introduction
A Study in Sanguine_____
Someone once told Chanyeol that he looked like a ferret had with an elephant.
Oh, by the way, that someone was Jongdae. But more about Jongdae later on. He's not important right now.
Anyways, Chanyeol just... took it to heart, somehow. He knew it was a joke, but as he laid down on the bottom bunk that he shared with another kid in the foster home, he tried to make sense of it.
Elephant... okay. It made sense. He wasn't really big as a kid, but the ears... He had ears like one, stubbornly stuck out at the sides of his face like bat wings. It didn't make him hear better, but it certainly made it easier for the older kids back at the foster home to yank it. They call it (Chanyeol seethed violently at the memory) the ing Merry Go Round (without the "ing", that was just an adjective). They'd pull his ear and they'd pull him in circles, and Chanyeol had no choice but to spin with them unless he wanted agonising pain. One time they had yanked his ear so hard that he was convinced it was thoroughly ripped off. Every time he remembers this memory, Chanyeol would instinctively hold his hands against his ear.
Ferret... Chanyeol couldn't really see this one. Maybe it was because he was tall? Chanyeol had always been lanky and freakishly tall, no matter what age he was. His limbs stuck out like Pinocchio's nose, but with the dexterity of a spaghetti noodle, so you could probably imagine his clumsiness. Ferrets basically have the physics of a noodle, it might be that. And ferrets are long. Maybe that would explain the ferret part.
In descriptions less crude, Chanyeol had always stuck out like a sore thumb. Being tall and having big ears were more arbitrary traits, but there was something about him that just screamed... different (and in what way different, even Chanyeol himself did not know). What made Chanyeol so recognisable is a mystery. Perhaps it was the jarring jut of his Adam's apple, too prominent on his skinny neck. Or how his fingers splayed like tree branches, like a pianist, like some... malnourished five-legged squid attached to each wrist. Speaking of malnourished, he always looked like so. Malnourished. Under enormous sweatshirts that went past his hips, he was all bone and barely flesh. Perhaps it was the fact that his body contrasts his face; it was rounded and plump, slightly rich at the cheeks but so narrow at the jaws, accompanied with eyes that always seemed to plead for some sort of rest from tiredness. These are all human-enough descriptions, but what made Chanyeol different, you wouldn't really be able to put it in words. The glasses, broken and taped in the middle to keep it together, isn’t exactly it either.
But Jongdae did manage to put it into words (or at least attempted anyway), and it was "you look like a ferret had with an elephant".
Thank you Jongdae.
_____
CHANYEOL’S TRAIN OF THOUGHT #1:
Being beaten up ing .
Nobody really yanks Chanyeol's ears anymore. They usually go straight to punching.
His head dully thuds against the locker room every time the other's fist lands on his stomach. Being numb is, in fact, totally bull. To Chanyeol, being numb meant that he felt everything to the extremes. Here's the best description he conjured up with, or otherwise, The Breakdown of Being Punched When You Are Numb (Stomach Edition):
To date, Chanyeol hasn't written a Head Edition, because whenever he gets punched in the head, he violently thuds to the floor, and everything blanks out. But you can picture it, hopefully.
Eventually Chanyeol sinks to the floor, ragged breaths wheezing through past his lips. The figure who had been punching him at leisure picks him up by the collar of his sweatshirt, and his head lolls like a ragdoll, too weak to perk it up.
"The money, Chanyeol," Kim Minseok's smoke-stained breath wafts through his ringing ears, "The money. The ing money! Where is it?"
Humans are stupid, for a few reasons. One, we keep asking questions. It's a design flaw. For instance, Kim Minseok keeps asking him for money, which Chanyeol evidently doesn't have, and Kim Minseok clearly knows this from inappropriately groping his pockets as well as forcibly searching through his belongings. Two, despite having the answers to the question, we keep asking it anyway. And that's what Kim Minseok is doing, shaking Chanyeol violently like a car driving through potholes, asking him again and again, even though Chanyeol's eyes were about to roll back into his skull like cents in an arcade coin slot.
"Don't have it," Chanyeol drawls out weakly, his words forced against the edges of his throat. He feels a dull thud surging through his cranium when Kim Minseok lets him go to fall to the floor (hint: it did not feel great).
"He doesn't have the ing moneeeey," Kim Minseok yaps to his cronies—to give you a fuller picture, there's about three further presences witnessing Chanyeol's ruination. They all cry like wolves, immediately flying kicks onto Chanyeol's poor ragdoll body, who barely defended himself by curling up like a terrified armadillo.
CHANYEOL’S TRAIN OF THOUGHT #2
You took it all last week, you ing moron.
Being in a cheap college allows this kind of treatment, apparently. The last classes ended up at 5, and currently (or as far as Chanyol was concerned) it's creeping up to 6. Magically, Chanyeol always seems to end up in a spot where nobody witnesses the constant terror he faces: Kim Minseok and his cronies, robbing him of his hard-earned money. The most horrible thing about this was probably the fact that Chanyeol couldn't tell anyone. Kim Minseok's dad happens to be a ing cop. And, somehow, in the most surreal way, his mother owns the school. So, really, all Chanyeol could say, is "well, !"
Chanyeol supposed that he'd get used to it, but he doesn't. Ever since Kim Minseok had decided that he was his little pawn to leech money off of, Chanyeol had to get another job. Consequently, Kim Minseok finds out that he's got more money, which means he gets robbed more. And if he doesn't hand over his sweet hard-earned money, he'll get beaten up.
This, unfortunately, presents a dilemma. Chanyeol had two choices: one, keep up with his bills and let himself get beaten into a pulp, or the other one, get behind on his rent and let his body take a ing break. He’s surprised he hasn’t needed surgery to fix a broken bone. It’s all just blooms of bruises… for now, anyway.
Chanyeol could feel it. The abyss sweeping over him. He was about to black out—not the first time. Apparently it was easier for his body to shut down than fight back (which is, honestly, let’s be honest, what the ?). Chanyeol focuses on this sweet sweet cloud that pulled like a blanket over his mind, shielding him from the physical pain, lulling him to sleep…
He never reached unconsciousness. Which was miserable. Instead, a piercing shout rings through his ears and the kicking finally stopped. Even Kim Minseok had stopped jeering his stupid little mouth off.
“Oh , it’s Baekhyun!” Kim Minseok howls, and makes a dash for it at the opposite direction of the shouting voice. His cronies follow their alpha, yipping and whining like wolves losing their prey. The squeaks of their shoes fell still after a bang of a door, signifying their leave, and Chanyeol breathes out a shocked sigh of relief.
A pair of legs appeared in his view, donning mud-crusted black platforms that would infinitely hurt Chanyeol a thousandfold if it were to kick him.
CHANYEOL’S TRAIN OF THOUGHT #3
Oh . Oh . Oh .
CHANYEOL’S TRAIN OF THOUGHT #4
Please go away.
CHANYEOL’S TRAIN OF THOUGHT #5
Please.
“Get up.”
Chanyeol didn’t cry then, but he started sobbing profusely now. He curled up further and he broke into whimpers, muffled by bubbles of blood that sprouted from his nose, rubbing his eyes. The other’s shoes went to prod Chanyeol at the shoulder unsympathetically.
“Get the up, Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol cried even harder, if anything. Tears streamed from his eyes as fast as the blood that blubbered from his nose. He pulled his knees to his face and hugged them, sobbing uncontrollably, sobbing at the fact that he was so infinitely pathetic that he wouldn’t even come close to fanthoming it—ever.
_____
Byun Baekhyun’s existence is just as unstable as Chanyeol’s financial state.
Chanyeol had never seen a person who looked so soft, yet so sharp at the edges. Baekhyun was a babydoll, the purse of his lips so pleasantly plush, but it always occupied a cigarette at any given occasion. Chanyeol could never remember his hair colour, but it was always bleached as far as he was concerned, always ready to be coloured to match some sort of emotion (there was once when Baekhyun dyed his hair red, then got angry when their electric bill was cut, and promptly dyed his hair jet-black in response). He possessed a teeth so perfect and pearly for someone whose diet consisted of soft drinks and sweets. Baekhyun stood a head shorter, but his ego and pride was far, far beyond what the Universe can understand. So is his strength. Kim Minseok and his cronies are afraid of Baekhyun for a reason. Baekhyun’s knuckles are scarred beyond comprehension—but if you looked at him, this slight figure didn’t seem able to pack a punch at all.
Regardless, Chanyeol only has two words to describe him: druggie flatmate.
Here’s a compact version of the story: Chanyeol had turned 18, which means the foster system can’t save him anymore from the perils of the streets. He spent days in panic, trying to search for space to live in. Eventually, by some awkward chance when a landlord’s administrative system ed up and scheduled two housing appointments at the same time, Chanyeol and Baekhyun met—then the rest is history.
It wasn’t even a good flat so to speak. Most of the deposit was gone to fixing the flat itself. Baekhyun’s presence made it worse—his volatile mood made him prone to destroying anything in sight, resulting in holes and dents that Chanyeol’s not even sure how to fix. Baekhyun had let him have the only bedroom in the flat, which was a relief somewhat (Baekhyun, Chanyeol learnt, habitually passes out in the living room at ungodly hours of the night, either high or drunk). They also split the rent and the utility bill between them, so Chanyeol de
Comments