Sunggyu leaned forward in the tiny capsule, his body a tight line that moved together with the minute adjustments he was making to the joystick. It’s now or never. Taking a deep breath, his finger moved to the red button and pressed down.

 

               Nothing happened.

 

               The spaceship remained motionless, a gray Frankenstein of clean metal plates among knee high glass shards in the field, assembled exactly as the calculations decreed it. He jabbed at the button again, impatient now, but not a single shard broke underneath the wheels. Sunggyu let out an explosive sigh and slumped in his seat, ruffling his hair in frustration and staring out at the neat white hole cut out from the black stone spreading high above him.

 

               It was tiny from this distance and he was more likely to smash himself open on the faceless rocks trying to force his way through the hole but he’d rather risk it than stay.

 

               With luck, the aliens he heard so much about and so desperately wanted to meet would see him struggling through the hole and help to fish him out. Or they wouldn’t notice him at all. Either possibility was equally likely.

 

               “It’s not working.” L informed the control panel from next to him, features all clean blank lines.

 

               “I can see that.” Sunggyu replied dryly, not moving from his slouched position.

 

               There was a pause. “Get out of here.” L said, voice as blank as his face.

 

               “Shut the up.”

 

               His voice was equally even as he stood up, head banging on the low ceiling and breaking through, the rip tearing across the metal as he moved towards the entrance. He paused, looking at L curled in a fetal position and squashed in the corner right next to the entrance, small and unmoving but unmistakably there. Sunggyu cocked his head, contemplating. In one slow, deliberate motion, he lifted a foot and kicked him.

 

               L tumbled out of the entrance, landing in the glass and piercing him through in a million places. He didn’t move as Sunggyu stepped out of the capsule and walked over him on his way to the narrow road that led out of the field, not even when Sunggyu’s weight pressed him deeper onto the shards.

 

               The field was on top of a low hill, a cone-shaped hill that was almost the exact shape of an upturned ice cream cone. It was hardly high enough to launch a catapult of a spaceship off land and into infinite space but it was the only option. And there’s also the whole issue of the road that wound its way up and up around the thin cone of the hill. It appeared at completely random times and for different lengths of time each time. It was annoying, having to rush over every time he felt it appear and sometimes he was too lazy to bother at all. On those days L would follow him around, practising his synonyms on the same sentence until Sunggyu started running.

 

               On those days Woohyun would drop by briefly, usually when he’s running and in too much of a rush to say anything more.

 

               “Well, what do you expect?” Woohyun says when Sunggyu slams the door open and wordlessly drops onto his couch. “You know he’s just wired like that.”

 

               “I wish I could kill him.” Sunggyu muttered, snagging a wine opener and turning it over in his hands.

 

               Woohyun plopped down next to him, watching Sunggyu press a thumb onto the sharp point until it broke skin and grated into tiny bones. “You can’t.”

 

               “You guys just love stating the obvious, don’t you?” Sunggyu remarked as Woohyun reached over to yank it out of his thumb, dragging bits of flesh along.

 

               “It’s not our fault that you refuse to acknowledge us.” Woohyun’s voice was muffled as he dropped the wine opener on the couch to pull his shirt off. Sunggyu sat up, tracing a finger over the ridges of muscles on his torso and dipping below the waistband of his jeans. His hand landed further down than he expected when Woohyun wriggled into a half-lying position on the couch. At Sunggyu’s questioning look, he shrugged, “I’m trying this method to see if it’ll make less of a mess.”

 

               Sunggyu let his fingertips drift over the smooth skin lightly and watched in mild fascination as the muscles under his fingertip involuntarily twitched. To his credit, Woohyun simply flicked his eyes over for a moment before picking up the wine opener from where it had wedged into the couch.

 

               "Wouldn't a knife be easier?" Sunggyu swiped it away from him, rubbing his thumb over the mother-of-pearl inlaid into the handle. "You're going to ruin this thing."

 

               Woohyun snatched it back, clucking his tongue without any real annoyance. "Knives are too big, either I ruin the heart or it takes me forever to stitch everything back."

 

               Sunggyu pulled his hand away and sat back, rocking himself back and forth. "Do you need a towel?" He asked half-heartedly as Woohyun experimentally poked at several points on his chest.

 

               Woohyun shook his head, sliding the tip of the wine opener to a point just next to his heart. "Doesn't matter, better to let it bleed out." He mumbled distractedly and pressed down, piercing skin and spilling blood. Woohyun continued to work the wine opener further in, the screw shaped design turning it in more easily than if it had been a cork. Flesh and skin gave way and tore under the metal as the hole slowly deepened and widened. His hands bloody now, Woohyun tried to work it sideways, sighing when it wouldn't cut through flesh. 

 

               "Told you so." Sunggyu said, tucking his legs in and resting his chin on his knees, watching Woohyun yank the wine opener out of his chest, bits of flesh stuck all over it. Woohyun handed it to him with a grin, blood trickling down his forearm and dripping off onto the cream leather. 

 

               "Yuck." Sunggyu plucked it out of his hands anyway, tossing it in the direction of the aquarium. The wine opener sank through the glass easily, landing among the coloured rocks. White, translucent discs, each with a darker centre, immediately exploded upwards and away, pulsing through the water with strange little waving motions.

 

               Sunggyu turned back just in time to see Woohyun dig his fingers into the small hole, clawing away at it and making annoyed noises when skin came off in his hands. "It never seems to want to come out." Woohyun put his hands down for a moment and looked around the room helplessly for something more useful.

 

               Sunggyu reclined in the couch, lifting his feet into Woohyun's lap and kneading into the thighs, toes teasingly brushing upwards. "Maybe you secretly don't want it to come out and it knows it." Woohyun narrowed his eyes, baring his teeth slightly. Without another word he dug his fingers in with renewed ferocity, tossing chunks of flesh onto the floor carelessly until a big cavity was gaping in his chest. Sunggyu sat up now, folding his legs in and casually resting his knees right on the zipper of Woohyun's jeans, peering through the ribcage at the throbbing heart nestled inside.

 

               "It's still working." Sunggyu breathed, leaning close and poking a finger through the bones to the surface of the heart lightly, ignoring the equally light touch that circled the shell of his ear. Sunggyu adjusted himself and glanced up, a muted thump of pleasure echoing in his chest when the heart underneath his finger sped up. "Didn't you say it wasn't?"

 

               "It is technically working," Woohyun corrected, pushing Sunggyu away and grabbing the two sides of the ribcage to wrench it open. "," he cursed when the sternum caught onto one side. He gave up, shoving a hand through the small gap and pulling the heart out. "See," he held the heart out to Sunggyu without a trace of emotion, "Still working fine."

 

               The heart pulsed in his palm, dark red and shiny and spurting blood out with each steady pump. 

 

               Sunggyu prodded it.

 

               Woohyun smashed it onto the table.

 

               It continued to beat.

 

               "Is it ever going to stop?" Sunggyu asked, more in fascination with the stubborn organ than any real interest.

 

               "I've tried almost everything I can think of." Woohyun slapped it a few times with his palm. "Nothing works."

 

               Sunggyu shrugged, standing up from the couch. "Like heart like owner." He looked down at Woohyun, who gazed back with a look that could rival L's. "Useless." 

 

               Woohyun didn't look like he cared, but nothing new there. The heart throbbed noisily.

 

               "I can stop it." L said suddenly, bubbles pouring out of his mouth from where he hung suspended in the water of the aquarium, a figure the length of his forearm and outlined against the mass of the membranous discs. They fluttered around him, making the lines of his figure blurred and indistinct. As Sunggyu stared, the discs coalesced more decisively and settled solidly into a more familiar form. L’s face was ghostly blue and still as he watched the two of them, eyes dark and contemplative. 

 

               "And how would you know about it?" Woohyun demanded, suddenly animated. They always fought over the smallest things, though it wasn't as bad before.

 

               "I taught you how to make the spaceship, didn't I?" L addressed Sunggyu, ignoring Woohyun completely.

 

               "Which failed." Sunggyu reminded him, feeling unreasonably inclined to Woohyun's side this time.

 

               L shrugged, the motion languid from the drag of water, the discs following the movement. “It works for everyone else, you’re just too much of a coward to pilot it.”

 

               Once again Sunggyu was swamped by an overwhelming urge to kill him.

 

               He opened his mouth but Woohyun beat him to it. “You’re not any better and you know it.”  His voice was cool, sounding unnervingly like L for a moment.

 

               “Hey!” A call at the window drew their attention. Dongwoo was grinning at them through the closed window, wide smile a smudge of brightness against the frosted glass. His silhouette – small and pocket-sized and legs folded into a pretzel – bobbed up and down happily outside the window, tumbling over itself every once in a while and eliciting giggles from the man himself. They watched mutely as he leaned forward and rubbed the elbow of his sleeve against the glass. Sunggyu could almost imagine the frown on his face when it refused to clear. “Open this will you?” Dongwoo’s voice came through clearly enough, though it was slightly muffled by the glass.

 

               Sunggyu took a quick glance around, at the beating heart Woohyun was nonchalantly squeezing in his hands like a stress ball to L floating in the water looking absentminded. “I can’t,” Sunggyu called back to him.

 

               “Why not?” Dongwoo sounded a little offended, or like he was considering opening the window himself.

 

               “Just don’t!” Sunggyu’s voice was a little too sharp and he hurried to cover it, sensing the pause the other man was making, “I’m .”

 

               “S’okay, we can be together.” Dongwoo giggled again, the shadow of his hand reaching forward for the window latch. Sunggyu immediately spun around, grabbing onto Woohyun’s sternum and breaking it off from the rest of his ribcage – the other man barely blinked, he simply glancing down at the now wide open cavity and poked around inside – and ran to the window just as it cracked open, ing the piece of bone to Dongwoo hurriedly. “There, that’s how I look like.” Sunggyu tried not to slur his words too much, “Now stare at it a bit more while I go find someone else.”

 

               Sunggyu darted back to Woohyun, clamping one hand around his forearm and the other picking up the heart and dragging them into the storeroom. “Stay inside,” Sunggyu ordered, pushing the man him and tossing the heart into the cavity, “And sew yourself together.”

 

               “Yeah,” L inserted snidely, lifting himself out of the water to rest his elbows on the edge of the tank, his cold voice clear and unmistakeable as it rang through the room. “It’s disgusting. No one wants to see the you get up to.”

 

               The heart throbbed hard once as Woohyun narrowed his eyes infinitesimally.

 

               "Shut up, both of you." Sunggyu ordered, closing the door of the storage room on Woohyun's face and turning to the window. He quietly stepped forward, picking up random things pointlessly in case Dongwoo was still there and watching him. Dongwoo's silhouette was still hovering outside the window but he was thankfully still preoccupied with Sunggyu's sternum, turning it over and over in his hands. "I'm going - " Sunggyu started, snapping his mouth shut right after.

 

               "Going?" Dongwoo perked up, bouncing up and down in the air. "Going where?"

 

               Sunggyu hesitated, he wasn't sure if Sungjong would be very happy about Sunggyu broadcasting his visit to him to the world. "I'm going to shower," he muttered, "Hit me up anytime, Dongwoo."

 

               He slipped out the front door, ignoring the way L's eyes followed him silently throughout his exchange with Dongwoo, turning the key in the lock behind him and holding it in his hand.

 

               The hole in the bow of the key closed slowly and reopened in a metallic wink from the palm of his hand, the blade curling up into a shark’s smile. If he left it here, at his doorstep, anyone would be able to open the door, especially if Dongwoo decided to come poking around. Sunggyu held it for a few seconds more and lifted it up to his mouth decisively, swallowing it down where it settled at his feet. Not yet, he decided.

 

               A faint breeze blew down the corridor, cold and crisp winter air that brought along a familiar smell of cologne. Sungyeol was sitting on the ledge at the end, tall frame folded in on himself. He looked almost pathetic, Sunggyu thought to himself emotionlessly as he walked up to the other, weak and ugly in a quiet corner where no one will bother to look.

 

               Sungyeol glanced up as Sunggyu pushed a finger into his shoulder, stared at him for a while, waited, and tucked his head back into his knees when the other didn't say anything. Sunggyu hovers uncertainly, unsure what to do. He should stay, he knows he should. But Sunggyu really has to go see Sungjong now. So he takes a step back, and another.

 

               No L here to tell him what to do.

 

               No Woohyun either.

 

               Sunggyu wished Woohyun was here. He’s better at this , and Sungyeol would definitely appreciate him more than just little old Sunggyu. But Woohyun is small and can only be cut up into so many pieces. There's one for Sungjong, and one to his family even if Woohyun doesn't talk much there, and another for himself because he's selfish that way.

 

               So he steps back again. Watches as Sungyeol lifts himself off the edge, swinging on his hands, and pushes off.

 

               Splat! Goes Lee Sungyeol, Sunggyu sings to himself under his breath as he pulls his hood up and hurries along the street to Sungjong. His feet slowed down as he passed Sungyeol, splattered on the asphalt floor, face down and bloody and unmoving. Someone bumped into his shoulder and he stepped aside, forgetting that he was blocking the way.

 

               Sunggyu looked back down at Sungyeol with a faint sense of disdain, half wanting to clear him away so that he would stop blocking the passage of people moving back and forth.

 

               8 o’ clock, 8 o’ clock, the clock tolled.

 

               Everyone looked up simultaneously at the timekeeper bobbing above their heads and sped up. A businessman took one look at his Rolex and broke into a run. Sunggyu immediately turned around and sped up, glancing back just in time to see Sungyeol roll back onto his mangled back and sit up.

 

               Not even a minute later, Sungyeol ran past him to the convenience store he worked at.

 

Up and down the balcony’s edge

The switchblade chased the stopwatch

That’s the way they all fall off

Splat! Goes Lee Sungyeol

 

               Sunggyu hummed to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel under his breath as he pushed open Sungjong’s door, collapsing into his couch and in front of Sungjong. Sungjong’s one visible eye blinked at him owlishly from the coffee table, the other hidden underneath his fringe.

 

               “Hello, hyung.”

 

               “Hey, brat.” Sunggyu greeted back, picking his head off the table and spinning it around like a basketball.

 

               “Stop that,” Sungjong admonished mildly, “You’re making me dizzy.” Across the room his slim arms lifted themselves off the dining table and crossed each other in typical Sungjong fashion. Sunggyu put his head back down on the coffee table, getting up to make himself some tea as Sungjong sang quietly to himself from the living room, his legs hopping around Sunggyu confusedly as he moved around the kitchen.

 

               One leg toppled over when Sunggyu kicked out at it as he left the kitchen, twitching on the floor. He sat down on the couch, placing the teacup next to Sungjong. The younger eyed it for a moment before his gaze turned away disinterestedly, tilting back to face the ceiling. When it appeared that the other wasn’t going to say anything, Sunggyu lifted the teacup to his lips and made him take a sip.

 

               “I tried again today,” Sunggyu told Sungjong conversationally.

 

               Sungjong made a non-committal sound. There was silence for a while as Sungjong’s hands played with each other on the computer table, taking turns to tap away merrily at the keys.

 

               “Do you want to try with me next time?” Sunggyu asked, feeding the other a bite of cookie and pouring the rest of the tea into his mouth to wash it down.

 

               “Sure, hyung.” Sungjong agreed easily. His hands hopped off the table and danced over to Sunggyu, long fingers stretching and flexing as they tottered on the edge of the headrest. One hand bent down, curling back into a fist timidly before straightening up and tugging at a lock of his hair playfully.

 

               Sungjong’s face was smooth and blank, uninterested gaze on something else across the room as his hands jumped into Sunggyu’s lap, cold fingers wrapping around his wrists and hands. “We’ll do it together next time,” Sungjong promised, empty as his hands.

 

               “It won’t work,” L whispered into his ear. “There’s too many of him. Let’s go.”

 

               Sunggyu paused, following Sungjong’s gaze across the room to where Woohyun was curled up next to Sungjong’s torso on the bed, a tiny figure just big enough to fit into his chest if he wanted to. Woohyun noticed his gaze and sat up, picking Sungjong’s torso off the bed and hobbling over to him. “Give me a hand,” Woohyun panted as they reached Sunggyu.

 

               Sungjong barked a short, unexpected laugh at that and Woohyun grinned. Sunggyu picked them both up, putting the torso upright next to him on the couch. They stared at the torso for a moment and glanced at each other. “It’s worth a shot.” Woohyun said as he flipped the latch and opened the door, stepping into Sungjong’s torso and curling up inside. Sungjong’s arms hung uselessly as Sunggyu twisted them into their sockets, carefully assembling Sungjong together.

 

               One large eye watched him as he settled the head on a slim neck, patting the fringe back into place. “Thanks, hyung.” Sungjong said, pretty lips curving up like the rim of the cup. “It means a lot to me.”

 

               Sunggyu leaned forward to pat his chest, “Take care, alright?”

 

               “I’ll try,” Woohyun’s voice was muffled from where he was curled up in. Maybe one day it will be Sungjong’s voice echoing back to him.

 

               A faint spark glinted through silky black hair as he left the apartment.

 

=

 

               “This is a bad habit,” L murmured, making no move to stop Sunggyu as he twisted out another screw and dropped it on the table. He was sitting down at Sunggyu’s work table, his face tilted up as Sunggyu painstakingly unscrewed the hatch on his forehead. There used to be a lot more screws to remove when he first started, but overtime it got lesser and now it barely took ten minutes to get all the screws out of L’s forehead and swing open his cranium.

 

               “Time for work,” Sunggyu called out, bending down to peer into the dim cavern to a pulsing pink brain nestled within.

 

               The brain throbbed a few times and stood up, giving itself a little shake before starting to pull itself apart, the two lobes going in opposite directions, spindly arms and legs working before they split apart with a squelch. One settled down, arms and legs retreating back into the pink mass while the other hopped out and ambled over to the hamster wheel perched on the desk. It stretched a little and jumped onto the wheel, running off at full speed.

 

               “Go to sleep now,” Sunggyu said later, patting L’s cheek after he tucks the brain – now red and inflamed and overheating dangerously – back into his skull and closed the hatch. Without another word he lay back on the bed, closing his eyes and going to sleep right away.

 

In and out the window ledge

L and Woohyun tussled

That’s the way they both fall off

Splat! Goes Kim Sunggyu

 

Splat! Goes Lee Sungyeol

 

Splat! Goes Lee Sungyeol

 

               Spaceship, Sungjong, L. Spaceship, Sungjong L. Sometimes Dongwoo is thrown into the equation. Most of the time Woohyun is thrown out.

 

Splat! Goes Lee Sungyeol

 

               3, 8, 13, 20, 21 22 23 24 24 24 24 24 24…

 

               10 o’ clock, 10 o’ clock and Sungyeol hasn’t gotten up yet. 3 o’ clock and he’s still there when Sunggyu passed him on his way back from Sungjong’s. And at 8 o ‘clock the next morning. And at 3 o’ clock at the end of the week.

 

               24 24 24 24 24 24 24 .

 

               Woohyun curses at L, at him, at them all.

 

               For a couple of weeks he sits in a corner and sulks, digging his nails at the throbbing heart in his hands while Sunggyu and L ignore him. He stops when Sungjong rings the doorbell one day, opens the latch in his chest and takes out a small, dirt-smudged and ragged but smiling Woohyun.

 

               “Thanks, hyung,” said Sungjong’s pretty voice, light without the timbre of Woohyun’s, lips the curve of the hole in the granite sky, “It meant a lot to me.”

 

=

 

               Woohyun howled, screamed, kicked out and made so much noise it was incredible that Sunggyu didn’t hear him before. Then again it had been a while since he let Woohyun out of the closet and into the living room together with L for more than a couple of minutes.

 

               It was awful.

 

               Sunggyu himself wanted to scream and push either one of them out because this was too much and Woohyun was so ing loud and he and L fight about absolutely everything. But he couldn’t because Sungjong found his key when he dropped it while fending off Dongwoo. Before he knew it Sungjong had dragged Woohyun out from the cupboard and dumped them all on the couch and refused to let any of them leave and now they’re all locked together into this one room and –

 

               “We’re going to build that spaceship,” Sungjong declared, crossing his arms and glaring down at Sunggyu with a clearness in his eyes that he hasn’t seen for a long time.

 

               “Get rid of him first,” L said without looking at Woohyun, without needing to. Sungjong looked thoughtful at that and didn’t say anything else.

 

               L and Woohyun fought ceaselessly while Sunggyu waited them out tiredly from the couch with Sungjong until they wound down to an uncomfortable truce.

 

               The next time they try out the spaceship, Woohyun isn’t spitting mad anymore as he folds himself into the engine hood at the fore of the machine – something Sungjong had suggested before he clambered up through the hole, following after Dongwoo who had bounced up and down in the air and through it. Sunggyu ran his hands over the control panel, Woohyun’s heart a pulsing red balloon through the clear display glass on the dashboard.

 

               L sat in the co-pilot seat next to him, silent for once, simply pressing the buttons here and there as he readied the spaceship for takeoff. Sunggyu glanced at him, L shrugged back.

 

               “It’s worth a shot,” Sunggyu said aloud.

 

               “It’s worth a shot,” they chorused.

 

               Through the windscreen Sunggyu can see Sungjong and Dongwoo waving at him through the hole. “We’ll pull you through!” one of them yelled.

 

               “We can always fix it again!” another promised.

 

               L sat down into his lap, cradling Woohyun’s heart in his palms. With one shaking arm he holds them both, with the other he slowly reached for Sungjong’s hand, extended through a hole too far to make out the details, but steady, and waiting, and unmistakably there.

 

 

/

 

It's a pile of metaphors I TOLD YOU SO. But basically the whole thing is told literally from Sunggyu's POV. Woohyun and Myungsoo are supposed to represent his heart and mind respectively. Sungjong, Sungyeol and Dongwoo are his friends, or at least acquaintances, but Sunggyu can't see Dongwoo because he isn't a part of his world. Dongwoo is the only one who isn't struggling with depression which is why he's never inside the apartment. The rest is self-explanatory.