recommended to listen to this song while reading. enjoy while i go shame myself in a corner. : - ) 1940's au.

falling stars:

INTRODUCTION:

Joonmyun’s voice when sung in methodical pitches and unraised notes is deemed as something so heavenly, whether it’s complemented with music or not. Joonmyun’s husband, Oh Sehun, is one of the most well-paid actors, renowned for the most cheesy romance movies, heart-wrenching dramas with his character deaths always being the prioritized news in the media, and for being a smoker against every dawn of the day, smoke morphing into dust on the balcony, paparazzi snapping away with the flashes making it seem as if he’s in the heavens. Joonmyun’s life is perfection and maybe he should feel lucky. Maybe, but he doesn’t. Joonmyun doesn’t feel lucky whatsoever because there’s always something so primal from behind that’s holding a gun to his head. Something that’s been hiding underneath his soles, underneath the foots of his bed, something along the edges of Sehun’s defined jaw that makes it seem too unbelievable. Something that’s too close to the stars that are falling even to this moment.

--

The theatre’s filled with loud audiences, radiance bundling from side to side underneath the fabrics of the wallpaper, corner to corner to every crook of the beige-wringed room. Gleaming chandeliers uncover the echoing room, every footsteps or every heard laugh and clinking glasses soaring out through the syllables and over the cracks in every window possible, hoping to run from somewhere that’s too lively and too loud. It seems almost monotonous, really, with all the cameras pointed at his mouth, microphones shoved onto the podium and angled in a direction, making it seem like he wanted to sing. It’s just black-and-white, all of it.

Velvety curtains arise from the pits of the stage, audience becoming no less of a dim sound as Joonmyun takes a few more steps near the microphone. His tuxedo feels especially tight right now, and it might be because of the sudden pressure that’s clogged up at this throat, or perhaps of the audiences who directed all divided attention towards him. Something bordering the lines of guilt sneaks up through the open soles of his dress shoes, goes somewhere through his slacks, and ends up on the bow-tie that’s contrasted and angled at an unusual direction. The audience is waiting, after all.

“And don’t you all look dazzling tonight, ladies and gentleman?” he says, a murmur crescendoing into something comical, ending in whizzes of laughs and slurs of chuckles. The audience is glamorous in something that fits their era with sparkling dresses, longed flaps, other suits with hats accompanying shade and there’s just something sparkling that blinds his eyes from seeing any further than that. It’s the stage light. It must be. Nothing else.

He takes a deep breath and continues on, because the audience is looking for a star singer, not a comedian.

“This final song is dedicated for my husband, Oh Sehun.”

--

VERSE 1:

It’s raining, and the lampposts are flickering on and off, pattern and pattern and it goes on, off, on off, dead. There’s a manor in the distance, on a hill that’s bundled with scenic landscapes and birds that hide underneath the huge fountains within the drive-way, and inside this manor is a singer. A singer who’s waiting for his husband to come home. A singer who’s known for performing at the Hall, every week at the times between eight and nine, when the sun is down and the cosmos are out. A singer who’s known for being so lucky to have a husband like Sehun. A singer.

But tonight, it doesn’t feel like that.

Tonight, it feels like waiting for cats to speak with their chatoyant eyes and for human equality to just happen like nothing as he’s on the couch, tuxedo still on and his own body sprawled against the leather sofa so comfortably, legs dangling off the edges as he squints his eyes onto something on the retro television set, still black-and-white and if he’s hallucinating, maybe a new color that’s never been discovered before. The actresses are so beautiful and they’re here, on a comedy show, dresses in all and trying to seduce the corporal managers of the businesses. Joonmyun scoffs, and gets up to switch the channel, flickering and pressing on the button until he comes upon a thriller movie with mens who are bald, and pipes queezed between their lips with women with maddy-plus hairstyles on their sides, fingers slathering down silky robes whispering something that he can’t hear because the television’s too quiet and the rain’s too loud.

“It’ll work for now,” he sighs to himself and he settles himself back down onto couch. It’s their eighth anniversary, him and Sehun, and Sehun had promised Joonmyun that he would be back in time to take them out for dinner, just a private settling to fuse down their eighth year in remembrance. But it’s nearly ten now, and all the restaurants must be closed. What a shame, really. He wanted to spend some quality time, because recently, Sehun’s been so busy with the new crazes of silent films, and James Bond flick-offs. Unfortunate, really.

A few minutes go on by, and the movie’s getting no rather more entertaining to him and he’s becoming more impatient. So after another shrilling sound from the television set and another noise of metal to flesh, Joonmyun’s lost of all his patience and is already reaching for the house phone, frail fingers frilled against the cold’s contact and then warm as he tolls against the familiar rings of digits.

The rain still patters, loudly, and it thumps and maybe whacks against the windows like a predator from far, far away.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

“Hello?” A voice sounds, and it’s heaven to Joonmyun’s ears and he’s heard lots of similar things that makes a pathway to heaven but nothing comes as close as his husband’s voice.

“Sehun,” Joonmyun greets. “Where are you? It’s late at night and well, it’s lonely at home.”

The rain’s louder and Joonmyun has to press the receiver harder onto his ear so that he could hear the other reply.

“Oh,” and then there’s a silence, with the fills and pills of rain receiving on the other end. The thriller movie’s moved onto credits now, and the television falls onto a black screen, light’s in the room dimming down in Joonmyun’s fun-filled imagination. “Dear, I have to apologize but...work has been keeping me busy lately and as much as I want to come home, I’m afraid I can’t be there in time for our private dinner tonight, you see. I’m sorry, darling.”

The lights have seemed to exploded now, and something dangles at Joonmyun’s feelings. Something uneasy and queasy, maybe. “Oh,” he repeats, in the manner of how Sehun had. “I see.” Still a shame.

Silence and the sounds of a chuckle, distracted by wraps of papers and scratches of pencils could be heard from the other end, and Joonmyun raises his brow but he does nothing of questioning.

Well,” Joonmyun finishes off and his words are noted as fading pitches. “I guess I’ll leave you to your business now since I know you’re so busy.”

“Alright, dear. I’ll see you later tonight. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

But later that night, in their master bedroom in the early peaks of midnight around three a.m., Joonmyun’s not sure if he could return the same words he had promised because there’s a smell on Sehun that tingles at his scents. It’s not the smell of pine trees and warm tangerines anymore but instead of something leaking, and something putrid, perhaps morbid like alcohol, specifically warm rum that’s been hiding out in the cellar for years.

Nevertheless, when he feels a warm arm wrap around his waist, he can’t deny the feelings of temptation and he just rids of the conclusion, hugging his husband back who suddenly also smells of tobacco as well.

He hasn’t smoked in their entire duration of courtship.

--

“Nice to meet you, sir. My full name is Lu Han, but you can just call me Luhan for a good ol’ short-fashioned name.”

His smile seems contradicting, and it makes Joonmyun frown even harder at the blonde boy.

“I’ll be your husband’s assistant, and I’ll fetch him of all he needs like perhaps whenever he’s quenching for his thirst, or maybe when he needs a rag, all that jazz,” Luhan commits and he still has that smile on.

“That’s nice,” Joonmyun brushes off and he turns back to face his husband who’s giving a wry smile, direction unacquitted and unclear. It could either be at Luhan’s gentleness or at the smile Joonmyun’s giving back to his hell of a husband.

Sehun reaches over an arm to Joonmyun and pulls him, force dragging him behind as he falls onto his lap. “He’s perfect. Don’t you agree, dear?” he asks, finger tracing along the thinness of Joonmyun’s jaw and moving upwards to his styled hair, flicking every high-top mark there is along the neatly coiffed hair.

“Sure, sure, I suppose he is,” Joonmyun says, unsure. He turns to his face Luhan, who’s now just sitting on the leather couch in Sehun’s office, fingers fidgeting along one another and soon enough, he notices Joonmyun’s persistent stares. He turns his head up slowly, and smiles back at the husband who’s sort of jealous, but at the same time isn’t.

--

The music beings to play and sooner than he can think because the words in the lyrics are supposed to be sung out already and Joonmyun jerks immediately, lost in thoughts and somewhere of guilted conscience.

The audience laughs, mocking in a way and it angers Joonmyun. It angers him enough for his next few words to be more forced out of his throat, vocal cords stretched to reach the soprano notes and then lowering back down into an alto.

He calms down, and knows that nothing is wrong.

Yet.

--

CHORUS:

A year went by back then, and it went by too quickly but maybe not, because now it’s their ninth anniversary and Joonmyun had just arrived home, groceries tucked into a hand and peacock coat wet from the rain outside. It’s been raining too much for April, has it not?

He sets and organizes the groceries into the pantries and he’s excited, because he knows that Sehun had taken the day off of his acting to just be at home, with his main actor by his side.

After putting up the vegetables and the frozen meats, Joonmyun begins anticipating the faces on his husband when he’ll see that Joonmyun’s home early from his gig but dear lord, early enough to even buy groceries for their dinner date later. Once crossing the tiles and having reach the oak wood that creaks on every heavy step, Joonmyun begins tip-toeing to the master bedroom where his king is waiting for him, the smells of now regular tobacco, being of present. Joonmyun just squeals in his lost mind at the thoughts of it.

Tip, toe, tip, toe and he makes sure that his toes don’t make a noise because what a shame it would be if this didn’t end up as a surprise. Joonmyun’s a very surprising person, if he’s to not be as humble. He’s now in the hallway, several more feet to stroll through and he’ll finally be in their bedroom, where he knows that Sehun will be with a shocked face, pale lips pursed up and suddenly morphed into a smile as he opens his arms for an endearing hug. He can imagine the kisses that’ll be planted onto his face, and then his neck, and then his clothed chest as Sehun thanks him for being so patient with him because lately, it’s been weeks since they’d ever had a moment like this. A moment of just tranquility and hugs and love-making and old-fashioned smoking on the balcony of their mansion, where the fireworks would be playing throughout the whole night.

A few more feet now, and Joonmyun smiles to himself. He’s so excited to just see him--...and he suddenly peers his head in closer. There’s some sort of hushed noises, and whispers maybe. Who is that? He can recognize the tones and low timbres of his husband, but there’s some sort of other sweet-honey voice in their air as well. An awfully too familiar one.

Now, just a few mere inches and he’ll be in their bedroom but there’s something holding Joonmyun back from pushing the door open.

“Joonmyun’s almost home,” he hears and he knows that it’s Sehun saying that because it sounds of happiness, but then also regret. Regret in the lower syllables that are never called for but, no, no, it can’t be hidden from Joonmyun.

“We have to be quiet, see? You wouldn’t want that little pretty face of yours being messed, get it?”

Joonmyun’s brows are lowered, and his mouth is now in a shape of a circle, too wide but he’s too shocked. Who in the other world is in their made-for-two manor?

His foot then fails him at that sudden fracture of a second and it creaks, the floor panels groaning so loudly in pain. But he catches himself at that moment and immediately creeps himself against the beige wall that seems too endlessly wrong as it holds him, better than how Sehun had ever did.

The room right beside him also goes silent and there’s little cautions of rustling and footsteps being lost into the moonlight as shushes and pushes are issued. Joonmyun takes the chance at this time in the night, and pushes open the door, almost too hard because it slams into the wall adjacent to it.

There’s only a person in the room, and it’s Sehun against the bed, book of romance in hand and eyes tired. But when the eyes are met with who’s standing at the doorway, they change from something so disheveled to something so astonished.

“Well, my lord,” Sehun sputters out and he puts the book down, calmingly, opening his arm in the ways Joonmyun had just anticipated a few minutes ago.

Temptation, once again, strikes at him and it’s with a friend who’s more like a doppelganger. Jealously. Such a pain, really but Joonmyun has no reason to be jealous. But why is he still? It must be his imagination taking the best of him. So he breaks in and he runs towards his husband’s hands and engulfs in something like a hug of lemons and limes.

Joonmyun breaths in loudly, inhaling the smells of new smoke and french cologne, and he’s been damning a lie to himself if he said it wasn’t irresistible, Sehun.

“I missed you so much, darling,” Sehun says, smoothly as he pulls Joonmyun back onto the bed, kisses already delving into the necks and the crooks and the lips, foreheads, and somewhere along the hollows of his cheeks. “I missed you so, so much.”

The shorter, and more innocent just smiles into Sehun’s power and he frails back, onto the other side of the bed as Sehun continues breezing his ways of charming attraction onto Joonmyun’s body. It’s just like pity but he doesn’t treat it as that. He thinks it’s just love.

“I missed you so much, too.”

Sehun sits up from the bed, and his eyes don’t look longer of tiredness. He smiles, warmly, and like how he always does in the movies because once again, he’s an actor. “Why don’t you go grab some bourbon from the basement and we’ll have ourselves some time for the rest of the night. What do you say to that, my love?”

Frankly, that night ends with smokes hanging out of their mouths as they do indeed hang on the balcony. Joonmyun’s legs are dangling off the balconies but he isn’t scared of falling off because there’s another pair of arms surrounding his waist, holding him back from the three-stories of death.

The stars are bright tonight, really bright, but none of them come close with how beautiful the star that’s holding Joonmyun is.

But even all stars die out, and there’s something that hangs off at the toes of Joonmyun’s feet as it promises to seep through his pants and maybe somewhere to his bow-tie. Something like secrets that’ll be hidden til they’re ridden at the brinks of falling stars.

--

“Kim Joonmyun! So you’re Oh Sehun’s husband, are you not?”

There’s cameras everywhere flashing, and it seems to Joonmyun that they’re flashing at Oh Sehun’s husband, not Kim Joonmyun.

“Yes, that’s correct. I am.”

His words seem almost regretful.

“How does it feel to be married to a guy who’s so lovely and is so full of charm and star quality to the peaks of his career? How does it feel being the husband of someone who’s so famous? Not to be of a shame, though. Not at all! Most unfortunate people seem to always get married to the most fortunate! It’s how karma works, am I right?”

What?

“Uh,” Joonmyun stutters as he tries to walk out to the car so that he could get more groceries. They’ve been running low and he’s been trying to put it off but it seems as of lately, he’s unable to be doing anything lately.

“Excuse me sir!”

Anger surges and the grenade just seems to be getting in more abundance of furiosity.

“W-what must you need now?”

It’s beginning to quiver, all of his words.

“How’d you and Oh Sehun meet?”

Well…

“Like how all couples meet these days. Typical bump across the streets and then an invite to grab a few shots, am I right?”

But he isn’t even too sure, himself.

--

VERSE 2:

He’s just known for the fame, isn’t he? Joonmyun’s just the husband of Oh Sehun, the actor. He’s just the husband who sings on stage, nothing more to it and nothing less of it. He’s just deemed as the husband who does nothing but of leeching money off of his husband, isn’t he?

Joonmyun always questions their marriage late at night, some nights when he’s alone while Sehun’s in Pulaski or Chicago, or whenever they’re both in bed but Joonmyun’s facing the opposite side. He just wishes to be known as the person he really is. Not some sort of schmoozer who walks down the red carpet, only to be sided with Oh Sehun.

But no one really knows how much he wishes of this different dimension, but of himself. Because Sehun is a star, and he lives with the other stars that are still on the foregrounds and aren’t in the skies.

--

“So, Luhan. You’re the intern and assistant for renowned actor, king of all dramas, and especially, the most dazzling man for this year, Oh Sehun, am I correct?”

Luhan chuckles, and smiles, a smile that’s just full of colors unexplained and unable to. “Yes, you have that all correct. I am indeed the assistant, and the intern of all those qualities you had just listed of my practical boss and I don’t plan on taking any other name on it. It’s swell, really.”

Joonmyun’s watching the interview from the side, arms crossed as Sehun’s right by his side, smiling at Luhan and giving him thumbs up.

The interviewer laughs back, and the room seemed to have become more stuffy ever since those smiles had just exchanged, from Luhan to Sehun to the paparazzi.

“So, tell us, you charming doll, how is Oh Sehun when in privacy? I mean, surely you’ve gotten to see this other side to him that’s only exclusive to your eyes and no one else.”

And it’s still mired in Joonmyun’s eyes. With maybe a flint of crimson draining everything else.

“Well. Sehun’s a nice guy, really. Yeah, sure, he’s capital huge and he’s all over the newspaper and he always has this demeanors that carry on from his films but really, in true reality.”

Luhan points a few fingers and bend them forward, the tendons even smooth with every glide.

“But really, Sehun’s just this angel whenever it’s just the two of us. Really, quote me on that, please.”

The two of them share a laugh, and Luhan calms back into something that’s as sleek as the suit he’s wearing, leather in leather and cotton through his tan hat. “No really, Oh Sehun’s a very good guy and well, I’m just grateful to have someone as nice as him to be my manager. I know that he’ll guide me in someway of a good direction and he’ll always be one of my biggest role models.”

And while Sehun’s just beaming, Joonmyun’s now feeling the aces of cards slice through him, even through the thick materials of his tuxedo as he stands there, arm seeming to have tensed up and smiles clayed into something along the lines of a bare frown.

“Luhan, you’re just as charming as Sehun himself. I’m assured to know that Sehun’s in good cares of someone as helpful and extravagant as you. So may the best wishes be with you while you guys travel over to Berlin, and hopefully carry off of something further than your friendship.”

“Thank you, kind sir, and it was a pleasure of mines to be here today.”

Does no one see Joonmyun right there? Is he just an apparition in between this atrocity of a dalliance.

The interview then ends, and the recording of the monotone set airs onto the small retro screen, replaying the exchanges of flirtatious smiles and charming winks and just Luhan’s perfection. Joonmyun watches it intently, so oblivious and synced onto the television set of Luhan repeating those sane words that he doesn’t notice his own husband going over to Luhan to congratulate him on doing such a good job and how he’s flattered and how he’s so thankful to have a swell intern like him.

But when Joonmyun’s eyes snap away from the screen and onto something else, he does see the hug that the two exchange and whenever his eyes seem to want to play illusions on him, he swears that he sees himself within that hug, as someone that’s known for more than just what they are. Kim Joonmyun, the husband of Oh Sehun who’s just as amazing as Lu Han, who’s the person known to be his best friend, and someone who has the manners of royalty while Joonmyun’s just there, a figure who’s been shunned from going out into the public without being questioned about the stability of their non genuine relationship.

--

BRIDGE:

It’s late at night, and Joonmyun’s alone in the bed that was meant for two once again. His husband is now away, in a far country, filming for another film as he’s in the cold, widening mansion by himself, with nothing of company but of the flickering lamppost outside their house and of the pictures of Sehun against the house walls from every corner. But it doesn’t feel the same. It’s just a mere coy and a photograph in a frame, is it not?

He gets up and makes a visit to the kitchen, takes a glass and fills it water slowly with every droplet echoing throughout the wooden house because he’s thirsted and he knows that water won’t help because it’s nothing that’s dry in his throat. It’s something that pains at his throat, and if anything, water would just make it worse but he no longer cares because he will always find another reason.

After the excruciating wait of the sink to fill up the small glass, he brings himself and the cup of water back into his bedroom, where it smells of old tobacco and the green grass growing outside. He sees from the widening windows of the lonely mansion, the soles to the starlights from the Hollywood sign, where he knows Sehun has been there too many times. The window outside lets in a smell of burning pines, and the candles in his room don’t help because they’re dying out, melting wax dripping onto the floor.

Joonmyun sighs and he sits back down onto the bed, glass of cup feeling ever so heavy now. Or maybe he’s just weak. Yes, it must be the latter because the water hasn’t even filled up the cup half-way yet.

He takes a small sip of the pain, and he skims over their night stand. There’s two picture stands on it and one’s laid down, probably accidental but when Joonmyun lifts the frame back up, he knows that it isn’t.

One of the picture frames includes two silhouettes on a screening event of Sehun’s peak of his career, somewhere in Toronto where the streets bring on good luck and the skies bring moody nights as love-making is across every hotel and the traces of their fingers leave something like memories behind. It’s Joonmyun and Sehun, and whenever he lifts the frame back up onto place, he smiles and he gets a sudden urge to call Sehun.

But he’s busy. He always is and even if he did call, Luhan would always be the one to answer.

The other frame isn’t needed to be lifted up because it was always up and that fact is noticed and furthered on with a slam of both picture frames down onto the stand. Within the wooden photoframe, there’s a picture of two figures on the beach maybe near the west coast, both smiling and it just looks so genuine whereas on the other pictures, only Joonmyun is smiling with Sehun giving that smug look that he always has plastered on.

It’s Luhan and Sehun. It’s his husband and his best friend, or intern, or the third of the affair.

Joonmyun feels something ignite, and it just carries on throughout the wind and explodes around the relative location of his heart. His fingers turn too white, and they release of the grips on the glass cup so there’s a bang of a noise, and the sounds of shattering glass across his heart and across the wooden floor. And he’s in tears now, candles blown out from the wind outside, leaving him in the darkness as he purges on, not knowing of what to do anymore.  

It’s obvious, and it’s always been obvious but because of his oblivious self, it’s always been hidden but no, not any longer for now.

Because now, the stars are just mere faults that are waiting to crash down onto him, himself. Kim Joonmyun. Husband of Oh Sehun. But no, he’s an independent star and he doesn’t need to be surrounded by the other hanging ones. He’s no longer the husband of Oh Sehun. He’s Kim Joonmyun, now. A person.

--

Sehun comes home, a little drunken one final night and he arrives home with another figure who’s holding onto Joonmyun’s husband too closely, arm over shoulder as they have just came home from an attendance party.

“Sorry, Joonmyun. He seemed to have gotten too many drinks for his own tolerance,” Luhan says, and he chuckles a little bit because Joonmyun assumes that he’s been drinking as well. The redness in his cheeks just give it all away.

“Oh, no. It’s fine. Just take him up to the master bedroom and well, since it’s so late, why don’t you stay here as well? We have a guest room that could be of a use to the moment.” Joonmyun proposes, a smirk in the edges of his lips hidden by his genuine-looking smile.

“Well, that’d be helpful, Joonmyun. Thank you.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

--

FINAL CHORUS:

Moonlight drifts into their master bedroom as Joonmyun’s shadow drifts over the walls, hand dripping with something of thickness as he gloats over to the other side of the bedroom, where there’s a body lying, dead.

It was almost too easy, really. Just along the lines of getting it over with, a beg of mercy, a final kiss and just an incision that was in too deep, crimson dribbling down the torso and he almost feels sad, almost miserable but at the same time, he isn’t because he’s just destroyed one of the literal stars and it feels surreal to him, like when he wakes up the next morning, it’ll just all be a bad dream.

“I’m sorry,” is one of the last things he says to Sehun before leaving the room, making sure that the door’s locked on the way out.

-

He comes across the guest bedroom, where there’s a figure inside, crouched over and bent over the desk, scribbling something onto a paper in a very sprawled way.

“Hello,” Joonmyun says, and the figure looks up, sweet smile forming over, only belonging to one person and one person only.

Luhan doesn’t say anything back and he turns back towards the paper, continuing to write away like nothing’s lingering between the two of them. But today and tonight, Joonmyun’s not letting that happen.

He walks up towards the blonde haired boy and gives a slight push, one that jerks Luhan from the table and manages to cause his papers to fly off, now all in disarrangement. The blonde-haired boy turns back and gives Joonmyun an admonishing look but still doesn’t say anything. He just laughs. Laughs.

“Can’t say anything, now can you?” Joonmyun peers in closer to the shorter boy and uses his index and middle fingers of both hands to pull the soft cotton material of the suit by the collar up. Luhan does nothing to deject back but the movement’s tensed, chest tensed, and mouths pursed up and thinned across the face.

Sadistic Joonmyun manages to throw Luhan onto the guest bed, and that’s when it seems to have knocked the smaller and younger boy out of the sense. Even from here, where the sounds of fleshes and punches dragged across one another could be heard clearly, the piano’s and violin’s of his psycho-musical is just barely audible.

“Stop it,” Joonmyun says, grinning at the same time as the boy does nothing of to resist but once he trails a finger across the stars that lie in his eyes, Luhan takes the chance and pushes him back, bottom reaching the floor immediately as Luhan clambers over and begins taking over hits that were meant to be given in the first place.

He can see the stars.

There’s a moment of silence now as Joonmyun’s just breathing, and it’s almost like Luhan had disappeared but that tiny, fraction and moment in denial dissolves into the cold theatre air once Joonmyun struggles to get back up and push the persona thief into the mirror. He can even feel the blood reaching his white-washed tuxedo, and he makes a small note of how he has to dump all of this out in the lake nearby later.

The mirror makes a shrieking sound, shards of glass crashing Luhan’s thin body into something of pierced, and mutated but Luhan still doesn’t scream. Unusual, but there’s a sound of a thud as the assistant’s body hits the floor, random threads of blood spewing with a clasp of a shard protruding from his veins.

That’s it; the final ultimatum and the final climatic pitch of his voice. Joonmyun’s still breathing, and the sounds of his symphony had stopped, being replaced by the small mutters and the quiet murmurs of the retro television set in the living room.

He’s done it. He just murdered stars. And in replacement, he’s now one himself.

And then he passes out, because some sort of pain seems to have overtaken his lower waist, somewhere along his abdomen and it just feels like shards of glass had instead, ruined his ego.

--

CONCLUSION:

The lights are no longer blinding, no longer white and Joonmyun feels more of himself as the song begins to reach its final measures, each metaphony floating off the dits and ghosts of his tied tongue, aching to reach the end. And here it is, his final moment of audition.

The music stops, allowing him to hear the small breathings of his as the audience is on their chairs, the edges really, and is just waiting for him to bring out the final note. Something between pathetic and something closer to fame, between the highlights and the auras of the crashing stars.

And it begins again, and he ushers out a beautiful note that brings the dead back to life, makes the glasses trickle over with soft grumbles, and makes him feel like someone, someone that’s more on his train. Someone’s who’s more related to him. Someone who is him.

The song ends, and the audience is on their feet, suits within suits that look too tightening and with dresses accompanied with an arm in, just clapping it all away. The rowdy ones in the back clink at their glasses, and the chandeliers above seem to look like they’re going to fall on him because of the well-deserved applause. Joonmyun swears he hears his voice echo throughout the city, but maybe it’s just him hallucinating because he swore, just on the edges of his life, that he just saw Luhan sitting in the audience, smiling at him but no, not his husband. Not Oh Sehun. Why is that--

The door then barges in, and there’s four men, all lanky and all having lithe body frames as two of them have pipes in their mouths while the others have something with an outline of a weapon. Joonmyun smiles.

Home.

“Thank you, thank you,” he says into the microphone, breath almost gone and now pain taking over. He looks down, along the white-washed areas of his tuxedo and he's not surprised that he sees that it’s drenched red now, glass shard impaled within abdomen with splatters of rubies dribbling down to his black pants, leaving something of a shadow behind. The crowd’s still clapping but then they’re gasping, and there’s attention diverted between the bleeding singer and the police authorities from behind who are yelling,

“Back away! Back away crowd, this instant!  He’s dangerous and must be armed! Oh Sehun has died and this person is the criminal!”

Joonmyun takes another step away from the microphone, and the pain hits him, hard. But then something nags at him from behind, and he wobbles back to the microphone because it shoots him, almost, where when he firsts hits it, it makes a shrilling, echoing sound that brings the ballroom into a catastrophe.

“There’s a second one, fellas. Have you not found his body yet, you clueless fools?”

Laugh, and laugh, and laugh is what he does then. The room seems woozy now, or maybe it’s just him because he swears, on his life again, that he sees Luhan, the blonde-haired boy who was the cause of this all. The damn blonde boy who’s known for being so sweet, while Joonmyun’s in suffering here, known for the money, power, and glory.

But the glory was all worth it. And so was the fame. And definitely all the power, because look at where he is now, having a room to just his own air.

“What are you talking about, you damn criminal? You murdered your husband!” A cop yells from the back, caliber pointed at Joonmyun, and he says it in such a rude, rude way, making it seem as if Joonmyun had never murdered Luhan in the former. Or, is that what happened?

"What?" He just merely scoffs, and the blood wounds dampen, but he keeps it hidden with the flaps of his dress jacket.

The lights from above are becoming blinding again, and it’s taking over his low-line vision. He coughs, throat too dry again, and this time, it’s no longer full of pain. Sure, he might of coughed up some blood but still, it feels good.

It's fame.

“It was perfect,” Joonmyun mumbles behind the cuffs and with the police bar edging at his thighs. There’s rough movements pushing him further down onto the floor, and he can feel the blood just leaving him. He doesn’t question on how it’s there, because it should be Luhan not him who’s bleeding.

He can still remember that final note he had danced out, ballet and ovations along the cold, cold, night in Brooklyn. “It was all worth it, I swear.” It comes out like incoherent mumblings but Joonmyun can still hear it, even if his mind is lost and even if he’s bleeding to death on a stage, where the curtains are beginning to draw but wait, his show isn’t over. He hasn’t began taking requests yet and the standing ovation wasn’t even that long enough! He demands more.

“Was it really worth murdering your husband, you psychomaniac?” The cop asks him, and Joonmyun just scoffs. Scoffs like he never murdered him, but gave him, hm, something more justifiable and rational like paradise. One star doesn't ruin the whole galaxy. Does it? Sometimes, losing a star just makes the galaxy shine brighter because the skies need dull ones.

But Joonmyun’s bleeding too much, and it begins to hurt more and more, so he closes his eyes and winces in pain as he mutters the few last words while the lights blind him to an agonizing point, taking him up to the skies and heavens where he belongs. “It was all worth it. All of it. Because now I’m a star. A star in the ever-longing waiting skies where my husband is awaiting my arrival.”

-

"He'll be proud."

fin.

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