Chapter Text
“That sounds… great?” So-bin quirks up her eyebrow after she has finally heard the whole story. Sieun is still slumped over the tacky cream-coloured plastic table at their office break room. She snaps her fingers to get him to at least uncover his eyes. “Why aren’t you over the moon, idiot?” she scoffs, “You’ve literally spoken about nothing else since you met him again. And he wants to be together. What was yesterday’s “fuck” all about?”
Sieun slumps back down again and has to be prodded and poked a few more times before he sits up properly. He later realises that this is a method he has seen her employ with her animal companions at home.
“That’s not the whole story though,” he groans.
So-bin looks at him quizzically. “How can anyone… even you, mess up that perfect ending?”
* * *
It’s not a big deal, Suho signs as they wait for their bus. It’s not like she understood me. Even a little bit. Almost no one does. It’s just my Halmeoni… and now you, who think it’s God’s miracle at work or something when I showcase the conversational skills of a three-year-old.
I don’t think it’s God’s miracle at all, Sieun replies, It’s all you.
Suho rolls his eyes rather dramatically.
Unlike my speech, my hearing is still flawless, you know? I can hear myself speaking. And the words make no sense most of the time. They’re slurred, they’re slow, they trip over each other… Half the time, if I forget that… if I forget the aphasia is at work, I end up delivering a whole speech before realising that the other person thinks I’m warbling out gibberish.
He says it like it’s no big deal. He shrugs at the end of it in a very Suho move and looks away as if he’s searching for the bus, which still has ten minutes to arrive.
Sieun can hear it anyway. A muted pain laced around those sentiments. However, he also knows that this is neither the time nor the place to delve into that discussion. So, he does what he does best…
Lucky for me, I always thought you were warbling out gibberish, Sieun signs with his characteristic deadpan expression.
Suho had definitely not been expecting that. He takes a 180-degree turn to face Sieun fully.
Excuse me?
It’s Sieun’s turn to roll his eyes. You once asked me how I could talk about life while I was already living.
Suho’s eyes widened in confusion. And?
That was pure, gold-class, Suho-branded bullshit, Sieun answers back.
Suho finally seems to grasp the lightness of Sieun’s tone and puts on a rather comically affronted face.
That, my friend, was philosophy. Something you’d probably be able to grasp if you looked up from your books once in a while.
-And what is philosophy spoken in a crowded school cafeteria if not pure Suho-branded bullshit? Sieun promptly replies.
The bus arrives soon and if Sieun were absolutely anyone else he’d be grinning ear to ear. Not only has he managed to convince Suho to allow him to sign in public, but he also has apparently mastered the art of joking around while signing- something he couldn’t even pull off in regular speech most of the time.
So far so good. Then comes the actual ending.
It’s late by the time they reach Suho’s bus-stop. No, they do not live in the same direction. Sieun has somehow browbeaten Suho into accepting that he had to collect a file from a client who lived in Suho’s neighbourhood. Of course, Suho knows he’s lying. He just couldn’t throw much of a fit without creating a very public spectacle. And since Sieun himself experiences absolutely no moral compunctions about lying, there was absolutely no way for Suho to guilt him into admitting that he was, in fact, lying.
Sieun isn’t going to let Suho go back home alone and that’s that.
The walk back home from the bus-stop is oddly quiet. Not because Suho isn’t going on about some other Western philosopher Sieun has never heard about, but because he’s engaged in a rather difficult internal debate conducted by the many voices in his head.
At the end of the ten minutes-walk, his finally reaches a decision.
I’m going to do it.
* * *
So-bin gasped as she clapped her palm over her mouth. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Well, because my brain told me- Why not?”
* * *
…So what Foucault basically says is that the structures of discipline are all-pervasive. They’re everywhere. And he’s not talking about the kind of “discipline” that you nerds like. He’s talking about a complete subjugation of…
Suho has probably reached a crucial juncture in his discourse when something unimaginable happens.
They’ve already reached Suho’s door. However, instead of reaching for the doorbell like he should, Sieun, for some inexplicable reason, reaches out for Suho.
With his face.
Inside, Halmeoni is putting in the final few stitches on her applique table-cloth when she hears the crash outside.
“What…”
The sight that greets her… well there is no way to summarize it without describing it in the full.
Her grandson is neck-deep in the rose-bush that the house had originally come with. Crutches and all.
And Sieun’s standing there, frozen, a step away from Suho with both his hands up in the air- clutching at an invisible body.
* * *
“Oh my god, Sieun," So-bin slams down her styrofoam cup on the table.
“I know.”
“Even if you wanted to kiss him, you didn’t…”
“I know.”
“Was he hurt?”
“No. He fell into a bush.”
“A bush?! Sieun! Anyway... are you allowed back there?”
“Don’t know. I ran away.”