Chapter 2

Sleepover

Myungsoo wakes up to darkness surrounding his cramped room and the sounds of drunken tiptoeing somewhere outside of his door. He wants to go back to sleep but then an idea pops up in his hazy mind. Well, it’s not everyday that he’s still awake when his brother’s home.

- Hyung, do you have anything to listen to?

The younger Kim carefully opens his door and peeks out only to be greeted with the sight of his brother sluggishly tries to get into his own room while leaning more than half of his body onto the wall. Sunggyu is never fully conscious at nights. Myungsoo chuckles lightly at the thought as he silently slips in the older’s room pulling him along in the process. When he’s finally able to close the door without it creating more sounds than the two of them have already done in the past few minutes, Myungsoo lets go of his hold on Sunggyu’s collar and the older immediately lands himself on the floor with a loud thud.

- Ahhhh, are you always this hopeless, hyung?

Myungsoo exhales frustratedly and bends down to lift his brother up. But on a second thought, he stops and after pondering for about half a second, the younger just flops down and lies right beside Sunggyu on the matted floor. It’s hot today. The floor should be more comforting than his blanket-filled bed anyway.

- Hey hyung…

- Uhmmm..

- You’re still not out of it yet?

- Shut up, brat. What do you want?

- I..uhmm..want something to listen to.

- In my drawer, the second one.

Myungsoo groggily sits up and walks towards the direction of Sunggyu’s pointing finger. He hasn’t had enough chances to go into this pathetic excuse of a room to familiarize himself with it. So to get there eventually, it takes him several minutes and a slip on his brother’s collection of belts on the floor (the meaning and necessity of which Myungsoo still doesn’t understand seeing how his brother always wears his pants saggily without any belt to keep them barely up his hip).

- Hyung, this is.. where you keep your underwears…

- AND new CDs.

Shrugging at his brother’s cold reply, Myungsoo pulls out some eccentric tiger printed and rainbow coloured boxers to dig in further and is finally rewarded with the sight of a simple-wrapped CD lying at the very corner of the stack. He gets it out with great care as if it is the most valuable thing he’s ever seen in his life (which it probably is compared to all the other things in this dirty room) and gently opens it up to see a loosely attached paper filled with terribly handwritten song titles and a shiny disc. He puts the CD into his brother’s player placed on the desk right next to the drawer, plugs in his own earphones which he always keeps in his pocket and pushes the “play” button.

“Well it’s been a long time, long time now since I’ve seen you smile

And I’ll gamble away my fright, I’ll gamble away my time”

The song starts off with a languorous pace and the singer slurs his words like how Myungsoo’s dad would sing with a cigarette in his mouth while sitting down on the little chair in their garden and watching their mother feed all the pretty plants with delicious water in a sunny afternoon. But then the melody picks up and there’s this drumming beat that makes Myungsoo feel a bit dizzy and reminiscent. A rush of old memories floods into his mind without any warning. And then all Myungsoo can see is Sungyeol’s smiles under the dazzling sunshine of their shared summers.

“It’s been a long time, long time now since I’ve seen you smiiile..”

The song fades till its end with that one sentence stuck in Myungsoo’s head. The image of Sungyeol’s teary smile at him from inside his family’s car when the younger came to greet him goodbye kept flashing off and on in his mind like a broken video tape.

- Hyung, Sungyeol’s back.

Pulling out one of his earphone, the younger turns his head towards his brother on the floor and speaks. There’s only silence replying to him so he tries to reach out his leg and kicks Sunggyu lightly on the ankle again and again, as if pleading for some half-hearted attention from the lying figure.

- Hyung, he’s back… and he doesn’t… want to see me.

Another silence fills the air and Myungsoo gives up. But when he’s about to open the door to get back to his room, there’s a rough hand wrapping around his left ankle and a slight pull to signal him to stop.

- Just sleep here, Myungsoo.

And the younger wastes no time in joining his brother on the floor again. When he finally settles down with a pillow under his head and eyes on the older’s back, he actually wonders if it’s okay to put his arm over him. Because he sort of feels like he needs a hug right now. “Nah, he’ll kick me out if I do that.” Myungsoo reasons with himself before trying to shut his eyes and resume his long forgotten sleep. When suddenly, an arm covered in sweat slings over him and a big hand pull his head into a rather smelly but definitely warm chest. With a final pat on the younger’s back, his brother mumbles a string of incoherent words which Myungsoo likes to believe to be something along the line of “You’ll be okay.” before drifting off into slumber again.

Now Myungsoo feels like crying. But he decides that maybe it’s just because of the lack of sleep.

The next morning is somewhat horrid. Myungsoo wakes up rubbing the sleepiness off his tired eyes and opens them to be greeted with the sight of his brother throwing clothes and kicking things.

- What’s wrong?

The younger Kim asks in pure panic. It’s not everyday that he’s allowed to sleep over in his brother’s room but if this is what welcomes him every morning after that then he’s definitely fine with not being a regular guest in this room.

- I can’t find the pants Jiyoon gave me!

- The leopard printed tight pants?

- Yes, that one!!

- Hyung, I thought…uhmm… you threw it away last week when you two had a fight.

- No way… ! SHE’S GONNA KILL ME!

And with that, Sunggyu runs out of his room pulling his brother up with him to find whichever sort of help they could in situations like this. But they are soon sent off into their room again when their mom screams her lungs out at seeing her oldest son stark going around in the kitchen, digging up trash in the bin.

- I can’t meet her today!

Sunggyu, now fully clothes, though very tackily so with a pair of grey sweatpants and a certain red v-neck he grabbed from Myungsoo’s closet, breathes out in frustration. His younger brother, only slightly concerned, gives him an obligatory pat on the back before going back to eating his breakfast.

- OOH! I have an idea.

The older perks up, eyes sparkling in a rather creepy way.

- We’ll go hang out with Dongwoo and Sungyeol then.

- What?

Myungsoo almost chokes on his milk.

- They were close friends and they just came back to the town. Wouldn’t an old friends union sound like a perfect excuse to ditch one date with your girlfriend?

The ingenious and almighty Sunggyu explains in one breath and ends it with a triumphant smirk. But his brother seem reluctant.

- Hyung, I don’t think Yeol wants to--

- Myungsoo, you two were best friends, not ex-lovers. Don’t let him pull that bull on you.

To be fair, Sunggyu sort of has a point there. So Myungsoo guesses it’s alright to follow him just this once. Maybe later when Sungyeol tells him meeting like this is a bad idea, he can just put all the blame on his brother.

Yeah, all he needs is just an excuse.

_____

A/N: I've sorta planned out how this fic would progress from this point on already so I hope I can be decent with updates in the future. Anyway, thanks to my 6 subscribers. I hope you've enjoyed reading this and will do until the end ^o^

Btw, it was very fun to write an eccentric Sunggyu. He was the vocalist in a rock band (and he likes Muse, man) before INFINITE happened so I guess I sorta want to try giving him this sort of image...