amusement park!au

*

sometimes, when two strangers meet... they become young again.

***

The world is spinning, spinning, and Sungjin's head spins along with it. He's sitting in a teacup with Jaehyung, his brain circling in cartwheels around the base of his skull, and between the swiftly shifting surroundings and blurring-together lines of everything except his white knuckles, he curses at his friend at the top of his lungs. "YOU FUCKING IMBECILE PUT ME ON THIS RIDE YOU SAID ITS SLOW HYUNG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU FUCKING LIED TO ME YOU SHITTY BASTAR—" Suddenly, the ride begins to slow down, and the traumatized man slumps forward with his forehead balanced on his hands.

Jae can only laugh beside him. "You did great, sweetie."

The drained man shakes his hyung's hand off his shoulders and heaves in a breath of sweet, still air. He never realized just how amazing it is to be on motionless ground. Sungjin soon feels the furious gaze of countless unimpressed mothers and fathers on his limp form; he peeks at them from beneath his fingers as they lead their children off the ride and onto safe ground. "Look what you did, hyung; now I'm taboo to kids!"

"You're such a coward, Sungjin... Now I know why you and Wonpil never come to the amusement park with Younghyun and me!"

Sungjin huffs. This is going to be one long day...

"If you go on that roller coaster, I'll take Wonpil out every day for a month."

They're standing in front of the biggest, most menacing ride Sungjin has ever seen. There's steam billowing out of the gargantuan dragon's snout, and its mouth spouts out fire: it resembles a flamethrower the size of a small mountain. Rail cars lead into the wide-open jaws and the man sees them appear once more, people screaming inside, in the huge gaping holes surrounded by strobe lights that serve as the beast's glowing eyes, then disappear back into the dragon's gut and come out of the tail as a heap of frail bodies soaked in water. Sungjin's teeth find his lip as the prospect of being rid of his annoying introvert of a flat-mate makes itself evident before him, however, clear as day, clear as the sky above him. It's worth it... Isn't it? He can always just close his eyes and try to faint so he misses everything and then puke on his hyung after the ride ends as revenge. Maybe it'll be easy, who knows? "Sure," he says a bit too quickly, and Jae is laughing out his infamous laugh as he stalks over to the not-so-long line leading to the extremely-scary-ass ride that's taunting him with its spread open mouth and glinting eyes. "My eyes are bigger than yours, I'm not scared of you," he mutters under his breath. Then he's knocking into a form heavy in the shoulder department, and his lips are spluttering out a string of "I'm so sorry"s and "I'm so, SO sorry"s.

"S'okay," the stranger shyly mumbles out, and Sungjin looks in the direction from which the deep-as-the-ocean baritone is coming. There's a man in front of him, no older than 20, maybe. There's a boyish gleam in his chocolate-fountain eyes, a kind of lazy spark in his raising hands, scratchy fingers coming up to lightly caress Sungjin's trembling arms. "You good, ahjussi?"

"I'm 32," Sungjin defensively chortles out, slipping away from the light grip and dusting off his frazzled sleeves.

"Oh, I'm sorry?" The man immediately draws back his hands and nestles them in the pockets of his tattered jeans. "And I'm 27... Did I say something wrong?" he mutters through pouted lips.

"27?!!" Sungjin's eyes are truly wider than the intimidating roller coaster's by now. How can this kid be fucking 27?! "Stop joking around, kid. You've got to be no older than 20!"

Now it's the stranger's turn to be slightly offended. "I'm 27, I'm telling you! I bet you just want me to show you my ID so you can run off with it!!"

"What?! Who even does that?!?"

They stand in the line beside each other, awkward silence splayed over the air floating between them. Then there's a cough and a quiet, "Yoon Dowoon."

"What?"

Now a sigh. "I'm Yoon Dowoon."

"Oh." A few more seconds of silence float around, stiffening the atmosphere, before a calming wave of, "Park Sungjin," breaks the awkward tension. "Sorry if I came across as rude..."

"S'okay. I wasn't much better." The toothy grin that follows suit forms a soft spot in Sungjin's chest, and he thinks – for the first time that day – that maybe, just maybe, everything is going in the right direction.

"You like music?"

A challenging spark immediately illuminates Dowoon's eyes, and his grin spreads even wider over his heated cheeks. "Do I?!"

It's now been ten minutes since they met, the time having been filled with casual conversation surrounding musical genres and artists and songwriters, and the pair is finally boarding the ride. Sungjin tucks the safety harness over their jittering knees, and Dowoon does his best to not sidle closer to the older man when their rail car begins its ascent through the dark passage leading up the dragon's neck.

He's on the ride with Sungjin, and he feels like a kid again. Because this is way scarier than he thought it would be, and he's about ready to cry. His eyes are already full of tears. Shit. He wipes at them with his thumbs, because that's just embarrassing.

And suddenly the car's stopping. "Why's it stopped?!" His scandalous whisper-yell carries across as an echo to Sungjin.

"Dunno," the brunette stutters out. Dowoon's hand is met with rough fingers, and he finally allows himself to slide closer to the almost-not-stranger. He's cowering... But at least he's not the only one who's scared. "Mayb—" Then they're being thrown downwards into the beast's nostril, where a wave of steam encompasses their bodies, and they're clutching onto each other as if their lives depend on one another's bodies being pressed together into a pulp. The men's heads bonk together as the car is jolted from side to side, outside to inside, then back again, and the 27-year-old can only hear the dragon's guttural roaring and both his and Sungjin's screams molding together into one booming-ass screech akin to the skidding of tires on broken pavement. He can't think, or else he would think something along the lines of, Never again... Never fucking again...

After a while of being tossed around and passed through rings of fire and steam and water, Dowoon's still crying and clutching onto the comfortable stranger's arm as a last resort, a final attempt to not fall off the roller coaster and into the oblivion which awaits him below with spread-open arms. They must be nearing the end of the ride, now, because the shaking of the car has become almost unbearable. Or at least Dowoon hopes that's what's going on... Just as the screech of some wild animal he wouldn't be able to name in a million years rips out of his throat, the flash of a hidden camera encompasses him and Sungjin in a spark of light (it's so bright it sears his lenses through his smashed-shut eyes), and he feels a pair of lips crash into his own as the car lurches sideways. A stray "MMph??!" of surprise passes from his mouth and vibrates onto Sungjin's, and then it's over. The foreign lips are gone, the car is lurching in the opposite direction, he's screaming again as he falls right into the older man's side with a painful crack. And he's hugging Sungjin close, close enough to feel the fast-paced beating of the brunette's heart; he's focusing on that frenzied beat to get his mind away from the ride he thought he could defeat, but now knows he couldn't. Because he's a child again, and children are scared of intimidating, fire-breathing dragons... But they're quite fond of comforting men whose arms feel like stuffed animals and whose lips taste like home.