Chapter Text
At some point during the summer of their senior year in high school, Go Hyuntak stops hearing anything in his left ear.
The change happens gradually. Halfway through the year, he starts turning up the volume on his earbuds while listening to music. Near final exams, he gets used to walking on Baku’s left side so he can hear with his right.
In the third week of July, Geum Seongje gives him one good slap on the cheek and his hearing is gone before the initial sting has even dissipated.
He barely even registers it at first, staggering with the force of the blow. His ears always ring after Geum Seongje hits him, his head spinning right along with them. It’s normal for things to be murky after getting slapped with a hand that feels more like a wooden board, right?
But this time, it’s not normal. The ringing doesn’t go away, replaced with the honking on the streets or the sound of far-away passerby. Instead, it stays, quieting into the background but still drowning out the rest of the world to his left.
By the time Go Hyuntak can confidently tell which way is up and which way is down, he’s sure that his left ear is absolutely deaf. Gone. Stuffed up with cotton or something because his balance is way off and he can barely even hear what Geum Seongje is saying from where he’s propped up against the wall.
Luckily – or maybe unluckily, who fucking knows – Geum Seongje doesn’t go after him for a second hit. He’s mellowed out these days, if you could even call it that. Still violent, still psychopathic and still one of the worst people Go Hyuntak knows, but at least he doesn’t send Go Hyuntak to the hospital every time they meet.
Sometimes they get dinner and sometimes they fuck but most of the time they fight. Verbally, physically, whatever. It might be a little one-sided considering Go Hyuntak hasn’t gotten any better at throwing punches and Geum Seongje hasn’t gotten any worse, but unless Geum Seongje is really pissed it’s more of a routine at this point.
Today was one of those. Just messing around. Even if Geum Seongje was holding back on it, he still hits like a fucking truck and he knows where it hurts. He’s still got that nasty fucking habit of slapping people around like they’re not even worth his fists (ignoring the fact that his fists hurt twice as much), but Go Hyuntak can handle it.
Could handle it, up until two minutes ago when he literally got slapped deaf.
He tries to shake it out, at first. That just makes his cheek ache and it doesn’t work. He tries to smack his hearing back into place. This also doesn’t work and it makes his pounding headache even worse, vertigo swooping in as he tries and fails to not sway in place.
That gets Geum Seongje’s attention, though. He was probably staring at his phone waiting for Go Hyuntak to snap out of it, the fucker, but suddenly he’s here and tilting Go Hyuntak’s head up.
“Did that seriously give you a concussion?” he demands more than asks, squinting through his glasses. “I barely even hit you.”
“You fucker,” Go Hyuntak slurs, trying to get his uncooperative tongue in order. “You always hit hard. I think – I think something’s wrong.”
Geum Seongje snorts. Bastard. “What’s that?”
“I can’t–” Fuck, it’s seriously hard to focus with all the ringing in his left ear. He can’t hear shit. It feels weird, only hearing stuff from the right side of his body clearly. He can hear the cars going by on his left, but the sound’s all weirdly muted, like he’s hearing it underwater. It’s putting him off balance. It’s making it hard to focus, hard to do anything at all like choose the right words or even pull in a full breath into his strangely tight lungs.
“Hey.” Geum Seongje’s face comes back into view, up close this time. His glasses are off and now he’s really squinting, searching for something in Go Hyuntak’s face. “Stop freaking out. What’s the deal?”
A little fucking difficult to explain what’s wrong when he can barely even breathe to do it. Did nobody ever teach him how to deal with someone who’s drowning on land? Uncooperative and unhelpful from the very start. In the end, it’s up to Go Hyuntak to calm his own breathing enough to get the words out.
He gestures vaguely at his ear. “I said I can’t hear anything, you fucker. It’s – it’s my left ear, you hit me and now it’s ringing like crazy and I can’t hear, I can’t–”
He gulps, swallowing down more than just his rambling. He really doesn’t know why he’s freaking out. It’s just ringing and it always rings after he’s been hit, except it usually doesn’t last this long and at least he can hear even through the ringing.
He doesn’t even know why he’s saying this. Geum Seongje doesn’t care. He’s the one who slapped him in the first place, didn’t even bother to check up on him until he started staggering. The fucker. Bastard. Idiot. Go Hyuntak fucking hates him.
Geum Seongje doesn’t look much like he feels the same, though.
His brows are pinched, his lips pressed into a thin line. Even through his hazy vision, Go Hyuntak can tell that it’s not his usual apathy, or even the unfixable anger that’s quick to come, slow to leave.
If Go Hyuntak were the gullible idiot that Geum Seongje always says he is, he might even say that the bastard looks concerned. Or, at the very least, focused. He’s turning Go Hyuntak’s face this way and that, frowning down on him with a concentration that he very rarely wears.
“You better not be joking,” Geum Seongje mutters, finally letting go. Except he doesn’t stop there, putting his hands on Go Hyuntak’s shoulders to push him down to the ground until he’s sitting on the concrete. “Don’t move,” he adds. As if he has any right to tell Go Hyuntak what to do.
But, well. Sitting does seem a little easier than standing, so Go Hyuntak stays where he is. Not because he’s listening to orders. Just because it feels easier to keep himself stable when the ground isn’t tilting beneath his feet.
After what seems like only a few seconds (or minutes. maybe minutes. he doesn’t know), Geum Seongje’s dragging him back to his feet. So much for taking a break. Weirdly enough, Geum Seongje grabs his arm, too, leading him out of the secluded block out to the main streets. He never does that. He usually just walks ahead and expects everybody to follow him like he’s a fucking priest or something.
Everything is out of sorts today. Maybe it’s opposite day. Ha. Nothing is making sense, from his bum ear to his stupid feet that won’t stumbling to the fact that after he trips over nothing for the fifth time, Geum Seongje actually fucking hoists him onto his back.
The Geum Seongje that Go Hyuntak knows would never, in a million fucking years, carry someone on his back. Not if it was an elderly woman who’d tripped, not if it was his nonexistent girlfriend, not even if it was God himself come down to ask for a ride.
So Go Hyuntak figures he’s dreaming. Just like how he convinces himself that his ear is fine, actually, and that he’s actually hearing things through it instead of trying to process all of the sound filtered through his right ear. It’s easy enough to believe, mostly because he’s already dizzy and there is just no fucking way Geum Seongje is going to lug him all the way to wherever they’re going.
He can still hear well enough to discern what the guy’s saying, though.
“You fatass,” Geum Seongje huffs, breathing heavily. “You should have stopped stuffing your face when I told you to. I’m going to drop you in a minute.”
So Go Hyuntak waits. Geum Seongje doesn’t drop him.
“I fucking – it should be illegal to have clinics this spaced out. There should be one every five hundred fucking feet. I should have called a fucking taxi. I’m going to drop you.”
Go Hyuntak waits. Geum Seongje doesn’t drop him.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this for a fucker like you. You should have dodged better, you asshat. Blocking punches with your face is a thing only a freak like your little buddy can do. I swear I’m going to – oh, it’s here.”
And lo and behold, the clinic. A proper one, with the LED signs and the automatic doors with people being wheeled in and out. It’s been a surprisingly long time since Go Hyuntak has been to one, all things considering. Geum Seongje doesn’t hit as hard or as often anymore.
Just today, it seems. Everything’s opposite today. It’s not like things ever go his way, anyways. Couldn’t let things lie, could he? It wasn’t enough to ruin his knee and his dreams forever. He just had to get the ear, too.
That’s just how things are with Geum Seongje. He’s nothing but a fucking leech, a starving wolf out to take a bite. Geum Seongje took his fucking virginity, his first ever relationship – if you can even call it that – and now he’s taken his fucking hearing from him.
Go Hyuntak doesn’t know why he still hangs around the guy. He isn’t even sure why he’s here with him now, except for the fact that he would have gone to a hospital anyways and he just got a free ride here.
Nothing more than that.