on pieces of dyed rays | woosan

Chapter Seven

Hyung

Come to the club tonight

Seonghwa will be in tears if you don't

Wooyoung

Well, ain't I doing you a favour

Hyung

I like it when I make him cry not others

Not the point

I'll pay for the charge, okay?

Wooyoung

Hyung, artists don't invest in listeners

It's the other way around

Plus, I believe I'm more loaded than the suffering pitiful DJ

Hyung

Just fucking come

And this time, step in the goddamn building

It's not like Wooyoung never enters the club Hongjoong plays in. He does, once in three times—or five times, or seven—but he does.

Maybe it's the fact that he doesn't have ears that could appreciate music. Because that's what the club focuses on, obviously, when they have a proper DJ booth and music facilities where those who seem to have dedicated their lives to producing their own music stand on hourly shifts, and the crowds gather for good music with a plastic cup in hand, vibing their souls out. It's decent, more so than Wonderland, but it's out of Wooyoung's assigned area, and one wouldn't find an easy mark in this kind of setting.

A step in through the heavy door and Wooyoung is drowned by the beats, his ground shaken by the bouncing mass. It's dark inside, with flashlights mostly focusing on the DJ on the podium—Hongjoong, basking in his glorious red hair, with his favourite gigantic earphones around his neck. His raised hand sways with the beat, so does his body, merging the crowd into a cluster of tireless waves. It's probably the flashlight, but Hongjoong seems to glow when he's in his element.

He doesn't linger on the dance floor and goes up the second floor, where people salvage themselves on boats, unwinding from the endless currents below.

"Wooyoung-ah."

Wooyoung turns and finds Seonghwa on one of the couches in the corner, where the DJ booth is in view. Where he always settles, and where Hongjoong would join in a few minutes.

"You came," Seonghwa says with a smile as Wooyoung takes a seat on the couch next to him.

"Hyung told me you'd cry if you didn't get to see me," Wooyoung mutters half-heartedly.

Seonghwa shakes his head. "While I do love seeing you, it's just Joong giving whatever excuses to lull you into the club, as usual."

Wooyoung guesses he's right. While Wooyoung doesn't mind being alone with Seonghwa, he doesn't really see the purpose in that, when the only thing that connects him is Hongjoong. He's the kind of guy Wooyoung would avidly avoid, because they stand at the polar opposite, not only their natures but their jobs; a cop and a pusher.

Wooyoung had thought (and said) Hongjoong had gone mad when he started hooking up with a cop, back when he was still dealing. He treated it as some kind of a game, because everyone in this business has lost their screw or two, but down the line of mess that Wooyoung is aware of and isn't, Seonghwa helped Hongjoong out of that shithole, and blessed him with a chance to take on what he truly enjoys.

In return, Hongjoong had helped Seonghwa with his horrible taste in clothes.

Still, Seonghwa is putting his neck in line with the secrets he keeps from his job. Realistically, he should have called off when he met Hongjoong, he still should have turned in Wooyoung and his colleagues. But he hasn't, and he won't. Wooyoung has known him that much.

"So, how has your life been Wooyoung?" Seonghwa asks, offering an untouched bottle of beer.

Wooyoung declines. "Same old shit," he says. Sell drugs, hand in the money, get a share, chug down cheap alcohol, dance the night away, have sex, rinse and repeat. The goal in his life, one may ask? To live one breath longer until God decides to steal it away.

"Surely, something must have happened," Seonghwa pushes. "Anything?"

One thing Hongjoong and Seonghwa have in common is that they wonder. Wonder what is going on in someone else's life, listens, remembers, and cares. Like that person's life mattered. Wooyoung's life shouldn't.

He ponders for three more heavy beats, then answers. "I had a good fuck."

"Yeah?" Seonghwa says amusedly. "What was he like?"

Wooyoung finds the question strange, because won't one ask about the experience than the person? Like does the person matter, when Wooyoung flies from one nectar to another? Then again, he, too, wouldn't want to hear how many times someone had come or what kind of orgasm they had.

He closes his eyes. A man with midnight hair with a stroke of dusk appears behind his eyelids.

"A guy who's a fish bread virgin."

"Huh?"

"I think I lost mine when I was ten something...he must be a late bloomer."

"Well um...I guess I'm happy you had a good time," Seonghwa says, turning his eyebrows down looking mildly confused.

Wooyoung shrugs, and sinks in the couch, eyeing down at the DJ booth, watching his hyung make someone's night a little more bearable.