not the morse code chapter just yet because that one takes FOREVER TO WRITE. I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING. LIKE. FOREVER. I started and stopped because I could only finish one part in like an hour asdfghjkl

(hint for that chapter, I got a part of it from Elsewhere except you can't knock on walls all day or you knuckles are going to bleed to death okay)

SO THIS I DON'T KNOW HOW IT GOT TO SEVEN PAGES I DON'T KNOW IT JUST IS SEVEN PAGES OKAY. oh and another warning, the beginning's alright, but the end. it's just. I don't know what happened to me. It's terrible.

How Myungsoo started working at a piercing salon, that was a long story within itself.

                At first look, you wouldn’t think he worked there – and when you walked into the store, it still didn’t look like he worked there. He was a calm and collected person with no piercings whatsoever in his body, while all the other workers were loud and rowdy with every piece of visible skin punctured.

                It was a dare, he remembered, in freshman year. Woohyun had made him apply for a job there just for kicks, but it turned out that the pay was good, his hours worked (because there were no hours, Myungsoo could just come whenever he wanted to and stay for however long he wanted to and still got payed the same amount), and his coworkers, no matter how “badass” were probably the sweetest people he’d ever meet.

                He refused to work at the piercing part of the salon, he’d rather sell the piercings themselves. It worked out well because everybody always asked him what to get, thinking that the opinion coming from a perfect human being like Kim Myungsoo would be good.

                Fei, his manager, always offered to keep him back hours and teach him how to use the piercing gun because, for one thing, if you were able to pierce, you would get payed more, but Myungsoo always just said “No thank you”. For another reason, she needed more people to work the piercing salon because she had to run the underground minimally-illegal tattoo parlor in the basement.

                She always questioned the teenager as to why he didn’t want to do it, but Myungsoo always answered that it was weird, or it was scary, but the look on his face frightened her enough to let the subject go.

Sungyeol grew up as a kid everybody knew as the “Mother’s boy”. His mom was one of the people that always carried her children everywhere, didn’t let anybody touch him, didn’t put him down, always gave in to him.

                Everybody told her that he’d grow up attached and that he wouldn’t make any friends; he always did cry whenever somebody other than his mom carried him.

                It proved to be true enough, and Sungyeol somehow just grew up later than everybody else. While his physical appearance and his height declared that he was the age he was supposed to be, his mind was still stuck in a kid’s, and he loved being a kid.

                Maybe that was why he experienced his first heartbreak so late.

If anybody asked Myungsoo about that one day back then, the teenager would just shrug and go back to reading his magazine and pointing at specific earrings while in his mind, he’d run over it again and again.

                The first, oh, six weeks of the job, Myungsoo had been scared for his life. The people that came into the parlor were either huge s of big men asking for piercings in the strangest places and piercings of the weirdest things (and, mind him, Woohyun forced him to stay on the job for twelve weeks).

                He was used to it, these noona’s coming in to flirt with him or these strange men who came in to…well, also flirt with him. All in all, he was used to people flirting with him in very ual ways that most people wouldn’t consider as simply as flirting.

                That’s why the person that had come in that one day surprised him more than anything.

He had come through the door had been so quiet, Myungsoo didn’t know there even was a person until the bell was rung.

                “H-huh?” The boy looked up, dropping his magazine and leaning over the counter. “…Uh, welcome…”

                When the other person pushed up his chin to face Myungsoo, he almost fell off his stool because he recognized this person.

                If he put his hands on the edge of the counter, his lips in remembrance. It was probably because of this job he had that he couldn’t hang out with his friends much (considering that during snack and lunch at school, he’d be finishing his homework), he knew this boy as Woohyun’s boyfriend, the one he’d never gotten the chance to meet.

                “H-hi,” he stuttered, playing with his hands a bit. “I…I’m Sungyeol.”

                Myungsoo could tell that Sungyeol was new to this, because introducing yourself wasn’t something you did when you went into a piercing parlor.

                And the fact that this timid little boy was even in a piercing parlor, it was strange enough.

                “Are you sure you’re in the right place?” Myungsoo questioned against his nerves.

                Sungyeol’s head snapped over to the sign hanging above the window, the one identical to the sign outside, and furiously nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

                “Then, er…” The younger boy shifted his elbows a bit to sit up straighter. “What are you looking for?”

                “I wanna get my ear pierced.”

                Seeing as he was working in a piercing parlor, this wasn’t supposed to surprise Myungsoo, but it still did. “Oh! Yeah, um, let me just call Fei over, she’ll do it for you –“

                “Do piercings hurt?”

                “What?” Myungsoo asked, the question flying too past for him to be able to catch it.

                “…Do piercings hurt?”

                “Um…well, I’ve never really gotten anything pierced before…”

                “Neither have I, that’s why I’m asking.”

                Myungsoo breathed in a bit, pondering how to answer the question. “Well, I guess, depending on what you’re piercing. And how thick that piece of skin is.”

                Sungyeol’s hand lifted to touch his earlobe, as if measuring if it was thick enough. “I just need it to hurt.”

                “What?” Well, here was another first for Myungsoo’s “list of weird things customers say”. “…Why?”

                “I need something for me to take my mind off the pain,” Sungyeol shrugged.

                And when Myungsoo came home to check his phone, he discovered that Woohyun had dumped Sungyeol only a few hours prior to the event.

It was about three months later when Sungyeol came back, and Myungsoo was finishing his project from sixth period that he wasn’t able to do during school because…well, because it was given during sixth period.

                “Do cartilages hurt more than normal piercings?” came Sungyeol’s rapid question.

                “What?” Myungsoo looked up, finding a tear-streaked choding wiping the snot coming from his nose. “Sungyeol? What –“

                “Just answer the question.”

                “Um, well…” the shorter boy gulped, trying to remember the question, then trying to figure out a way to answer it. “I guess, since it’s the bone instead of just skin –“

                “Good, then I want to get a cartilage piercing.”

                Myungsoo raised his eyebrows, leaning to the left to look at Sungyeol’s one piercing from a while ago. It was perfectly intact, wasn’t infected in any way. He had taken good care of it.

                “I’ll call Fei for you,” Myungsoo said slowly, getting off his stool.

                At the same time, the woman came rushing out from the back with chopsticks in her hand. “Myungsoo, the staff microwave is broken and I haven’t eaten – oh! I remember you, Sungyeol, right?”

                Still somewhat crying, Sungyeol nodded his head and turned to Fei. Myungsoo just slowly inched away from them to the staff lounge, not caring if he knew how to fix a microwave or not.

                “Cartilage?” he heard Fei’s voice echo. “Sure, I’ll get the piercing gun, left it in the back last time. Myungsoo can – MYUNGSOO!”

                Hearing his boss scream his name, Myungsoo dashed back into the room and replied, “Yeah?”

                “Keep Sungyeol company for me, will you?” Fei asked, placing her chopsticks in . She then mumbled something incoherent as she sauntered into the back storage closet.

                Sighing, Myungsoo reached down under the front desk and pulled out a box of tissues. “These are usually used to wipe away excess blood, but you know what, you can use it.”

                Sungyeol just nodded slowly, grabbing a tissue to blow his nose. “Sorry.”

                “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Myungsoo shrugged. “What happened, anyway? To make you cry?”

                Playing with the dirty tissue and then throwing it away, Sungyeol sighed and sniffled a bit. “I just found out my girlfriend was cheating on me. Which is stupid, because I should’ve known from weeks ago.”

                “That’s…that’s terrible!” Myungsoo said, doing his best to sound sympathetic but honestly failing.

                “Life’s terrible, but I still can’t help falling in love,” Sungyeol rolled his eyes, causing a few more tears to find their way down.

                Fei then came back with the gun, alcohol, and a box of ready piercings and grabbed Sungyeol, thanking Myungsoo with her eyes.

                As he watched Sungyeol get pulled away, Myungsoo remembered that the last time Sungyeol had gotten a piercing, he’d also gotten his heart broken.

“If the tangent line is there, then...” Myungsoo trailed off, measuring the line with his pencil. “This is so stupid!”

                The birds chirped in reply, but there was nothing else. He could hear faint traces of teenagers laughing outside, and Myungsoo knew there was a long way until break was finally over. Which was a good thing, really, but it still meant that his brain would force him to finish the math homework.

                He lifted his head up from the piece of paper when he heard the doorknob outside turn and somebody come crashing in.

                “OH! I’m so sorry, I didn’t think there was anybody in here, and – you’re that guy from the piercing place!”

                Myungsoo blinked a bit to bring himself together, then looked up at the too-familiar Sungyeol. “…Yeah, I am…”

                “You go to this school?”

                “…I’ve been going to this school for a long while now, thank you very much.”

                Sungyeol bit his bottom lip, playing with the outside doorknob. “…You look like you’re busy, I’ll go then. I’ll see you after school, okay?”

                “What do you mean –“

                But by that time, the door was already shut close and Myungsoo was left by himself.

“Hey.”

                Looking up from his math homework that he never did finish, Myungsoo managed not to look surprised at who was standing in front of him.

                “…That’s what you meant, when you said you’ll see me after school…”

                Sungyeol shrugged, bringing his hand up to feel the space between his first piercing and his cartilage. “I’m going to get another one. A normal one.”

                Myungsoo tilted his head to the right, and the older boy said, as if Myungsoo knew why he was doing what he was doing, “It was a mutual breakup. But it still hurts.”

                “…I’ll call Fei then?” Myungsoo asked nervously.

                “Yeah,” Sungyeol nodded, though the both of them knew he was very capable of calling Fei himself. Because Myungsoo was too lazy to physically get off his stool and go to the back room, he would just scream.

                “FEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIII!”

                There was a clacking of heels, and the owner of the shop came forward. “Sungyeol! You’re finally back! Okay, let’s go. I just finished cleaning the gun, I’ll go reload it right now.”

                Sungyeol just smiled and nodded, following Fei as Myungsoo brought his attention back to his homework.

                He could hear, though, Fei clicking the piercing in and asking Sungyeol, “How many more are you planning to get?”

                There was an evident sigh, then Sungyeol replied, “As much as it takes for it not to hurt anymore.”

This time, it was an entire four months before Sungyeol had returned again. He looked a little content with his life, but his eyes were still the slightest bit red and the bags beneath his eyes were very…very obvious.

                “Cartilage?” Myungsoo asked, the question bouncing off his tongue before Sungyeol could even close the outside door completely.

                The older boy nodded, playing with his tongue a bit. “Yeah.”

                “…What happened now?”

                “Everything is just so messed up!” Sungyeol growled, deep emphasis on the last two words. “I just…why do I keep doing this to myself?!”

                Myungsoo wanted to ask what exactly he was doing, let it be falling in love and hurting himself, or getting all these piercings.

                Fei took that moment to walk out, not sensing any tension at all between the two boys. “Sungyeol! It’s been a while! I’ll get my things ready, you know where we’re at.”

                Sungyeol just gave her a stiff nod, turning away from Myungsoo. “Yeah.”

                Going back to his magazine, Myungsoo flipped the pages and stared at all the blur of words, pretending that they all made sense when they really didn’t.

                There was a few minutes in between until Sungyeol finally came out, a bandage over his ear. “I’ll leave now –“

                “HOLY ING CRAP!” A female voice from the next door screamed, and Fei came rushing out. “I completely forgot, today’s my sister’s baby shower! Oh good God, I need to go, uh, close up! Myungsoo, I’ll see you tomorrow and lock up in five minutes okay?! Yeah, good!”

                Myungsoo could feel his life flash by his eyes as Fei ran around everywhere grabbing her things, then going dashing outside without any other words.

                “…What was that?”

                “That was Fei,” Myungsoo sighed, getting off his stool and grabbing his bag. “She forgets this very easily, so she does that a lot. You tend to get used to it the more she does it.”

                “Oh…”

                “Yeah.” Myungsoo walked around the store to turn off the lights, then went past Sungyeol to the door. “You coming?”

                “Yeah.”

                Shutting the door behind him and making sure it was locked, Myungsoo checked his watch to see that it was only 4:32 PM.

                “I have at least three more hours left,” he said subconsciously to himself.

                “Left until what?” Sungyeol chirped up from the side.               

                “Huh? Oh, nothing. Nothing. Just three hours to spare…because I don’t really have to do anything right now.”

                Sungyeol nodded understandingly, pulling off the red bandage on his ear and tossing it in the trash can outside the store, and Myungsoo cringed, seeing the two piercings and two cartilages that decorated the older boy’s ears.

“I know this really good place that sells coffee. You wanna come with?”

                Seeing as he didn’t have anything better to do, Myungsoo shrugged and nodded. “I guess so.”      

It was Thursday morning when Myungsoo’s mother told him that had offered him up to baby sit for her church friend’s kid. It was a boy, about four years old, and the parents would be gone from 3:00 PM until 9:00 PM, for they were deciding to open their own restaurant and couldn’t take any risks of hiring new people.

                Myungsoo agreed to it, because it was good pay and his mother had asked him to do it, and left to tell Fei the next day. The woman took it to heart because Myungsoo was her source of many customers, but she just left him with a paycheck triple what he was supposed to be paid, and an entire two weeks early, then told him to have a nice life (non sarcastically, because it’d be pretty mean to say it sarcastically).

                “We have an older son, too,” the mother said quickly as she rummaged through her belongings the next day when Myungsoo was standing inside the house. “But he has a ton of friends and he’s always busy, so he doesn’t have time to even come home and look after our little Daeyeollie.”

                Myungsoo just nodded in reply, rocking on the toes and heels of his feet.

                “My goodness gracious, where did I leave that baby powder?” she cried, stomping her feet in frustration as she looked through all the cupboards.

                “HONEY? WE HAVE TO GO!” A manly voice screamed from outside.

                “UH, YEAH, I KNOW!” she shouted back. Quickly, she looked at Myungsoo and grabbed her purse, saying, “Um, the baby powder to make Daeyeol’s lunch is somewhere in the house, it’s in a blue – no, no, it’s in a purple container, if you find it and it smells like baby barf, that’s probably the right one, and uh – uh, we just got new phones so I don’t know my number but they’re all posted on the fridge so call if you –“

                “HONEY!” The exasperated husband called again.     

                “I KNOW!” She sighed to herself, then ran out the door. “OH, AND DAEYEOL’S STILL SLEEPING SO DON’T WAKE HIM UP. HE’S A SCREAMER.”

                And with that, Myungsoo was left in the quiet house all by himself with nothing to do.

                Besides homework. But then again, he finished all of it in school.

                So he just sat on the couch awkwardly, bloating his cheeks and hitting his hands against his knees. He kept his ears keen for any baby-crying noises, but there wasn’t anything. It was as if he wanted Daeyeol to start crying so he’d have something to do.

                Just when he was about to burst out some lyrics to a very sad, lonely song, the house phone began blaring and Myungsoo figured that maybe now he’d have something to do.

                “Hello?”

                “Hello?” came the muffled reply. “Dad?”’

                “No, your parents left. I’m babysitting your little brother,” Myungsoo said, knowing that this was probably the son of the people he was working for.

                “Oh. Well. Um, then can you tell them I’m gonna be home later than usual? Maybe 10 something?”

                “…Why so late?”

                “Why do you care?”

                That left Myungsoo dumbfounded for a second, though he knew the intentions. He didn’t even know why he was asking. “Oh…okay then. Yeah. I’ll tell them.”

                The person on the other line hung up, and just when he was about to put the phone back, it started screaming again.

                “Hello?”

                “Myungsoo! Oh my God, I tried connecting with you before but then the phone went busy and I started freaking out because what if somebody came to hurt you, and oh you’re safe, that’s good. Anyways, I found the baby powder, I accidentally left it in the car this morning when I brought Daeyeol to the park.”

                “…Oh. Well, he’s not awake yet.”

                “Probably not, he sleeps until four at the least. Still, can you please go look in the basement to see if there’s any more in the bag? If there isn’t, there’s money in the drawer and I trust you not to take anything, so please go buy more. Good?”

                “Good,” Myungsoo nodded, checking his watch for the time. “Oh! And your older son called, he said he was coming home at 10.”

                “My baby?” the woman sniffled. “10? He’s been coming home so late these days. Ugh. He better not be getting any more of those thug piercings.”

                “…Thug…piercings?”

                “They’re wretched!” She whined, and Myungsoo could hear somebody attempting to talk to her in the background. “He’s supposed to be my baby, and then he goes out and gets all these weird needle-y thingies in his ear that are super sharp and pointy!”

                Well then obviously, his mom hadn’t told her friend where he used to work at.

                “Well, I don’t really know, but I guess that’s the trend of kids these days,” Myungsoo said, though he was mentally freaking out about what to say. “They’re just…like that.”

                The woman sighed, then footsteps were heard. “Well, I need to go now. Just do whatever and I’ll be back with my husband at around…9. Yeah.”

                Myungsoo hummed a response, and they both hung up the phone.

It had only been the first month of Myungsoo’s new job when his own personal cell phone rang as he made Daeyeol’s supper-post-dinner.

                “Hello?”

                “Myungsoo!”

                The boy smiled at the familiar sound of the voice, wondering why it took her this long to call him. “Hey, Noona.”

                “Noona’s, are es, don’t call me that,” Fei clicked in response.

                “Yeah, yeah. What’s up?”

                “Oh, right, I called because…er, you remember that boy from last time? The one you had a thing with?”

                “…The one I had a thing with?” Myungsoo asked, racking his brain to remember any customer he had a thing with – which was probably all of them.

                “You know, the one that’s tall. Cute. Has a crush on you – okay, was not supposed to say that,” Fei stopped herself. “Sungyeol.”

                “Oh, yeah!” Myungsoo said, shoving the back of his phone up to his ear with his right shoulder. “Sungyeol. Wait – what did you just say about him –“

                “Nothing, nothing, nothing. Anyways, he came back today for another piercing.”

                “Already?”

                “Oh, he’s already been through two.”

                “Two?! In just a month?”

                “…Yeah, two. What’s the big deal? People come through consecutively to get, like, five per day. What’s up with you?”

                Myungsoo felt his blood pulsing because three more piercings meant three more heartbreaks. And he should’ve known Sungyeol, these heartbreaks shouldn’t have come so fast. “Nothing…why…why are you calling me, then?”

                “Oh, right, that. He asked about you today.” Fei slurped something in the background, and Myungsoo knew she was on her break.

                “…Really? What’d he ask?”

                “Where you were. Another billion people asked too, but I just figured he’d be more important to you because…he qualifies more as a significant other than –“

                “Fei!”

                “I got it, I got it,” Fei laughed. “Well, okay, I gave him your number –“

                “You did what?”

                “I became your matchmaker?” she revised. “Either way, that was just a head’s up. In case he tries to prank call you. Or something. I don’t –“

                “Myungie hyung!”

                Instantly, Myungsoo turned around to look at Daeyeol in his high chair, leaning down and pointing at the ground.

                “Hey, Fei, give me a second, okay? I need to take care of something.”

                Fei gave him a quick reply, and Myungsoo placed his phone on the counter and put it on mute.

                “Yeah, Daeyeol?”

                “Fewll,” Daeyeol pouted, pointing at the ground.

                Myungsoo slowly bent down, seeing nothing but a very familiar small, black sphere with a sharp edge at the bottom.

                “…This?” he asked nervously, bringing it up to Daeyeol’s view.

                “Yeah!”

                The teenager pulled his hand away from Daeyeol’s reach, causing the baby to pout even more. “Thas Yeollie hyung’s!”

                “Daeyeol, why do you have this?” Myungsoo asked, his breath hitching for a split second.

                “Iz Yeollie hyung’s!” Daeyeol insisted in that baby voice of his.

                “This is dangerous –“

                “Yeollie hyung dwoppd eet!”

                As if he heard Daeyeol speak for the first time, Myungsoo narrowed his eyes at the two year old. “…Who’s ‘Yeollie hyung’?”

                “Yeollie hyung is Yeollie hyung!”

                Myungsoo knew this earring because he chose this earring. It was his favorite because it was simple and it went with everything; Fei would only buy one of this kind in the catalogue because nobody in their right mind would go all the way to a piercing salon just to buy an earring like that.

                But Myungsoo personally gave this earring to Sungyeol because the older boy didn’t even look like he wanted to get his ears punctured by fast moving needles in the first place, and because he felt a somewhat idiotic connection with the guy and handed him his favorite earring.

                This was also a earlobe pierce, meaning if this did happen to be Sungyeol’s, then nothing would be harmed because it wasn’t a cartilage.

                Snapping back to life, Myungsoo stared at Daeyeol and asked, “Is your brother’s name Sungyeol?”

                “Yeollie hyung!” Daeyeol cheered, nodding his head.

                Myungsoo’s eyes fluttered up to the thousands of picture frames that decorated the house, and he realized that the pictures in the kitchen that he never took the time to look at were of Sungyeol. When his vision flashed over to the living room, he remembered the first day he came when he examined every little detail and understood that the baby pictures weren’t of Daeyeol, they were of Sungyeol.

                “Daeyeol, when did your brother drop this?”

                “Mowning!”

                “Morning? Then –“

                There was a loud crash from the other room, then somebody came running in.

                “I left my earring –“

                The two of them stared at each other for a long time, while little Daeyeol kept reaching his hands out in attempt to grab at the earring in Myungsoo’s hand.

                “You…you’re the babysitter!”

                Myungsoo juggled his choices for a second, but then shrugged. “Yeah…” His eyes, though, were kept on Sungyeol’s ear. The rim of it was now filled with exactly seven earrings.

                “…It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Sungyeol asked, nearing closer as he held his hand out for the earring Myungsoo had.

                “A month,” Myungsoo nodded, though it felt like longer. Which was strange, because the separations for Sungyeol’s piercings prior to today had felt much longer.

                The taller boy just nodded, both of them oblivious to his little brother’s watchful eyes, and grabbed the earring from Myungsoo’s hand, knowing that there wasn’t a back on it.

                “So…Fei tells me you have a crush on me.”

                Sungyeol felt himself freeze, his hands starting to get sweaty around the small earring. “…What?”

                “She told me.”

                “…I don’t have any room for an eighth piercing,” Sungyeol shrugged as if it was nothing, and put the earring back into his earlobe hole.

                “Then where’d you get room for the other seven?”

                Sungyeol slowly allowed his hand to go down the row of seven earrings, only whispering out, “Four.”

                “…What?”

                “I only did have four real people in my life,” Sungyeol said more clearly, straightening his back. “Or…five, I guess…if I’m including you.”

                “…But you have seven –“

                “Three nonsense relationships.” Sungyeol swallowed a bit before scratching his chin, not sure of what to say. “How do I put this…I got myself broken…three more times. So I could see you. But you never came.”

                Myungsoo raised his eyebrows, but in his heart he knew that there couldn’t have been a way that Sungyeol fell for three people that quickly.

                “And here you were at my house the entire time, how ironic is that!”

                Walking closer to Sungyeol, Myungsoo just stayed quiet and brought his hand up to trace every one of the older boy’s seven gems.

                “…Let’s keep it at seven, okay?” Myungsoo suggested, not caring that his voice was slightly shaking. “Okay?”

                “Since you’re the only one that knows about it,” Sungyeol shrugged, “even if I did get an eighth one, you’d notice.”

                Daeyeol, his eyes still lingering at his toy that was not stuck in his brother’s ear, shifted in his chair a little. When he saw Yeollie hyung wrap his arms around Myungie’s, he finally grinned.

more crap asdfghjkl mianhae. the ending didn't make sense to me either but I was writing so much and getting overwhelmed and was like DONE.

yes you guise Sungyeol's piercings are his way of cutting himself.

no really because I was going to repierce my cartilige sometime this week, but my mom told me I couldn't and gave me a lecture about how it was basically stabbing myself with a needle and then I was like holy getting your ears pierced is literally stabbing yourself.

why do we do this to ourselves, girls. and kpop boys. and boys with piercings. 

and here I was thinking of getting an industrial. /sobs I'm rethinking every piercing I get now.

FEI BECAUSE SHE JUST SEEMS LIKE SOMEONE WHO WOULD OWN A PEIRCING SALON OKAY. 

heyyyy guiseeeee. did you see the myungyeol moments from star king. and sungjong's amazing fail at the card trick LOL HE IS JUST SO ADORABLE I CAN'T EVEN.

I realized instead of writing 7 pages of this stuff I could've been working on my morse code oneshot ;___; I fail at planning ahead.

[[c:10]]