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[teddyliuwho]

WHAT TEDDY HAS BEEN LISTENING TO RECENTLY

[teddyliuwho]

hanxjun:

ᕙ(^▿^-ᕙ) “Okay.” Minjun ended up saying, nodding quickly with his eyes wide. He most definitely looked (and acted) like a startled deer in that moment, staring up at the man and incapable of forming words. It was all a little overwhelming. The room felt hot, and so did the back of his neck. He laughed (tried to) anyways. “It’s… definitely not, but…” his eyes strayed to the rag-tag bunch downing their refilled beers. “They say a lot of weirder stuff to me.”

The amount of lewd jokes he was subjected to on a daily basis would have been enough to make a nun burst into flames. Not to mention the amount of times Minjun had to pull out the ‘TMI’ card on one of the guys was enough to fill several decks. But also, it made him incredibly jealous. Minjun did not have anyone to do TMI things with. He sighed, and then promptly shook all of it off. Minjun stared at the man for a long time, even cocking his head to the side. “You look like a Teddy,” Minjun said eventually, shaking the proffered hand. Large, huggable, bear-like. The last bit was because there was something in the man’s eyes that reminded him of Winnie the Pooh. But also, yeah, he was built to the point where Minjun feared for anyone who would ever possibly get into a fight with the guy. “I’m Minjun.” He took out his business card from the pocket of his jacket, a customary habit, and handed it over. It was nondescript, all cream card stock and small black lettering. It was just his name, business email and his work number, but he was proud of it nonetheless. At the mention of his beer, Minjun also found himself looking down. The glass, dripping with condensation, bubbles of froth slowly dying at the top, it should have looked appetizing, but Minjun had never been much of a drinker. The last drink he had had was with his father, the very last time he’d seen him, actually. They had shared a bottle of rice wine deep in the forests, bonding after years of separation. After that, he had never been able to drink, unwilling and unable to celebrate any moment without his parents. He suddenly felt incredibly out of place. Well, even more than before. “I don’t drink, actually,” he said apologetically, head ducked. It felt almost rude, like he was offending the man for not drinking. “If I could actually get some water, that’d be really nice.”

Teddy studies Minjun’s business card for a moment. He pockets it. “Thank you,” he says because he doesn’t know how else to respond when someone hands you their card. It doesn’t happen to him often. And he certainly doesn’t have one to give him in return.

At the other man’s request, Teddy can’t help but smile. He's asking for water, but his tone suggests he’s asking for something impossible, as if the werewolf must cross vast deserts and scale mountains to retrieve it. Water. It's only water. 

"Of course," he says with a lighthearted laugh, grabbing a cup and heading to the beverage fountain.

He recalls Minjun not saying no when the others ordered a round. He just went along with it. He imagines the man to be like this in other scenarios as well, which is a characteristic that Teddy wouldn't have necessarily attributed to a boss. But he has no idea what it means to be in charge of anything, so maybe Minjun is doing it correctly.

He returns with the water and a small dish of sliced lemons. "Here ya go." He pushes Minjun's untouched beer to the side. As he does, one of Minjun's associates grabs it and drinks it all in one massive gulp. Impressive.

"You're very different from them," Teddy points out, "but in a good way. No offense to your coworkers. They seem cool." He takes advantage of this moment of reflection to closely examine the other man across the bar, admiring the handsome curvature of his face while also attempting to identify the features that distinguish him from the others. Of course, there is the boss factor, but it is more than that. He falls short. "You kind of remind me of my best friend."

Teddy imagines Songwoo has returned from class by now and is doing his homework in the living room with a glass of cheap wine and the TV on for white noise. Teddy feels more secure knowing he's there, doing what he always does. Minjun could be a similar force in someone else's life: stable, practical, calming.

"Anyway," he lets this thought go, not wanting to weird the other man out. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

[teddyliuwho]

Retriever's Puppy Life

[teddyliuwho]

"Every. Night." He repeats, his tone and expression serious as sin. He can only maintain this solemnity for a split second before his mouth breaks into a goofy grin — a sight any Boobie Trap regular would find familiar. “Sorry for talking about dicks in front of your coworkers. That's probably super weird for you, being their boss and all. What's that thing big companies have? HR? It's probably not HR approved."

There is no HR department at the Boobie Trap. Or, unsurprisingly, within the underground fighting ring. In either case, he's pretty sure he'd be unemployed if they did. Doubly so. He is, after all, standing here talking about dicks with a customer. However...

"My name's Teddy," he says, reasoning that if they exchanged names, the Handsome Boss wouldn’t just be a customer, he’d be a friend. And talking about eating dicks with your friend isn’t weird. Well, not as weird. “Short for Theodore, although nobody's ever called me that. Or Theo. Or Ted. But maybe I'll give Ted a go when I'm, like, 40 or 50. It always sounded like an All-American, suburban dad name to me.” He extends his hand. It is big and slightly rough, his healing factor seemingly not deeming its many calluses a threat to his general health.

After they shake, his eyes dart down to the man’s full glass and then back to his face. While Teddy wouldn’t describe the man’s expression as pained, it’s evident that he is, perhaps by nature, a tightly wound coil. There’s a subtle crease between his dark brows, small frown lines by the corner of each well-shaped lip, which were otherwise pressed together in a manner that, to the untrained eye, appeared neutral. The muscles beneath his nice shirt were taut at the shoulders.

“You’ve barely touched your beer. Do you want something else? I could make you a cocktail. They’re not on the menu, but,” he shrugs and smiles.

“We’re friends now. So.”

ᕙ(^▿^-ᕙ)

Minjun, who was mostly shocked by the reception of his blunder of a joke, still wasn't all that together when opened his mouth again. "Sorry, my bad — so you just eat dicks. Every night," he corrected himself. Even to him, it was a bit funny, and he couldn't help but let out a small laugh (a snort, really). Suho had turned to give him another look from the corner of his eye, suspicious and concerned, as though Minjun had grown a second head. He might as well have.

Suho quietly gets up to crowd behind the other guys, all of whom quickly become engrossed in each other, cheering loudly and knocking back their drinks in quick succession.

Minjun turns to peek at them fondly, before turning back and staring down the front of the bartender's shirt. It's a surprise, seeming closer than it had been earlier, and in his own head, he tries to excuse it. His shirt was modestly covering any skin beyond his neck. So why was he staring at it so hard? Like he could burn a hole through the fabric anyways?

Get it together, Minjun thought begrudgingly to himself.

"More like the guy that tries to keep them out of trouble." The old fox waved his hand. It was an oversimplification at best, but in truth, Minjun didn't even know what the hell he was doing half of the time either. He was a part of the group of shadows lurking at the near-peak of the mountain, the same shadow that haunted doorways waiting for any excuse to hang out with the younger kids at HQ. At this point, Head Babysitter in Charge should have been his title, given how often he watched over the younger workers. So yeah, technically it was the truth, what he'd said. "It's good! I mean, stressful, but every day at work is... interesting, nonetheless." Working for the Guans was definitely that.

"I'd rather not be the boss of anyone, much less myself either, but —" YOU COULD BE? His inner voice shouts, and Minjun is so stunned by his own thoughts that his body physically recoils from the thought. "— someone's gotta do it?" He finished weakly.

[teddyliuwho]

teddy at the boobie trap with @hanxjun

[teddyliuwho]

Kiss Your Homies Goodnight.

[teddyliuwho]

hanxjun​:

ᕙ(^▿^-ᕙ)

Amidst the sudden whooping and hollering, as everyone reveled in getting their drinks, Minjun’s corner suddenly felt very silent.

“Um.”

Minjun swore that his eyes were bulging out of his head.

And his face felt hot.

Decidedly, he ignored both those facts, because no one seemed to have caught on to his reaction (for the love of everything that was good, please let it be true), so he ended up clearing his throat, intent on not choking and dying right then and there. Minjun could not have anyone else seeing him lose his mind, not when they all had to see each other again the next day, and every working day after that.

But the man was right. Wings were still wings, and the name of the establishment, if anything, meant that that particular hiccup should be more than acceptable. A selling point, even. He remembered that very momentary trend of… phallic-looking waffles floating around somewhere on the internet. None of this he mentioned. Again: he didn’t need anyone to stare at him weird and then let himself be seen at work. He would rather dig a hole in the dirt and live in it for the rest of his miserable, immortal life than to deal with that.

A laugh somehow escaped him all the same, but the sound was something more similar to a balloon suddenly releasing air. Suho turned to stare at him.

He was not playing it cool at all.

It got so much more worse.

“So you have to eat dicks… every night,” Minjun repeated, and in the same moment the words left his mouth, he was slapping both his hands over his face, his head falling onto the bar.

“No, wait—not like that.” His voice rang out, horrified that he said that. “That’s not what I meant. I am so sorry.”

"That's hilarious," he says, as if his unabashed laughter isn't proof of this enough. "Although, I do take issue with your use of have to," he asserts in a fake-serious tone, giving the other man a sincere, almost reproachful look.

“I don’t have to eat dicks every night. It’s a conscious and continuous choice. We’re all about consent around here. Right, Soojin?” 

“That’s right,” Soojin chimes in, bringing the young men their second round.

Teddy notices that the man he's speaking with stands out among his peers, though, at first, he's unsure why. They all appear to be relatively young, dressed in fancy business attire that had undoubtedly become loosened as the night progressed. But there is simply something about this man that sets him apart from the others, a certain distance he’s maintaining. And then it clicks. 

“You must be their boss,” he says this just to the other man, still leaning towards him over the counter. Not that it matters much that he’s being confidential; the other men had begun conversing with Soojin and a couple of regulars sitting at the opposite end of the bar. “What’s that like? I’ve never been the boss of anything. I’m barely even the boss of myself.”

[teddyliuwho]

⋆୨୧˚૮ ＾ﻌ＾ა˚୨୧⋆

Soojin strolls by with the other beers, giving Teddy a passing glance that portrays her amusement. The young man who's already finished his beer signals for another. Soojin takes his empty glass and returns to the tap to refill it. 

"That sounds nice," Teddy says with a soft hum, "We don't do company dinners here. Well, unless you consider being given the reject chicken wings and unfinished leftovers a company dinner. In which case, we're having company dinners every night."

His eyes drift over the handsome, bookish man's shoulder, blurring as he summons a recent memory. And when it comes to him, his gaze snaps back to the man. "The chicken wings are usually rejected because they look like dicks. It happens much more than you think it would.'' Teddy leans over the bar, drawing closer to the other man as if the two are discussing something confidential. "I know what you're thinking: why would the Boobie Trap care if their chicken wings looked like dicks? I had the same question."

"But, as Hajoon said —Hajoon's the owner— He said: Just because we have Boobie in our name doesn't mean we'd stoop as low as serving chicken wing dicks." His impression of the gruff, tatted-up proprietor is spot on, though only Soojin can appreciate it. Teddy gives a casual shrug. "But it all tastes the same, so I don't see why it matters."

ᕙ(^▿^-ᕙ)

The workplace culture of their country never ceased to amaze Minjun. At some point down the line, company dinners had become a pinnacle, and in theory, he loved the idea of forming close bonds with his peers and subordinates alike. Camaraderie and fellowship were things he ate up, as though that alone could fill his soul. But he also knew that, for most, it was the stuff to fuel nightmares.

He had watched on, from time to time, sitting in corners of hole-in-the-wall barbecue joints and noodle shops, watching groups of workers with tired faces bear the drunken egos of their bosses. The pleasantries, often given with grimaces, made even Minjun cringe. And so, for a while, he had given up on anything of the sort; while he loved the idea of treating his subordinates with a good meal after a hard day's work, he feared the mild hesitation, or the downright mortification that could arise from merely offering. It would have been a burden.

So, to think that the night had transpired in such a way, sparked some hope inside the old fox. When one of the younger members had walked up to him, nervously and yet eagerly rubbing at the back of his neck, asking about a company dinner, Minjun had lunged at the chance. And it had ended up with him and a rather good-sized group of guys with half-undone ties and rolled up sleeves roaming the streets after a dinner of pork belly and enough somaek to drown several small children wandering into the spot with the strange name.

"Boobie trap," Minjun had said with a strange look on his face. It wasn't a complaint, though it gave him some strange sense of excitement. No one would ever be able to tell that his joy then was compelled by anything other than that brothership that he craved. And while it was somewhat true, he also was silly enough to entertain the idea of entertainment (whatever that could mean). So he sat at the bar with the rest of them, not a choice he'd normally make but how could he not acquiesce, when everyone else was tipsily giddy?

The younger aforementioned man ("Baek Suho!" He had said, introducing himself, after Minjun had fumbled for his name) had taken the seat just next to him, leaning into his shoulder with a pink face and half-lidded eyes. And however mussed up he looked, his suit was perfectly intact—tie still done up tight against his collar and his sleeves perfectly pressed. "It looks nice," Minjun commented, brushing a stray mote of dust off Suho's shoulder.

"Thanks. My girlfriend bought it for me. Given it was my first week on the job." Suho preened at his suit, even as the beers were being set in front of them. And continued to do so as one of the staff memebers of the bar began to chat the rest of the group up.

Minjun looked up, and then had to take an immediate second look at the man serving them. His first and only reaction to the man was to stare at him with his mouth agape. It took him a long moment to compose himself, trying his best not to let his eyes wander, lest he get kicked out of the establishment, but thought that the bar's name was somewhat fitting flitted in the back of his mind. Shaking himself out of it, he passed a pint over to Suho, who knocked back half the thing on one go.

"Yes," Minjun agreed eventually, trying his best to make eye contact but feeling his gaze shift to stare literally anywhere else aside from the blinding light emitting from the man, "we came from a company dinner."

[teddyliuwho]

one brain cell

[teddyliuwho]

Total Eclipse of the Heart

When: Wednesday, 9:30 pm Where: The Boobie Trap

Eight years. A near decade in Seoul, a near decade working at the Boobie Trap. Due to his lack of a visa, his responsibilities were initially limited to those of a behind-the-scenes busboy. The owner wanted to keep him out of the proverbial spotlight as much as possible. But, as time passed, Teddy's contagious personality infected all of the employees and regulars, and he became an integral part of the restaurant's DNA. At this point, Teddy is as much of a reason to visit the Boobie Trap as the greasy bar food and cheap beer.

His role at BP has evolved significantly in the eight years he's been working there, and he now wears various hats: busboy, waiter, entertainment, host, and the occasional line cook when business is slow and no one cares if he over-sears the patties. His working hours are equally flexible. Only the owner and Songwoo know about Teddy's involvement in the underground boxing scene, which they all considered a necessary evil. This gig provided him and Songwoo with more support than the Boobie Trap ever could, despite the owner's best efforts to give him a raise. The fights were paying for Songwoo's education.

It's for this reason that Teddy would occasionally be absent on a random Thursday or Sunday night. He'll reappear the following evening as if nothing was amiss, his healing factor erasing all physical evidence of the fight. This is the case tonight. 

He'd won a fight the night before against a roided-out man only known as The Stallion. Given that all of his opponents are human, the fights are never difficult, but he has to take a significant amount of visible damage to ensure no one becomes suspicious (of him being a werewolf or fixing the fight). It's a lot of theater, which isn't to suggest that the blood and bruises aren't real; they very much are. They simply heal up before anyone can see them.

Teddy leans against the bar, idly running his tongue over his left incisor. The Stallion had knocked it out last night. It had grown back about two hours later, and it was a process that had always weirded him out. Where does this bit of extra bone come from? While he is mulling this over, a group of young men in business attire enters the Boobie Trap. They head straight to the bar, planting themselves on the stools that were not sticky for once because Teddy had just wiped them down.

Soojin is tending the bar. Teddy adores her. She's a no-nonsense, middle-aged woman with a cropped haircut and a full sleeve of tattoos, the most prominent of which is a heart containing the name of her partner of nineteen years: Eunmi.

The men order a few beers, and Teddy goes behind the bar to help Soojin serve. As she pours stout into a frosted glass, she leans in and whispers in Teddy's ear, "Check out these fellas in their penguin suits. Must be office workers at some highfalutin company downtown. It's weird that they'd come all the way out here for a drink."

"They're here to behold your magnificent beauty, obviously," Teddy says. He's teasing, but he's not lying. Teddy had a gift of seeing the beauty in everything.

"Oh, fuck off," she chaffs, handing him two beers, "And bring these to the penguins."

Teddy smiles brightly at her and then heads over to the men at the bar. Total Eclipse of the Heart booms from the nearby jukebox.

"Here ya guys go," he says, sliding the beers down the countertop. "The others are coming." And because Soojin's comment has him curious, he asks the man nearest him, a handsome but bookish sort. He reminds the wolf of Soongwoo, which immediately endears him to Teddy. "You guys just get off work?"

@hanxjun

[teddyliuwho]

it all comes down to blood

[teddyliuwho]

*at karaoke bar* what the FUCK do you mean you don’t have the mulan soundtrack 

[teddyliuwho]

If my silly levels get too low I die

[teddyliuwho]

[teddyliuwho]

yyinger asked: ☼

AM Nonsense @yyinger​

nuying 🍑 [11:02 am] → [photo] nuying 🍑 [11:03 am] → i dreamt that you were super good at doing push ups and could do them one handed. also you were fluent in spanish

[teddyliuwho]

TASK 001 - HOME

ACT I

The shot opens on an off-white ceiling. A fan in the lefthand corner oscillates slowly. We are supine, gazing up. Off-screen, voices are heard. 

SONGWOO: Sorry, what exactly are you doing again?

TEDDY: It’s part of the study. I’m supposed to take video diaries and talk about how the drug makes me feel. 

SONGWOO: What did they give you?

TEDDY: I don’t know. They didn’t say. 

Long pause. 

SONGWOO: That doesn’t seem like a good idea.

TEDDY: Hey, they’re paying me 400,000 won for this. And all I have to do is pop some pills and talk about how I’m feeling. Easy money. 

SONGWOO: Would’ve been nice if they paid us for all the times we got high in Taiwan.

TEDDY: That’s what I thought. 

SONGWOO: I still don’t think this is a very good idea.

TEDDY: I’ll be fine. You worry too much. 

The shot shifts as someone — Teddy — picks up the phone. He points the camera at himself. 

TEDDY: Okay, so, um. Hi. This is Teddy Liu here. I’ve just taken the medicine about… thirty minutes ago… I still feel the same as I did before I took it.  

SONGWOO (off-screen): Whatever poor TA has to watch this is gonna be bored out of their skull. 

TEDDY: Hey, I’m just doing what they asked. 

There is another short pause as Teddy appears to be thinking. 

TEDDY: I could give them a house tour. 

SONGWOO: What?

TEDDY: You know, like they do on Youtube. House tours, what’s in my bag, what I eat in a day. That kind of thing. People make a killing off that stuff. 

SONGWOO: Why would a bunch of professors conducting a drug study care about what our apartment looks like?

TEDDY: I don’t know. Maybe they’ll get something out of it. 

SONGWOO: Doubt it. 

Teddy flips the camera and we see Songwoo on the couch, surrounded by textbooks and scribbling in a notebook on his lap. 

TEDDY (off-screen): And here we have the Wen Songwoo in his natural habitat. 

Songwoo glances up from his notebook, giving the camera and Teddy an incredulous look. 

SONGWOO: What? The couch?

TEDDY: It is customary of his species to be a hater. It seems to be genetic, although scientists have yet to determine the biological need for such a trait. 

SONGWOO: Wow, biological. Big word, bud. 

TEDDY (unfazed): If the Songwoo was to move from his position on the couch, one would observe a notable ass-print in the leather. 

Songwoo shakes his head and goes back to writing. 

TEDDY: Scientists know that it is from the Songwoo and not the Teddy due to its narrow width and utter lack of thiccness. (As an aside): And that’s thiccness with two C’s, by the way. That’s the scientific word. 

SONGWOO: I know for a fact that those university scientists don’t want to hear this. 

TEDDY: Fine. You’re being a real dud anyway. 

We enter Teddy’s POV as he guides us — the camera — past the couch and to the small kitchen. As far as kitchens go, it’s rather threadbare. A hodgepodge of freshly washed dishes are piled high on a rack beside a rusty sink. They gleam wetly under a fluorescent bulb. We move to a squat fridge covered in takeout menus held up by magnets advertising local accident lawyers and pizza parlors. 

TEDDY: Let’s take a look at what’s inside. They say you can tell a lot about a man based on what’s in his fridge.

SONGWOO: Who says that? 

Teddy opens the fridge door and we are greeted with a static hum. 

TEDDY: I don’t know if this is a very good look for us, Songwoo. 

The fridge’s innards are scant, and the drawers and shelves could use a good wiping down. Several cans of beer. A Chinese takeaway box with what appears to be Szechuan sauce crusted on the rim. A half-full bottle of Siracha, four days past its expiry date. 

TEDDY: In our defense, we do eat out a lot. 

He shuts the fridge door. 

We head past the living room, past Songwoo on the couch, and through a door in the righthand quadrant of the apartment. The bedroom. 

There is a mattress on the floor, topped with a tangle of gray sheets. A scratched-up armoire that looks older than both young men combined. A floor fan. Wooden knobs holding up baseball caps and a couple of reusable grocery bags. Pictures and posters taped to the wall: a grainy childhood photograph of Teddy and Songwoo. A photobooth strip of Teddy and a couple of patrons of the Boobie Trap. A Sports Illustrated print of a busty white woman in a bikini. Someone has drawn on it with a Sharpie, a doodled speech bubble reading, in English: I’m a physicist! This is accurate. The model is, in fact, a physicist. 

TEDDY: This is where the magic happens. 

SONGWOO (from a distance): You cannot say that. 

TEDDY: Why not? 

SONGWOO: The scientists are going to think we’re gay.

TEDDY (exaggerated): And what’s wrong with the scientists thinking we’re gay, Songwoo?

SONGWOO: Nothing, I just mean, I don’t think this is what they’re looking for with these video diaries. 

TEDDY: You don’t know that. 

SONGWOO (defeated): I guess you’re right. I don’t.

TEDDY: And gay things do happen in this room sometimes. 

SONGWOO: Teddy. Please. 

TEDDY: And the reason we’ve only got one mattress isn’t because we’re a couple. It’s because we’re poor. 

SONGWOO (mimicking him): What’s wrong with being gay and poor, Teddy?

TEDDY: I think gay people deserve to have lots of money. 

SONGWOO: Great. Awesome. That should be your platform when you run for president of the United States. 

TEDDY: I could buy us a second mattress with the money I’m gonna make from this drug study. 

A pause. 

SONGWOO (earnestly): It’d be a waste of money. 

A second pause. 

SONGWOO: Besides, we’re going to move out soon, remember? We’ll get a place with two bedrooms. We can buy a second mattress then. 

TEDDY: Yeah. 

We back out of the room and watch as Teddy extends a hand to shut the door. 

There’s something about Songwoo’s last statement that has disquieted him, and though we are not made privy to why, the feeling is palpable even through the screen. 

Silently, we again pass Songwoo on the couch, this time darting to a door on the other side of the apartment. The bathroom. Teddy waves at the phone camera in the mirror, and his presence only serves to make the bathroom look more cramped. This is to say, that even without the man’s bulky frame, the bathroom is still noticeably small, but his added stature gives the space a feeling of claustrophobia. 

Something catches Teddy’s attention, and he leans toward the mirror. We see what he is looking at: his eyes. His pupils are blown up. Huge and black. 

TEDDY: Whoa. 

SONGWOO: What? 

TEDDY: I think something’s happening. With the drug.

Songwoo rushes in. He’s taken off guard by the sight of Teddy’s eyes. 

SONGWOO: Jesus. 

TEDDY: You think this is normal?

SONGWOO: How the hell am I supposed to know? We don’t even know what you took. 

Teddy hands Songwoo the camera so he can more fully inspect his face in the mirror. Songwoo keeps the shot trained on Teddy. 

TEDDY: I guess it’s not that weird. I mean, not any weirder than what happens when you take, like, cocaine. 

SONGWOO: I guess. 

Teddy looks back at us. Despite his jarring eyes, his expression is playful. Calm. 

TEDDY: Hey, now we can do this MTV Cribs style. 

He walks out of the room, and Songwoo follows with the phone camera. Teddy looks at the camera over his shoulder, giving us a cheeky grin. 

TEDDY: Hey, MTV, welcome to my crib.

SONGWOO: What’s that?

TEDDY: It was a show that was popular in the early 2000s. It showed off celebrities' houses and stuff. 

SONGWOO: I’m sure their houses were a lot nicer than ours. 

TEDDY: What we lack in money we make up in spirit. 

SONGWOO: Sure. 

Teddy pauses suddenly, a hand rising to the air like he is feeling around for something invisible. 

TEDDY: Wait. I think I’m starting to feel something. 

He stares off into the middle distance. The hand in the air coming to rest on his chest, right above his heart. 

SONGWOO: …Teddy? Are you okay? 

He doesn’t respond, but there’s an alarming flicker in his black eyes. 

ACT II

We pick back up some time later in the bedroom. A couple of hours have passed and the sun has begun to set. Fading orange light shines from a window off-screen. It shines a spotlight on the mattress, where Teddy sits, wrapped up in the blankets. 

The phone is propped up against something. Songwoo kneels next to the mattress, looking vaguely distressed. We view the scene at a distance.

SONGWOO: This is fucked up. Promise me you won't take any more of whatever it is they gave you. 

TEDDY (shivering): But the money.

SONGWOO: Forget the money.

Teddy starts to rock slowly back and forth. Sweat beads on his brow. 

TEDDY: I’m afraid.

SONGWOO: Of what?

TEDDY: You.

Songwoo seems taken aback by this admission, but he does a good job of masking it. 

SONGWOO (gently): Why?

TEDDY: You’re gonna leave me.

SONGWOO: I’m not gonna leave you. I’m right here. I’m always here. 

Teddy fervently shakes his head. 

SONGWOO: It’s just the drug making you feel this way. Maybe try to sleep it off. 

TEDDY: I know this place is shitty, you know. 

SONGWOO: What?

TEDDY: I know you think that I love living here, but I don’t. Not really. This apartment sucks. Everything’s always falling apart. 

Songwoo huffs a quiet laugh, unsure if this is a laughing matter.

SONGWOO: Yeah. That’s true. 

TEDDY: But it’s ours. It’s us. 

The gravity of this statement hangs heavy in the air. Songwoo shifts to sit on the bed beside Teddy. 

SONGWOO: Yeah, I guess so. 

TEDDY: Once we leave, when we move, it’s all over. 

SONGWOO: What’s over?

Teddy says nothing. He continues to rock. 

SONGWOO: What’s over, Teddy?

But we never get an answer. Songwoo sighs. 

ACT III

TEDDY: Alright, well. It’s been two days since I last updated you. 

He clears his throat. Shifts the camera in his hand. He appears exhausted, bags under his eyes, hair disheveled. 

TEDDY: That was probably the least fun time I’ve ever had on drugs. Zero out of ten.

There’s an eerie sort of quietness in the apartment now. Songwoo is not home.

Teddy’s eyes shift to something we can’t see. They linger there for a moment. And then, just when it’s on the precipice of being awkward, his gaze clips back to the screen, back to us. 

TEDDY: Right, okay. How I’m feeling... Um... Bad. I feel pretty bad. It’s like I’ve been going through withdrawal symptoms even though I only ever took one pill. That’s pretty messed up, so (addressing the scientists) I think you ought to work on that. 

He runs a hand through his hair and seems to contemplate whether he wants to proceed.

TEDDY: I guess the thing I’m noticing the most, now that I’m no longer shivering in bed, is that the house... Our apartment, I mean... Looks different. Or not looks, but feels different. That’s probably a better way to describe. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the drug or...

He stops and sighs. 

TEDDY (muttering): This is stupid. What am I even saying?

His hand reaches out, as if going to stop the recording, but he pauses. Hand hovering in air, finger outstretched. After a beat, he drops the hand to his lap. 

TEDDY: It’s hard for me to explain it. I’m not very good with words. So, now that the shakes are gone, I’ve been left with this awareness of things that I didn’t have before. But it’s an awareness of something that’s always been there, but I just couldn’t see it until now. As if I was walking around blindfolded this whole time, but because I’ve always been blindfolded, I didn’t know what I was missing. That there were all these things I wasn’t seeing. But then the blindfold was taken off, and I saw it all and...

He looks down at the hand in his lap. Back at us. 

TEDDY: It’s like I saw the inside. “The inside of what, Teddy?” I can hear you ask. 

He gestures vaguely around him.

TEDDY: Me. This apartment. My life. That sort of thing, I guess. But the worst part is—

He is interrupted by the sound of a lock being shifted, a door being opened. 

SONGWOO: Hey. I brought back some noodles from that new place by the— oh, sorry, are you filming that thing for the study?

TEDDY: Yeah, but I’m done. 

He flashes the camera a quick look as if he knows we’ve witnessed him tell a lie. 

SONGWOO: Good. I’m starving. Let’s eat. 

TEDDY: Yeah.

SONGWOO: Are you alright? 

Teddy nods vigorously, as if trying to snap himself out of a stupor. It doesn’t seem to work. 

TEDDY: Hey, maybe after we eat we could go to the grocery. Get a few things.

SONGWOO: Yeah, sure. If you want. 

TEDDY: It’d be nice to have a full fridge for a change. 

[teddyliuwho]