprised at the way the phone is clutched in his hand and not on the floor in pieces “didn’t even know I had those reflexes in me!”.
Asshole’s entire face is beaming with pride and he’s sporting the most obscene looking smile Hyunsoo has ever seen, all teeth and gums and right now it’s only pissing him off further, because he’s late and this stranger is still holding his phone.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The smile dims a bit but doesn’t falter, the guy looks more confused than anything and it nags at Hyunsoo, the way that his glare is obviously not threatening enough for this guy.
“Saving your pho- “ whatever the guy was supposed to say, it gets cut off by Hyunsoo grabbing the front of his thin cardigan and pressing him up the hand-dryer by the sinks.
“What the hell? What are yo- Ow!” He’s taller than Hyunsoo and Hyunsoo isn’t even pushing that hard, but the boy gets the message, it wouldn’t be a clever move of him to push back. Finding the boy’s wrist, Hyunsoo uses one hand to grip it hard while the other plucks the device from his slack fingers.
“Did you really think I wasn’t going to give it back?” Hyunsoo’s let go now and he can spot the red imprints his fingers made onto the boy’s skin. He almost winces at the sight. Almost.
“I don’t care.” Is all he says instead.
He tightens his grip on the phone in his hand and turns to leave, a call of “You’re really fucking welcome!” echoing against the bathroom walls behind him.
When he arrives and hops up on the small club stage, he finds Jihyuk squatting next to an amp, intently watching Byunghee who’s currently pacing impatiently and chewing on a guitar pick. Hajin is using Kyungjong as a makeshift support beam as usual and Do Il’s absent mindedly twirling his drumsticks.
“Something up?” he asks. Jihyuk glances at him briefly before his eyes drag away to keep watching Byunghee pace.
“The chick handling the soundbooth doesn’t know shit”.
Noticing that as the most attention Hyunsoo’s going to get from Jihyuk at the time being, he moves to pick up his guitar in the corner and waits.
Nothing compares to the rush of being on stage, but the rush of jumping off of the stage and running with the cops on your heels comes pretty close. He’s lucky the guitar he used wasn’t his own, the added weight would have slowed him down, not to mention that it would have been a pretty big giveaway for the police.
The only mistake Hyunsoo makes is looking back.
The heel of his right hand is a little scraped up from the fall, but at least he didn’t hurt it any worse. And his nose runs a little after colliding with the other person’s shoulder, but thankfully that isn’t broken either.
“Running is the stupidest move, you know. They’re gonna be looking for the people who run.”
Hyunsoo doesn’t want to look up, he recognizes the voice from earlier and decides to brush the filth off his pants instead.
“I should just say ‘fuck it’ and leave you here, you’d deserve it. You’re lucky I need you.”
“Excuse me?” Looking up, Hyunsoo’s confirmed that it is the guy from earlier and that the guy is smiling down on him again. This time though it’s not as obscenely gummy, the smile is more smug, and fuck, that’s even worse.
“I am going to help you out twice in one night, even though you’re a complete dick, because helping you will lead to helping me. After that though, I really hope you trip again and irreparably break every bone in your hand.” He has a strange way of trying to make his point by cradling Hyunsoo’s hand and gently brushing off the dirt covering the scrape with a pout on his face.
“Baby. Did you trip on your shoelaces again? You really need to watch where you’re going.” Confusion feels like too much of an understated feeling for Hyunsoo right now.
“The fu-”
“Hey! You two!” He feels fingers digging into the raw skin as the uniformed figure jogs up to them and hears a low “For probably the first time in your life, just shut the hell up and play along.”
“H-hi officer!” The stranger immediately drops his hands and starts fidgeting.
“What are you two boys doing out this late?” and this is stupid, Hyunsoo thinks. He should have just knocked out the guy and ran while he had the chance.
“We were studying, at the library sir.” He needs to get out somehow, he just has to wait for his chance.
“Mind if I take a look in your backpack then, boy?” Maybe if he could text Hajin and fake an urgent phonecall?
“Of course!” Hyunsoo hadn’t even noticed that the taller boy was carrying a bag, he wonders how often this guy gets caught in the streets to have backup plans.
“And you there? Where’s your bag?” He feels a shove at his shoulder and right, he’s being addressed by the police officer.
“I, I...” Hyunsoo tries to rack his brain, tries to remember what he was being asked, that is until he hears a whimper next to him.
“I lied! I’m sorry, but I lied! It’s just, I’m the youngest in the family and I have to make my parents proud, you know? We don’t have much money, so I really need this scholarship so I can go to university, get a good job and then get married and have children! I don’t mind the pressure, but them finding out would just kill them! We haven’t even kissed! I mean well, we have, but not with tongue I promise!”
‘How did his night turn out like this?’ is all he manages to think. Somewhere, in some insane part of his mind, Hyunsoo judges the other boy’s over acting. It’s over-the-top, scenery chewing and there is no way in hell anyone would buy this. Hyunsoo is fucking doomed at this point.
“Just, just slow down son” the rant managed to have made the officer take a small step back away from them. “Breathe for me, okay? What’s your name?”.
“W-Woohyun, Nam Woohyun. Sir.” He answered breathlessly.
“Okay Woohyun. Your parents think you’re studying?” Woohyun nods nervously. “That’s what I told them sir”.
“But instead you were with...” The older man helplessly gestures towards Hyunsoo’s general direction, lost for words.
“At my boyfriend’s house, sir.” Woohyun nearly whispers “Please don’t tell them about this. He was just following me to my bus stop.” The policeman looks to Hyunsoo for confirmation and Hyunsoo’s fast to nod along to whatever Woohyun’s saying.
“There was a party in the area tonight, a concert.” The policeman simply states.
“Oh?” Woohyun starts, “I don’t really, get invited to things anymore. Not since...” he trails off and shyly meets Hyunsoo’s eyes. For all his scenery chewing before, Woohyun plays off the fear of being caught coupled with the remorse over his social life, surprisingly well. In a moment of befuddled insanity and fake concern, Hyunsoo finds him weakly patting his fake boyfriend’s arm.
“Okay, you just, just be careful and try not to be out so late on a school night. Got it?” The officer looks increasingly more uncomfortable the longer he seems to look at them. Thankfully he seems to have bought Woohyun’s shitty story, probably convincing himself that no teenager would ever go as far as lying about being a poor homosexual loser with no social life.
He hears Woohyun breathe a huge sigh of relief, enthusiastically thanking the uncomfortable policeman before dragging Hyunsoo out with him toward the nearest bus stop.
“I guess I shouldn’t be expecting a thank you.” Woohyun says, voice dripping with accomplishment and amusement.
“Let go of me.” Usually this would sound like a snarl, usually when he says this, people would get scared. People would listen. Instead his voice comes out confused, almost a little defeated and that alone makes him want to turn around and run all the way home.
The longer he watches Woohyun the more he wonders how that officer would have ever thought both of them as innocent. Hyunsoo’s eyeliner must have been smudged to a mess, he can feel the sticky clumps hanging onto his eyelashes and smearing tiny dots and lines across his lids every time he blinks. Woohyun’s in a similar state, his eye makeup instead baring the tiniest hint of silver shimmers across his eyelids, his hair gleams a shade of red that wouldn’t pass any school’s uniform code and his ears are littered with tiny silver and diamond stars that seem to sparkle like real ones whenever they’re caught in the headlights of passing cars.
“Then you won’t get to hear ‘you’re welcome’!”
“If you hadn’t been in my way, I probably would have been long gone by the time the cop showed up. And I wouldn’t have had to deal with any Nam Woohyuns helping me or wasting my time.”
Woohyun opens his mouth like he’s going to retort, but instead the taller just laughs to himself and shakes his head, closing it back up. “Yeah, maybe you’re right about that” is all he says, leaving both of them to get stuck in an awkward silence until the bus rolls in.
“Are you getting on too?” Woohyun asks. Hyunsoo simply shakes his head and refuses to meet the other boy’s eyes, his own stuck on a shard from a soju bottle he’s too busy trying to crush under his shoe.
“Well then." He hears the other sigh, "Good luck with the rest of your life little drummer boy.” Woohyun turns his back to climb the small step off of the pavement and into the bus.
‘I play the guitar!’ Hyunsoo wants to childishly yell after him.
Instead he just watches Woohyun take his seat as discreetly as he can, watches the doors of the bus close and then move, disappearing slowly along the street.
For Hyunsoo it’s time to go home. He thinks to himself that in a week, Nam Woohyun will be nothing but a vague and bizarre memory. That tomorrow, life will go back to normal and by this time next month, Eye Candy will have played another club venue. By this time next month, they’ll stay on the stage long enough to enjoy the rush and love they get from the crowd.
Except that by tomorrow, his life will never be the same. And by this time next month Byunghee will be dead and everything will start going to shit.
