...in which the society is the sharpener

Sungyeol/Sungjong

8845 words

inspired by: > click <

dedicated to heartsparks

They said that everyone was beautiful.

They said that the society was ugly, not us.

Lee Sungjong though, never had a single problem with the society for one simple reason. He avoided it and never encountered with it. He ignored it and the society ignored him. He was the dark one among the white, the silent one among the loud and the invisible one among the bold.

He was the type to always watch and observe from afar. Watching groups of friends hanging out after their classes and couples in love heading for their date, he never felt the urge to experience something like that.  He knew the rules that the society had made and that was enough.

‘Happiness and love are nothing.‘

He always thought that as those twenty long years of his life as if passed him by. During that time, he never felt genuinely happy or loved. Because he simply didn’t know what it felt like. His parents loved him, yes, but that was different. They bought him presents, but he never felt utterly happy about those. They hugged him, but he never felt or said anything. They said they loved him and he said it back, but never really felt anything more than just weak delight.

Lee Sungjong did not remember much from his childhood. He remembered going to the kindergarten, he remembered all the ladies his parents hired to babysit him while they were away taking care of their family business. And that was it. Sungjong was always told to focus on studying well so he could inherit the company.

And so he studied.

“You need to study hard and listen to your mummy and daddy well, do you understand me, Sungjongie?”

They always told him that. Being just a small child who was always led to listen to people, he understood and listened. Frankly speaking, it was as if he got brainwashed. Literally. He always watched those people in school just laughing together, yet he never found out about the beauty of laughter. He never saw the use of it, never experienced that tickling feeling in the stomach you get whenever you laugh.

Though, it was true that he was one of those who got used to things easily. Such as, when his parents stayed home for a longer periosd of time, he would get used to them and then have hard time when they’d be leaving again. Sometimes even few days were enough for him to get used to things. And then of course, he’d have problems of letting them go if they were not permanent, that was.

That however did not apply to people. Because he had never talked to anyone and no one had talked to him.

The word ‘friend’ was an unknown term for him and the whole ‘socialising with other people’ process meant just another useless thing in the world to him.

They said that everyone was beautiful.

They said that the society was ugly, not us.

Lee Sungyeol couldn’t agree more with this saying. He loved people no matter how they looked and people loved him. Though he knew that life could be a at times, he laughed at it. Though he knew that the society they all lived in never was a brilliant example of impartiality and equality, he dealt with it his way.

Knowing the rules the society had unconsciously made for everyone, he honestly didn’t give a damn. It was his life and he lived it the way he wanted. Being the type to always shoved his nose into everything, he knew about everything around him even when it concerned people he didn’t know or care about. Being the type who was always carefree and optimistic, you could never see a single tear coming from his eye or a frown forming on his face. There was just that gummy smile you could never get sick of.

‘Happiness and love are everything.‘

He always considered that as his motto. If you had love, it didn’t matter much what else you had. If you’ were happy, the rest of the world could just go and jump off a cliff. He did literally everything to achieve fun. He was rebelious to his parents, best buddy to his troublemaker friends, taking school as just and only another torture he has to go through before jumping on his cloud made of coffee foam and living there laughing his off every single day.

Sungyeol’s family wasn’t anyhow rich, nor well-known. His parents supported him in whatever he wanted to do - though skipping school and teasing younger students was an exception. Despite the troubles he made at school, deep down Sungyeol was diligent. And his parents knew that even without checking up on him every five minutes.

Therefore, they did their best to make sure Sungyeol along with his younger brother had the best childhood they could ever have. Sungyeol remembered everything and tresured everything from that time since they always told him to do so, because “things will never be that easy again.”

The word ‘friend’ meant everything to him and the whole ‘socialising with other people’ process was just another term to describe his life.

It was the very beginning of May when something rather unexpected happened in the life of always invisible and unnoticed Lee Sungjong.

It was just another day when he was forced to watch groups of people heading towards free sunny afternoon together after their classes ended. Sun was burning invisible holes to everyone’s back whilst the wind played with everyone’s hair. Pink petals were falling from trees and even Lee Sungjong could smell that thing other people called ‘love’ in the air.

It was just another day he would spend studying locked in his room. Just like every other Wednesday, he shortened his way from the classroom and took it through the school’s yard. The weather was way nicer than it was the day before, but the boy walked not sparing a single second to enjoy it. Absent-minded, he let his legs pick the way as they already knew where to go and let his eyes wander on the grass his feet trampled down with every step.

His thoughts about nothing in general were halted once he felt a dull pain striking his shoulder, followed by quite stronger pain coming from his bottom as the boy found himself being on the ground all of sudden. Confused, he kept turning his head all around to find out the cause of his encounter with the hard ground. All he saw was a slightly taller guy running away to the opposite side of the yard, shouting something.

Something very close to “Sorry, man!”

Sungjong just sighed in defeat and started to get himself from the grass. Dusting the dirt off, he found a dark green smudge on the back side of his thigh. Just the thought that he’ll have to launder his pants later that day made him sigh deeper. After all he couldn’t go to school with just the upper part of his uniform on, though some of the girls certainly wouldn’t mind if he really did.

It was the very beginning of May when Lee Sungjong met Lee Sungyeol for the first time and thanks to that, his disgust towards socialising with other people just grew.

“Who was that?” came a rather mocking question from one of Sungyeol’s friends. They apparently have been waiting for him for pretty long time, which would also explain why Sungyeol didn’t have the time to help the boy back there back to his feet and why he continued running even after he sent the boy straight down to the ground.

“Let him catch his breath, hyung. You know, he’s not that young anymore.” chuckled another boy who stood beside their tall friend.

Once Sungyeol straightened his back again, apparently able to breathe normally again, he turned to the boys, almost threatening them with his glare.

“I don’t know who that was, hyung. Not that I care.” he said, chuckling a bit. “And you shut up before I end you, Myungoo.” he turned to the other boy, who however seemed a bit unaffected. “Just because you’re half a year younger it doesn’t mean you can call me old. Just look at Dongwoo-hyung here.” he added, pointing over to the first boy whose facial expression -for some reason- suddenly changed into a serious one.

“True.” Myungsoo grinned, patting Sungyeol’s back.

“Both of you should just shut up.” Dongwoo sighed. “Are we going or what?”

“Woohyun-hyung and Hoya are not coming?” Sungyeol asked, confused. Usually it always was the five of them going out after school. Needless to say that except Sungyeol and Dongwoo, Woohyun was one of the mood-makers.

“Nah, Mr. Jung caught them cheating again. Basically he sentenced them to death since they have to help him in the library today.” Myungsoo said, yawning.

“Well, their problem. Let’s go.” Sungyeol grinned, throwing his long arms around both of his friends’ shoulders and pulled them both towards the gates.

It was the very beginning of May when Lee Sungyeol met Lee Sungjong for the first time and he forgot about it within following two minutes.

Life went on, just like before. Sungjong never got distracted from his books and Sungyeol never stopped hanging out. Both of them completely forgot about their little meeting two weeks before and continued with their stereotype lives.

Again, it was just a day like every another. Birds were chirping outside, sun was litting up the day and mentally exhausted students were sitting on their chairs listening to their teachers’ useless blabbering. What a beautiful day to spend it sitting on your for whole day, wasn’t it?

Sungyeol yawned tiredly and observed the class. He wasn’t really surprised that he was among those few who still managed to kept their eyes barely open. Literally almost everyone was fast sleep on their desks. The teacher himself looked like he was about to fall into dreamland in the middle of his speech.

Seeing that nothing was stopping him from doing so either, Sungyeol resigned and also put his head on his desk, using some of the books as a pillow. Hard pillow, but still a pillow. His mind soon got clouded with his imaginary smell of coffee and the teacher’s words just became a background music. Just when he was about to slip out of consciousness, his background music stopped playing and instead of it a loud screech flew through the class, immediately making everyone shoot up. Sungyeol too groaned internally and teared his head from the books, looking confusedly around himself.

“No cellphones in my class!” yelled the teacher, hitting the table with his fist, making a dull sound come out of the impact.

“But sir, no one’s phone rang.” a girl piped up.

“I just heard that someone’s phone vibrated!” the teacher screeched. “Once more and I’ll give you all an assignment which you’d be lucky to finish within next six months. Is that understood?”

Receiving one almost incoherent ‘yes sir’ the man seemed satisfied and returned back to his talking. Sungyeol yawned yet again, knowing it certainly wasn’t his cellphone that caused the problems and placed his head on the books. Again.

Yet…

“Enough!” the teacher shouted, again pulling his already falling asleep students out of their trans. “Whose phone is that?!” he asked, scanning every single person in the class with death glare. People in the class gave each other rather confused looks, wanting the person who caused the trouble to turn themselves in. After all that would be better than suffer the hell that could come any second if the class stayed as quiet as it was.

“I’m sorry, sir. It was mine.” someone from the other side of the class raised their hand, yet Sungyeol couldn’t properly see who it was. It wasn’t like he cared anyway.

“Out of the class. Be sure to visit the principal and if you don’t, I’ll find you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

And so, with slumped shoulders, head down, back his fellow peers a boy left the classroom, letting the teacher continue where he left off. Again. Without giving the slightest damn about it, Sungyeol laid down on his books again, this time finally able to fall asleep properly. He did not even realise that the boy who just left has been going to the same class from the very start of the year. He just assumed that it was some dude he’d seen somewhere before.

After all, why should he care?

Sheepishly, Sungjong stared at the screen of his cellphone once he closed the door of the class behind him. He waited for that number to appear again. The number that had been calling him since the morning.

It was quite unfortunate that the teacher found out, since the number has been calling him almost unceasingly and he just played ‘punch me as fast as you can’ game with the decline button for whole day. Sadly for him, he stopped paying attention to the phone after some time and that old hag just had too good sense of hearing.

The thing was, Sungjong couldn’t think of even one person who could be calling him. There were only few people who had his number and those were his parents, grandparents and some of his parents’ colleagues Sungjong’d met few times and considered them as reliable people he was once going to work with. That was it. None of those people were stupid and knew that Sungjong’s schedule was packed with classes and that he hardly ever returned home before 5pm.

So the question had two possible answers. Someone could have just mistaken the number or (hopefully not) something had happened.

Too preoccupied with his thoughts, he did not notice the screen of the device litting up again, only then sending tickling vibrations to his hand. Sungjong suddenly felt immense anxiety bulding up within his body. Something was telling him that this was not just a mistaken number.

“Hello?” he called after picking up the call, trying not to sound as eager and scared as he was.

“Lee Sungjong-ssi?” an unfamiliar voice asked, making the boy flinch.

“Yes? Excuse me, who am I talking to?”

“Ah, I’m sorry. Dr. Kim Bora, General University hospital.” she introduced herself. “I was asked to let you know that your father had been accepted to our intense care unit this morning after he suffered from a h-- “

“I’ll be there as soon as possible.” Sungjong cut her off and ended the call.

Letting the hand with his phone freely fall beside his body, the boy stood completely still, unconsciously holding his breath. Staring blankly ahead of himself, he slowly processed what’d been said to him just then. Intense care unit. He didn’t even want to think what so serious could have happened that his father had to be taken to a hospital. Especially when he knew that the man always neglected his health for the sake of his business.

Despite the fact that Sungjong never spent as much time with his parents as he would like to, he felt more scared than ever before. Needless to say that Sungjong was rarely scared. He knew his parents loved him and he understood that they couldn’t be with him as much as they all would want to. He understood that and he felt the same about them, yet one of the was now most likely in danger.

It was only the bell announcing the end of all classes that teared him apart from his thoughts. Right before students started to pour from the doors and flood the corridors, Sungjong ran. He ran through the building, picking the shortest way right towards the gates. Jumping into first cab he saw and barking the directions at the driver, he could only pray that it wasn’t as serious as it seemed.

He could pray and nothing more.

Sungyeol’s eyes slowly fluttered open once the fact that he couldn’t breathe dragged him out of his dreamland. The first thing he saw however was someone’s hand holding his nose and a face of that someone giggling in the background. Immediately feeling his blood boiling, he slapped that hand away and started chasing after the boy who -unfortunately for him- happened to be his best friend.

“I swear I’m going to rip both of your arms off, Kim Myungsoo!” he roared, quickly leading his long legs through the already empty class. Myungsoo’s answer couldn’t be anything else than just an explosion of another fit of laughter as he continued running.

Leaning against the wall stood Woohyun, Dongwoo and Hoya, all of them tiredly watching the two chasing each other.

“Children…”

“I heard that, Woohyun!” Sungyeol screeched.

“That’s still hyung for you, you little brat!” Woohyun shouted back, sighing yet again right after.

“Wait a second.” Sungyeol suddenly stopped on spot (which finally allowed still laughing Myungsoo collapse on the floor, desperately panting for oxygen). “What time is it?”

“Almost five.” Hoya said. “Why? You never care about time.” he asked, chuckling.

“Well today I do!” Sungyeol exclaimed completely terrified and immediately looked around for his bag. “I was supposed to pick Sunggyu-hyung up. He’ll kill me for being late.” he explained.

“If that really happens, we will come to your funeral, Yeollie.” Dongwoo joked.

“Try not to and I’ll haunt you all till your own death.” with that Sungyeol stormed out of the classroom, already thinking about potential excuses he could use.

After all his cousin, certain Kim Sunggyu, was very punctual and could keep ing for hours if he really wanted.

His office was nice, actually more than just nice. Sunggyu was always praised for his determination to keep it as neat as it was and he was always proud of his work. Being a doctor -and a good one to that- surely was fruitful and he would never change his profession unless he really had to. That was for one reason. Unlike the majority of the world’s population, he liked his job. Maybe way too much. It wasn’t just the payment that was more than he could ever ask for. It wasn’t just the fact that he made his parents unconsciously way more proud than they showed. It was just that he liked the feeling of being needed.

People needed him and he was always there, helping them whenever they caught a flu, broke their leg or even saving their lives whenever there was lady Death knocking on their door.

Sighing, he glanced at the screen of his cellphone for ninth time that minute, impatiently waiting for certain choding to show up or at least call. He was ready to go for almost an hour already, however his rather irresponsible cousin was nowhere to be found. He almost jumped out of his skin though, once his office phone started ringing all of sudden.

Calming himself down a bit, he picked it up. “Yes?”

There was absolutely no doubt that something had happened - if there hadn’t, no one would try to reach him through his office phone. Needless to say he was supposed to be away for a while too.

“Oh, I’m glad you’re still here, sir. There’s an emergency at ICU.”

“I’ll be right there, Jieun. Thank you.”

Letting out yet another heavy sigh, Sunggyu reached out for his white cloak that was already innocently hung in his little wardrobe. Apparently, it wasn’t time to leave work yet and Sungyeol was pretty lucky for that.

Locking the door carefully, he was about to turn around and head to the ICU and he would also do so if there wasn’t a certain cousin of his crashing into him the following second. Sunggyu managed to keep his balance, however Sungyeol fell on the floor.

Yet, no matter how angry he was at the younger right then, Sunggyu couldn’t help but laugh at him.

“I swear you’re going to be the death of me one day, Lee Sungyeol.” he commented once Sungyeol got back up to his feet.

“Sorry I’m late, hyung. I kind of fell asleep.” the boy awkwardly scratched his nape, avoiding Sunggyu’s sharp eyes.

“Karma always bites back so now it’s your turn to wait. They called me for an emergency.” Sunggyu grinned, leaving speechless Sungyeol standing in front of the door to his office just like that.

Sungyeol, unable to utter a word just blinked dumbly few times before even realising that he’s standing alone. He followed his cousin right after, however he couldn’t find him anymore. Therefore, he had nothing better to do than to just wander around the hospital, thinking of the best possible place where he could hide and let Sunggyu look for him later.

Yes, deep down, Sungyeol was still a mischievous kid who liked playing hide and seek.

Soon he became tired though. He hadn’t even the slightest idea where he was, but it somehow didn’t matter. Sunggyu was going to be the one to look for him. At the thought, he chuckled to himself. Letting out a groan, he collapsed on some random chair, stretching his limbs. As he remembered how ‘harshly’ he was woken up before, an i