okay as usual, an a/n: i do not in any way think that Wonwoo is gloomy, or ‘emo’, as i would later depict in the story through Mingyu’s perspective. i’ll be using the theme of gloominess and ‘the no-fun concept’ negatively and thoroughly in this story, but as a storyteller i take on different perspectives and point of views, therefore not everything stated here means i think in that particular way. furthermore, this chapter is more on background, so nothing weird yet x) with this in mind, please read on and i hope you like the first chapter!

also, wonwoo and mingyu are the same age, of 23 years old.

(i hope you read the a/n, to prevent any misunderstanding)

The rain fell down in pellets, little steel bullets of a gun that hit the glass of the rooftop. The sky was bleak, or a desperate splay of grey and white, an attempt to make an art piece better.

It was three in the afternoon, with the sun nowhere in sight and the house smelling like ceramic, concrete and heaps of concealed dust.

Wonwoo jammed the last door-stopper book into the shelf, fit tightly between other equally thick books, and sighed.

“Are these it?”
He looked around, the empty cardboard boxes displayed like obvious exhibitions and wiped the sweat off his brow. “I guess after these would be cleaning.”

Mingyu doesn’t say anything. He’d been staring at the window the last forty minutes, while Wonwoo shoved dictionaries and encyclopedias and literature novels in order on a tall sylvan shelf with a ladder to aid him. Wonwoo ignored the silence; he was going to sigh, but he held it back and exhaled softly instead. He shuffled out the room to grab a wet cloth. “When you’re done dreaming, get a mop and start with the bedrooms.”

Mingyu wasn’t sure if it was the rain, or the shoddy material of the windows and roof that amplified the sound of the elements outside the house. Every droplet was heard, like in an unmoving car under a thunderstorm. The wet season had just begun, and Mingyu wasn’t entirely confident he could sleep well with a torrent of glass beads hitting a steel roof.

He twisted the thin silver ring on his finger over and over until it became sore with redness, and only when the pain sunk into his sinews did he realise he’d been staring too hard. He got up from the chair instantly, and almost right after he felt a pounding on his head.

A headache, he thought, from Wonwoo's incessant nagging.

The floors were cleaner now, at least, after Mingyu flicked on the radio and mopped in time to a song. They were dust-free, too, with glossy tiles and stainless corners. The marble was sleek, wet with detergent and water, and Mingyu smirked when Wonwoo came to inspect. “So what’ve you done?”
 

Wonwoo raised his eyebrow. “Me? I’ve been washing and drying the clothes and bedsheets. Then I put them in the dryer and after I hung them, and now I’m going to put the sheets back on the bed.”
 

Mingyu contemplated this for a bit, convincing himself the mopping was more enervating.

“Why, you want to switch?” Mingyu heard the ghost of a smile in Wonwoo’s voice; he gripped the mop tighter now, almost as if in protest. Washing, drying, folding, spreading - chores.

“Nah, I’m good. Call me if you need help, though.”

He scoffed at Wonwoo’s fading laughter down the halls and he swiped the mop over the tiles. He didn’t exactly hate cleaning, but he did hate having to move the furniture to wipe the unreachable corners of the rooms. It was jarring - the sound of chairs or tables dragging from the hit of the mop. But he did it anyway, because later if Wonwoo came to check and discovered dusty areas he’d deprive Mingyu of dinner or force him to sleep on the floor.

Half an hour later, he mopped the floor of his own bedroom - after Wonwoo’s, of course - and like his spouse’s, he shifted the bed to an angle to get the corners behind the bed frame. The rain was still sputtering on the roof; he’d never cranked the radio that loud before. The lights were switched on within the house, white hospital bulbs not exactly hospitable, and while they flickered and faded, Mingyu made a mental note to tell Wonwoo about repairs in the old (or, technically new) house.

Mingyu vaguely recalled when Wonwoo’s voice went strained; a pitch higher than the usual baritone, his voice raised higher, spilling words he wondered if ever was true. He vaguely recalled the day they decided to sleep in segregate rooms, a reckless huff and shove to the door.

Sometimes, Mingyu pondered, sometimes, marriage is just a glorified aspect of life.

When they drove in, the house looked anything but welcoming; not like in horror movies, just slightly victorian for their tastes and standing lone. The paint peeled on the wood and Mingyu guessed the previous owners were a haughty set; they liked the unsightly combination of yellow and pink on the house, the tall hanging lamps they left graciously for them that looked like gems from the ancient era.

It didn’t help when the rain fell down on them following for over two hundred kilometres on the road and it didn’t show signs of letting up. It was too bleak, and Mingyu recalled Wonwoo helplessly trying to cheer him up in the car with useless encouragement like “when the sun comes out we can start planting” while clutching a bag of seeds.

To which Mingyu rolled his eyes to, because he saw no need in having a garden, god, which was the chore upon chores. He’d already have Wonwoo nagging and ordering him around, so he wasn’t exactly keen on being responsible for living things (a.k.a sunflowers, later bees, later a whole eco-community).

The air felt musty in the house; dank and dense, like Wonwoo’s gloom and the perpetual rain froze the molecules over. Mingyu wanted fresh air desperately: it wasn’t nice being stuck in a car for three hours under a heavy torrent and not being able to feel the wind through the open windows.

…?

“Wha-?”

Mingyu crouched down to the floor and touched the wall tentatively, feeling dust stick to his perspiring fingers, and he slid his hand down to a tiny slit through the concrete. A key-hole glinted prominently, one the size of a bobby pin, structured from copper and brass. The very corners of a small door, the size of a regular poster, slithered to take shape, and Mingyu’s nails dug into the gaps of the door in attempt to open it. The door doesn’t, won’t budge, but Mingyu figured Wonwoo would’ve placed the box of keys somewhere in the kitchen.

“What’re you looking for?” Wonwoo peered over Mingyu’s shoulder curiously, eyebrows raised.

“Hm? The key box.”

“Oh, there’s no key box. I dumped the bunch of keys in the left-most drawer,” which Wonwoo shifted to open, metal clinking against each other, “here.”
Mingyu’s face lit up, and he thanked Wonwoo before searching for the smallest key in the drawer.

Acquired.

Mingyu scrambled to fit the key in the lock, sure enough fitting despite the odd form. His first mistake lay in opening it swiftly and widely, a ton of dust billowing at his face. He coughed a little, waving his hands in front of him to rid of the particles. He peered into the space the door opened up to, but he really didn’t see much more than just a blank, empty area, almost like a chute. Or maybe like an incinerator, with ashen grey matter floating around, accumulated dust piling high.

His second mistake lay in leaving the key on the floor as he stood up, sighing, and he picked up the mop to go to another room.

☻

Wonwoo Mingyu’s hair as he stood to glance at the television, which Mingyu paid close attention to on a couch. “What’s it saying?”

Mingyu looked up at Wonwoo, whose hands were still entangled in loose strands of dyed hair. “Something about the percentage of rain over the next few days, and a flood in Honam.”
 

Wonwoo gave a small grunt of approval, and then shifted to the kitchen. “What do you want to eat? I don’t think we can order take-out in this rain.”

“Anything’s fine with me.”
“Then, tofu with salad?” Wonwoo scrutinised the foods they brought with them they put in the fridge speedily after getting off the car.

Mingyu groaned in response. “We had that yesterday. I swear sometimes you’re just using salad, the dish where you just dump a bunch of leaves and sauce in, to pardon your lack of cooking skills.”

Wonwoo narrowed his eyes. “So what would you like, even though my cooking ?”
 

Mingyu pretended to think. He took one, two, five seconds.

“Something that isn’t salad?”
His spouse sighed. “Of course.”

The table for four was occupied by two bowls of japanese porridge - rice with boiling green tea poured over, plus adjuncts of fish or vegetables according to preference.

“This still doesn’t really count as cooking.” Mingyu looked down at the bowl, sipping slowly at the spoon.

Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “And why not?”

“Because you cook the rice in a rice-cooker, which even a toddler could do, the green tea’s from hot water added to instant powder, and the salmon and those yellow floating balls aren’t handmade.” Mingyu replied lazily, staring at the television screen with a music show broadcast.

“But I still put the ingredients together.”

Mingyu gave no response, and Wonwoo continued. “If you want cooked food so much, then why don’t you cook?
Mingyu looked back at him with wide eyes and the spoon in his mouth. “Me?”

“Oh, god, no. I can’t cook, I’ll burn the house down before we could spend one night in it.”

Wonwoo clicked his tongue. “In which by then you should have a larger amount of appreciation that one of us at least knows how to use the oven or turn on the gas without hurting himself.”

Mingyu shrugged. “Whatever.”

☻

The lights flickered, and the lengthy, tapered hallways were dim with only a sliver of gold from the bathroom lamps shining down the pathway. There were windows in these hallways, ones that were floor-to-ceiling, ones that looked out to the desolate field Wonwoo was so happy over. In the dark, in the eventide, Mingyu could hardly see anything, just enough to make out the cluster of trees and a large vacant space. Not even the moon was out, to torch the lands, and the asterisms were hidden.

When summer rolls around, Mingyu remembered Wonwoo chirping, we can take the dogs out into the field to run and play. Oh, he remembered his lover say, it’ll be really, really lovely.

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