unfinished; myungyeol

[kantamu]

unfinished: myungyeol
this was actually my very first infinite fic! after writing the first section, i actually very much wanted to finish and complete this, and never reposted it. however, this has been sitting on the back-burner for essentially as long as i've been writing infinite now, aka a good number of months, so i think it's high time to let it stand as is, and come back to it if i have time.

There is one house in the village that stands deserted.

It isn't that it's haunted, or empty, or falling apart. There's a presence inside—Myungsoo sees it at times in the window, the shutters half open revealing flickers of shadow against a wall. The walkways are swept clean, and the gardens are tended to, a tangle of roses the backdrop for chrysanthemums and forget-me-nots. Against the skyline, the shape is stately; a high peaked roof with a lone garret, a good three stories tall.

But the door is boarded, and the walls are overgrown with ivy.

Even if Myungsoo has lived here all his life, he isn't sure what to make of it.

"Ghosts," Sungjong tells him easily. "Or monsters, take your pick. Really, hyung, I don't know why you're still curious about it. And anyway, aren't you scared of ghosts?"

"I'm not." He says it simply, quickly, an off-handed thought sandwiched between stacking one copper ring and then another. "It's just not empty."

Sungjong crosses his arms across his chest and makes a sound back in his throat, expressing his dissent. "See! You are curious. Geez, hyung, it's not like we're kids anymore. If you're so curious, just go and see for yourself!"

If Myungsoo was pressed to answer, maybe that had been what had finally pushed him to slip down the stairs that night after his parents were asleep, quietly unlatching the door before stepping outside.

It isn't the first time he's been out at night, but the action still makes him uneasy as he treads the familiar streets, sandals quietly slapping against the cobblestones.

The walk is half as long in the dark; he surprises himself by how soon the house looms above him, a great shadow against a night sky.

The window is not open. He can see it, faintly, illuminated by the half-lit moon even though he hadn't carried a lantern with him. A bare patch against the ivy, the one hint that makes Myungsoo sure it is not as deserted as it seems. Myungsoo is almost disappointed. Perhaps it is simply as deserted as it seems. Perhaps he has always been wrong.

"Hello?"

The sound sends him spinning on the spot, hands flung out in front of him in defense as he lurches backwards, heart loud in his ears. Or perhaps: "You—!"

"Oh, you're that kid."

It's a boy around his age. At least, that's what Myungsoo guesses, from the voice and what little he can see in the dark. And curious. He's curious. This is what gets Myungsoo's guard down, his stance relaxing as he frowns. "That kid?"

"Yeah, I mean. I dunno, you came around more often?" A laugh, and Myungsoo thinks it's oddly self-deprecating.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, ha. Well."

Around? Myungsoo is about to ask, when his frown deepens. "You live here." It's almost a question—it could be a question, but his tone is almost flat, not quite accusatory yet not without inflection. It's...Myungsoo frowns again, because he's not sure what it is himself. He's not sure if he's sure. Or how sure he is, if he's sure.

There's a pause this time, before the boy laughs again, leaning on a rake that Myungsoo notices for the first time. "Yeah," he says. "I do."

"Are you a ghost?"

"Nope," the boy says, chuckling, before his expression sombers. "Sometimes I wish I was."

"Oh."

The boy stares at him for a few moments, and Myungsoo stares back. "I. I should go," he says eventually. "Back, I mean. Back home."

"Yeah," the boy says. "You should."

It isn't until Myungsoo's crawled under his blankets that he thinks the boy had sounded just a little wistful.

In the morning, he doesn't tell Sungjong about it. "Ghosts don't exist," is all he says. Sungjong hums lightly and tells him to get back to work.

-

"You're here again?"

The walk seems half as long again, and Myungsoo finds himself in front of the overgrown house, hands tucked into his pockets. The house seems the same as it did a week ago—but then again, it seems the same as it did a month ago, a year ago. There's an odd beat high in his chest, like his heart has decided to move in anticipation. This time, he merely turns, a half smile creeping onto his face. "Yeah," he says.

The boy grins—or Myungsoo thinks he does. The moon is still low in the sky, and shadows make it hard to see. "I hoped you would," he says. He bounds forward, and grabs at Myungsoo's wrist. "Your timing's pretty good! C'mere, I want to show you something."

His grip is surprisingly cool to the touch, but Myungsoo doesn't shake him off as he follows. The boy stops abruptly, and Myungsoo nearly trips over his feet, earning a bout of laughter. It stops just as suddenly as it began when Myungsoo shoots him a glare.

"Sorry, sorry," he says. "But look."

Myungsoo frowns as he follows his gestures—they're stopped in front of the flower beds, with the familiar tangle of roses a backdrop for faded gold chrysanthemums and the washed out blue of forget-me-nots. "What?" he asks.

"Wait," the boy says.

"Who are you?" Myungsoo asks.

The boy looks at him, shrugs. "Sungyeol," he answers after half a beat.

"Myungsoo," Myungsoo responds.

A breeze blows through the ivy on the walls, all of them at once a rattle of interlocking conversations to make up for Myungsoo's none. It dies down, leaving a light mist of leaves drifting down and through the moonlight.

The moonlight.

Myungsoo notices the moonlight first, the flowers second, and Sungyeol tugging at his hand third. "See?" Sungyeol says. "See."

"Yeah," Myungsoo says. "I see."

They're spilling open; bundles of white that had been tucked inconspiciously between the boughs of colour, the moonlight from behind the clouds painting it with its depth of tranquil colours.

"You're the first one to see these."

"Yeah?"

Sungyeol hums an agreement. "Mm. Well, other than me."

"They're pretty."

"You asked me who I was."

"Because you never told me your name?" Myungsoo turns to him, puzzled.

Sungyeol laughs, and Myungsoo thinks it sounds like the time Sungjong's girl ditched him but he'd said it hadn't mattered anyway. Or, no. That's not quite it either. Maybe, it sounds like—

"I'm..." Sungyeol begins, cutting off his thoughts. He shakes his head. "You never asked me what I am," he says instead.

Myungsoo cocks his head at this, and thinks about Sungjong's words, about what the adults have told him, about the games they had grown up playing. He thinks about ghosts, and about how Sungyeol is not a ghost. About monsters, but Sungyeol does not seem to be a monster. "Oh," he says. "But I know what you are."

"You do?" Sungyeol jerks away, sounding genuinely surprised. "But, there isn't even a word—"

It's Myungsoo's turn to laugh. "Yeah, there is. Lonely."

"Oh," Sungyeol says. "I guess that works too."

-

"You missed the flowers," is the first thing Sungyeol says to him when he slips out of bed some three days later and makes the increasingly familiar walk through the deserted night streets up to the not-so-deserted house.

It's been three days since Myungsoo was last here, since Sungyeol had laughed awkwardly when Myungsoo had said he was lonely, since Myungsoo had watched the flowers as the moon disappeared behind the clouds, since Sungyeol had suggested that it was late and he should probably head home with no words in between it all, like he wasn't sure which words were supposed to fit there.

Myungsoo slips his hands into his pockets and lets a quiet 'oh' escape between his teeth, his face stretched into something between a smile and a grimace and an apology all at once. He'd woken up with a breeze against his face and had lifted the latch of their door instead of pulling the blankets over his head, sliding feet into sandals that he'd have to trade for heavy winter boots before the month was out. Winter came quickly. It always did.

Sungyeol shrugs, a grin breaking out across his face in shadowed nuances, the pale white of his teeth the biggest hint. "Do you want to come in?" he asks, words rushed and running into each other. "I made coffee."

"Coffee?" Myungsoo asks, the word stumbling hesitantly off his tongue, loaded with more curiosity than he'd like to admit.

Sungyeol clicks his tongue in exasperation. "Coffee," he repeats, and without warning, reaches forward and grabs Myungsoo by the wrist again, tugging him down the path.

A seed of resistence takes root low in his throat before he banishes it and follows, steps dragging in a misplaced sense of preservation. Sungyeol's grip rests lightly against his skin.

Sungyeol leads him around the house to a door buried under the ivy that Myungsoo has never noticed before.

"The front door's stuck," Sungyeol explains as he fumbles with the lamp.
Myungsoo nods mutely. The room is cast into sudden relief as light floods into the corners—startingly normal. Sungyeol laughs, and Myungsoo wonders if the thought had showed through on his face.

"Sorry to disappoint," Sungyeol says. He pulls up a chair and gestures roughly at it, telling Myungsoo to "sit, sit!" as he putters around the kitchen. Myungsoo does as he's told, sitting on the edge of the wooden seat, hands resting on his knees. He glances around the room as Sungyeol pulls plates from cupboards and food from the counter. It's undeniably a kitchen, a stove tucked in one corner from which a chimney leads, stone counters lining three walls, wooden cupboards set into the stone walls above them. The table he's sitting at is the centerpiece of the room, a simple square affair with a chair at each side. It's surprisingly clean for a guy his age, and Myungsoo mentions this when Sungyeol places two cups overflowing with steam down on the table.

"Is it? I don't really use it much," Sungyeol says, a laugh and a quirk of his lips as he answers. He leaves the cups on the table and returns with a plate piled with chocolate squares and slices of cake.

"You made these?" Myungsoo asks, surprise all too evident in his voice.

Sungyeol nods, shrugs. "It passes the time," he says.