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약한영웅 characters when you cry while patching them up ˳ ۫ 𓈅
includes class 2 + suho 𔓕 gn!reader 𔓕 w.c 3.4k+
genres — established relationship, fluff, hurt / comfort
click to continue reading! 𔓕 based on this request
warnings. mentions of blood, injuries, bruises, dacryphilia (?), canon-typical violence.
──────── yeon sieun
Baku had called you, his voice was weighed with worry as he told you Sieun was hurt badly and unconscious. Your heart had sunk right there, the world had become blurry. Everything that came out of Baku’s mouth through the phone sounded so far away, as if someone had put your head underwater. you had felt like your legs would give up any second.
You had rushed with some first aid to Eunjang right away, fighting the fidgety feeling and anxiety you felt the entire bus ride. When you reached the secret hangout room you found three of the four boys hurt, one of them— your Sieun, lying down, and unconscious.
You had questioned and scolded them but they knew your anger came from a place of concern. Juntae had said that he and Gotak were fine, he had half-lied. All three of them had come to some unspoken agreement to leave you with Sieun alone to patch him up.
Your chest tightens as you settle near Sieun, slowly moving his hair out of his forehead to look at his wounds. Red bruises abloom on both his cheeks and forehead, gashes on both his cheek bones and a busted lip— just what was he upto?
You start by cleaning his chin and hands with wet wipes. You then disinfect his face and forehead, your breathing becomes heavier. You don't know how to clean his lips properly, after all you're not a medical professional, so you just opt to clean the area around his mouth properly. Your eyes start to burn a little, your heart is getting heavier each passing second.
Sieun’s eyes flicker open, his gaze is far away but he soon notices your presence, you are trying to rip a bandaid out of its packaging. He calls out your name, his voice is shaky and hoarse.
You turn towards him, a wave of relief washing over you as you notice him awake. He tries to get up but you push him down to rest, your attempts are futile as he sits straight anyway. He looks dazed.
“Sieun-ah,” You say, you don't add anything else, unable to think of a proper statement. Your eyes start to burn again, you try to blink it away but instead tears start to trail down your cheek. Sieun mirrors your expression. His eyes redden as tears collect.
“I’m sorry.” He utters, raw and pained. Your chest tightens and a lump forms in your throat.
“It’s okay, I am here now.” You breathe out, your voice is weak despite nothing being okay, you try to be strong.
“No, no, I am sorry.” His words are a little slurred and drawled as repeats. You take his hand in your own, holding it gently, you start to run your fingers over his hand in soothing motions. Your touch is feather light, as if you're afraid that you'll break Sieun. He stops you and grips your fingers lightly with his own, signaling for you to respond. Your vision is getting a little blurred but you hold it in for Sieun’s sake.
“Okay.” You say, your voice is weak. “I accept your apology. Now, let me put this bandaid on you.”
Sieun switches from holding your hand to gripping your sleeve between his fingers. You peel off the wrapper and put the bandaid on his cheekbone gently. Sieun’s eyes start to water. You wipe them with the back of your fingers before they can fall past his under eyes.
“They… your tears… they will burn your wounds. So, stop, okay? There's no need to cry, okay? I am here now.” You speak softly.
You usher him to lay down, his hand holding onto yours firmly. He does not want to let you go. You bring his hand towards your face and press a faint kiss on the back of his hand. His grip loosens slightly as he passes out again.
──────── ahn suho
To say you were pissed would be an understatement. You were beyond angry at this point. As you put a dressing on his forearm, Suho finally breaks the silence.
“Wanna go to noraebang?” Typical Suho. Typical Suho behaviour. Always trying to change the topic.
“No.” You say.
“C’mon, I’ll take you to eat ice-cream after.” He tries to persuade you, taking your hands in his own, entwining softly. Subtly indicating that he doesn't want to talk about this, trying to put on an act to pretend that this never happened.
“No.” You repeat standing your ground.
He pouts as you retreat your hands and continue to apply ointment on his scratches.
“No use in pouting. I thought you were over this shit, beating up people and getting hurt.”
He doesn't respond so you refuse to meet his eyes. You start to apply some gel on the scratches of his face and he starts to pucker his lips, asking for a kiss. You put your palm on his lips.
“Stop it.” He licks your palm instead—? You withdraw your hand and smack him.
Wiping your hand with his uniform, you go back to applying the gel. Suho realises you're both awfully close, your face near his own. He looks at you, your face, how you have a little pout and how your eyebrows are furrowed as you delicately apply the ointment on him.
He notices how your lips tremble a little and your eyes are blinking a lot. Are you holding in your tears?
“Hey.” He holds your wrist. “I’m–”
“What?” You finally break– tears brim and fall out of your eyes. This time, you pretend. You pretend that you are not crying. You try to go back to patching him but his hold on your wrists is too strong.
“Hey, hey.” He utters softly, his voice sounds apologetic.“I’m… sorry. I know I told you I won't do this anymore but… it just happened.”
You bite the insides of your cheeks avoiding his gaze and silently sniffle and Suho’s heart breaks.
“Oh my.” He mutters under his breath, his hands quickly reach your face, palms holding your face like you were some fragile porcelain. His thumbs wipe your tears tenderly.
“I’m sorry, Y/n-ssi.” And with that, he kisses your nose. “It won't… I'll try to make sure it does not happen again.” He kisses your forehead next. “So, now please,” He kisses your philtrum, “Please, stop crying. It breaks my heart to see you like this.”
He continues to kiss your face until you break into giggles.
──────── seo juntae
Juntae looks at you like a puppy kicked by a human, eyes downcast and filled with tears, feeling as though it was something that was his mistake. His eyes don't leave your hands.
You are fuming. Brows furrowed together, you are taking long breaths to calm yourself down. You angrily rip off a medicine’s covering and Juntae gulps.
You turn your face towards him and he looks at you and then, quickly looks away. He feels guilty.
You both are on a bench in a park near the pharmacy you just visited. Juntae got beat up by some bullies and you had dragged him to the pharmacy despite him saying it was okay.
Juntae wonders if you're mad at him. You're not. You know that.
You take off his glasses, gently putting them away. You start to dab away the dirt and blood from his face, your touches are feather light. He winces. He thinks it ticked you off because you stop and discard the cotton ball.
“I know… that it hurts you every time I get…hurt. I'm sorry.” He says, you look away. He's afraid he might lose you if this continues, he doesn't want that to happen ever. He holds your hands, clasping your fingers with his own.
“Please don't be mad at me.” It breaks something inside of you.
Your anger melts and turns into something else. It turns into the tears in your eyes, you hold them in. Your nose feels tingly and your mouth feels strangely wet. Your lips are pursed, you are taking in his words, letting them settle in your mind. They feel heavy. You take a deep breath as the tears threaten to fall. You face him again.
This time the look in your face is not of annoyance but of hurt, your brows are no longer furrowed together, your eyelashes are wet with tears that might fall any second. Juntae feels guilty.
“I am not mad at you.” You say and then it happens. The tears start to cascade down slowly. Juntae’s lips quiver. You take your hands back and wipe your tears.
“I don't know why you think I'm mad at you. I'm just… frustrated about this situation. I worry for you, Juntae-ya. Every few days you show up with these new wounds and bruises, I feel sad. I don't know what you're up to, but…” You stop as you don't know what to say.
Juntae feels as if his insides got ripped out and seared, his eyes start to water instantly at this sight. Just how could he be the reason of your tears?
His hand reaches out hesitant towards you, shaking a little and it finally finds your back. He starts to rub you with one hand and takes out a napkin with another. He uses it to wipe your tears.
“I…am sorry. Please don't cry.”
──────── go ‘gotak’ hyuntak
“Does it cost money to be careful?” You mumble under your breath but they're still loud enough to be heard by Hyuntak. You did it intentionally.
“What? Aren't I supposed to be the one nagging you?” He sounds offended. “And if it really did cost money, you’d be evading–” You respond with a smack on the top of his head before he can even finish.
“Beggars can't be choosers.” You confuse him.
“That's literally not how the saying works. Ah–” You're now pulling his right ear.
“Can you stop abusing me?” He grumbles.
“Can you stop abusing me?” You mock him snottily.
Gotak realises there's no point in arguing with you further so he doesn't say anything. Instead, he looks away as you work on patching him up. You put gauze around his arm and some bandaids over his knuckles. You soon start to clean his face and that's when he finally turns towards you.
A q-tip is between your thumb and index finger layered with some gel, you're gently applying it to the corner of Gotak’s lips. He suddenly becomes hyper-aware about everything and his skin prickles with goosebumps.
Gotak realises that your sole focus is on his lips and blood rushes to his face, his ears reddening with every passing second. This close proximity isn't something that's rare but it's something that's not frequent either. Your dynamic has always been like this—too shy to be close and too committed to be farther than an arm’s distance.
Gotak takes in your features. Your eyes are glassy but focused on his lips and your nose seems a little red. Your bottom lip is between your teeth to stop it from trembling. You look like you're on the verge of crying. Shit.
“So, um…” Gotak starts, his intention is to distract you so you don't end up actually crying.
You hum in response. You finish up taking care of his lip and put away the q-tip in a plastic bag. Gotak looks at you, unable to muster up his words. He should’ve thought before starting to speak!
“So, yeah.”
You look at him incredulously, eyebrows raised but eyes still glassy, tears still sticking to your lashes.
“What?” You say.
You hear Gotak mumble a small Fuck this before he pulls you into his arms. One of his hands snakes through your back to your head, holding it gently. Gotak starts to pat you slowly. He then kisses the crown of your head.
“I’ll be careful next time.”
“Yeah. You better be.”
──────── park 'baku' humin
Baku had showed up to your home bloodied and bruised with his stupid injuries and wounds. You had led him to your living room, your parents weren't home fortunately. You wouldn't have to explain why there was a badly beat up boy in your living space.
This brings you to your current predicament— crouched in front of Baku as he sat on the sofa, cleaning the dried blood clinging to his knuckles. You work in silence and Baku lets you. He doesn't speak and neither do you. You don't ask or question. He doesn't tell you what happened.
But the silence is oh so suffocating. There is a lump in your throat that won't go down now matter how much you swallow and tears are pricking the inner corners of your eyes. After you're done cleaning his hands you settle yourself on the sofa and start to clean his face.
Baku is strong, that is a fact. He never loses, that is another fact. But he is not invincible or immune to getting hurt. He bleeds and bruises just like everyone else. He feels pain too. That is evident in how he winces when you apply cream on his knuckles before you put on a bandaid. That is also evident in the way he hisses in pain when you dab the cut on his face with a cotton ball covered in disinfectant.
It is also evident in the way his heart aches when he notices your hands trembling and your eyes watering. You sniffle involuntarily. Baku wants to scratch his face. His eyes become glassy.
He calls out your name delicately as if it was a glass sculpture that could break if his voice was any louder.
And your tears spill. You bite your bottom lip to try and hold it in but there's no use.
Humin takes the cotton ball from your hand and places it on the center table. His hands wrap around your torso and he pulls you into his embrace. No words are exchanged. Sometimes, words aren't needed to communicate. Actions are enough.
With your head on his chest and his arms around you firmly, he pulls you under his chin. He lets you cry it out. You must be scared after seeing him hurt so badly.
He starts to run soothing circles on your back with his hand until you calm down.
“I’m sorry.” He says finally breaking the silence. “I won't get hurt this badly next time.”
“So you plan on getting hurt again?”
──────── geum seongje
You are everything Geum Seongje is not– quiet, kind and gentle. Maybe that's why you're both together. Opposites attract or something.
But Outside Geum Seongje is different from Inside Geum Seongje. Inside Geum Seongje is reserved just for you. His words don't bite and he kisses with his lips instead of his fists. His eyes don't carry that crazed look, but a look of comfort and relaxation. He's not the adrenaline crazy wolf but a person who seeks softness and love.
One might think Seongje is the antonym of words like love, gentleness, kindness, softness etc. but that would be false. Seongje loves in his own way. He is cruel, yes, but there is certain gentleness when he pulls you into hugs. Geum Seongje knows mercy too. He is not soft like others but his edges and sharpness dull a little every time he's with you.
Maybe that's why he always seeks for you when he's injured. You offer him a quiet haven in your heart for nothing in exchange. You don't judge him. You don't ask questions. You don't look at him with fear or inferiority.
That's why he always crashes at your apartment after a big fight. You patch him up and offer him a warm meal. You offer him warmth no one else ever does.
Seongje looks at you confused. Your eyes are red and flowing with tears as you clean his bloodied knuckles. He does not understand why you're crying. But you look pretty, he doesn't want to question anything.
“I won, you know.” He breaks the silence.
“Yeah, I know.” You say, holding in a sniffle.
“So why are you crying?”
“Because you're hurt?”
Bloodied knuckles, busted lip, a black eye and different reds blooming under his skin on his body.
“You lack a sense of self preservation.” Seongje doesn't reply, he just studies your features. There's something unreadable in his expression. He silently acknowledges what you said as true. He doesn't know what to do when you sniffle and when your tears don't stop.
When you're finally done patching him up, you get up. He holds your wrist.
“The vegetables will get charred.” You say referring to the veggies on the pan you left unattended to focus on Seongje.
“Stay.” The ‘Please’ is left unsaid.
──────── na baekjin
It isn't common for Baekjin to get into fights. And it is more uncommon for him to come back scathed– you see, Baekjin doesn't get his hands dirty. He rarely does so. And it's rarer for him to get hurt. His moves are always calculated and precise, there's no room for surprises or to get hurt for that matter.
So it is quite a moment when Baekjin enters his office with a gash along his cheek, walks towards his desk and crouches down to pull out a first aid box and puts it in front of you on the glass table, calmly. You look at him dumbly.
“Like am I…?” You start but then trail off, because obviously, he meant for you to patch him up.
“I don't see a mirror in here.” Whoa, Na Baekjin can be sarcastic if he wants.
“Then sit down, sir.” And with that Baekjin settles down next to you on the black leather couch of his modest office.
There's distance between you, you gesture with your hands for him to come closer and he follows. You break the distance between you both by pulling his face closer to yourself to inspect his cut and Baekjin notices how your face curls up in pain.
“You’re lucky it wasn't that deep. You’d have to get stitches on your pretty face.” Baekjin doesn't respond to your statement, but his gaze softens. A little smile forms on his face but it dissolves right away.
You start by wiping off the blood that trickled down towards his jaw and Baekjin closes his eyes—feeling your soft touches. One of your hands holding his face while the other wipes away the blood, there is a certain domesticity to this which he cherishes. Not that he would admit out loud. But it's evident in how his shoulders relax a little when you're nearby and how his fingers always try to find yours in the quiet moments when you're alone.
For a second, Baekjin wonders if it was not for the Union, would you two get to be normal? Act like those schoolmates who are dating— holding hands in the hallways, holding hands under the table in the cafeteria and sneaking off to the secluded corners of the school to make out.
He is pulled out of his thoughts when you say something, your voice sounds a little shaky and weak.
“I won't use the disinfectant, it’ll burn too much, so I'll use this cream… instead.”
He sees your eyes brimmed with tears, eyelashes heavy with tears weighing them down. His gaze softens.
“You are crying.” He says in a matter-of-fact tone.
“I am not! Atleast, not yet.”
“You worry for me too much.”
“You say it like it's a bad thing.” Your tears fall.
Ok, fair enough, Baekjin thinks. You're the only one who can get him tongue tied. If he can worry for you, then you can too.
He wipes the tears with the back of his hands, his touch is tender. You hold onto his hand, not letting him take it back, leaning into his touch.
“I love you.” You sniffle. His thumb rubs away another tear.
“I know. I love you too. I won't get hurt again.” He says. His voice doesn't have the edge he uses with others. A special voice just for you.
His gravity pulls you closer, heads tilting in unison, just a few centimetres apar–
A knock and the door opens.
“Am I interrupting something?” Geum Seongje. Motherfucker.
You groan.
Baekjin sighs.
note Ꮺ
longest work till now! i switched to regular font instead of subscript because personally reading text that small for so long strains my eyes. i also posted my stuff on wattpad, so if you use it, please support me on there too!
based on req 𔘓 scroll till the end for notes
I. Peach eyes and blue skies
Love is imminent.
Love is just imminent, you're bound to fall in love with someone sooner or later. Doesn't matter if it's today, tomorrow or the next day or the next next day— you're bound to fall in love with someone.
It is imminent in the same way as natural phenomena, just like how the winter is followed by spring, how the moon influences the tides and how every bud is meant to blossom into a beautiful flower.
It can happen in many ways. It might just be someone you've known for a long time and in a moment everything just shifts, you see them in a different light, in a way so different that it makes your heart pound so hard that it feels as if it is going to burst out of your ribcage and jump into their hands.
It can happen in a way that when you first lay your eyes on them you just know; that this is going to the person my world will revolve around, that this is going to be the person my heart beats for, that this is going to be the person that will plague my every waking thought & appear in my dreams, that this is going to be the person i love for the rest of my life.
It really does happen like that sometimes, that you know the person you just laid your eyes on will be the object of your affection for the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.
When you first laid your eyes on Yeon Sieun, you just knew.
It is a truth, like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that earth is the third planet from the sun and that universe is forever expanding till it ends.
It is the truth.
You are in love.
Your heart will chase him like the sun chases the moon or the moon chases the sun across the canvas of the beautiful sky over us all.
Your heart will chase him and beat for him.
Your heart will beat in such rhythms that will be impossible for you to ignore the loud vibrations that will soon drip into your compositions and creations.
The truth is; you are in love with the peach eyed boy.
II.
I'll be with you on your ride
The first time you meet Yeon Sieun, it is at the cultural centre Juntae and his friends are volunteering. You—Juntae’s sibling— were tasked by your mom to keep an eye on Juntae and see if his friends were any trouble.
The school had called after all, saying how Juntae had gotten into a fight near the school and the guys he had fought had not shown up at the school the next day. Which was funny because Juntae never fights.
Regardless.
The day you met him, you still remember so clearly because how could you forget?
The wind was a little chilly, the kind of chilly you enjoy when you are enveloped by the warmth of your favourite sweater. The kind of chilly, when the wind blows onto your face you feel like a weak leaf falling off the tree and dancing in the wind to the tune of nature.
The sky was blue, no clouds, just a calming presence on top of your heads as you went about your day. But, now that you look back, you think it was the same shade of blue that your wallpaper was in your childhood bedroom.
When you first walked into the room where Juntae and Sieun were, you were un-suspecting. You had walked towards Juntae, not minding his friend, after all you had no actual business with him. But when you had called out for your brother, he had turned too, and when you met his eyes the time had slowed down, sluggish in its movements around you and Sieun, time had slowed down. It was like being suspended in honey, sweet and sticky, slowly dripping down.
Sieun had looked like he had picked the most beautiful constellations in the entirety of the night sky, collected them by hand and put them in a bucket and later poured down the contents of the bucket in the pools of his eyes. The creases of his eyelids were beautiful too, though they were a little assymetrical.
For a second, you wonder if the boy in front of you feels the same thing you are feeling, did time stop for him too?
But does it matter if he feels the same?
You feel it. It is real for you. It is as real as the warmth of the sun you crave when the weather’s too cool, and it is as real as the tender flesh of the tangerines your mom peeled for you the day before.
It is real and it is love.
Love at first sight.
III.
It's on the moonlight
Artists are, well, strange creatures with the ability to make you feel things you've never experienced before, or have experienced before but are too scared to relive those moments or experiences you will never experience. But the bottom line is, artists are strange creatures of experience.
Experience is like drops of lemon juice on savoury food, something that's not a necessary ingredient to cook the food but something that enhances the experience of enjoying it.
That is what your teacher says. She says that you can always write and compose about things you might have not gone through, they might be beautiful, but the true glimmer always shines when you create a piece about something you've experienced deeply.
And now that you're finally in love, no matter what you play, there are hints of yearning.
When you play the violin, love loosens out and flows like drops of sap on a tree, it sticks onto the haunting and eerie crescendo and then with painfully slow movement, it's present in the drop that comes with the aching decrescendo.
When you play the piano, love blooms like the brightest flower that always catches your attention when you walk by its bush, it attaches itself onto the notes and glides through the air.
When you play the guitar, love coos like a cuckoo bird, the sound that you always hear when you need to, the sound that always catches your attention no matter what you're doing.
Your teacher catches onto it, she tells you to hold onto it, drown in the feeling so it sinks into your very being, so that it can be embossed into your creations.
To you, the love you've just started to feel is like a gentle caress of a mother on the face of her child after the child has fallen asleep.
It is the same faint touch of your birth mother you remember, the gentle yet warm parting hug.
It is also similar to the the firm touch of your father, not to hard, not to soft that one can mistake for a ghostly whisper.
It is also like the kiss your Mom—Ms. Seo— presses on to the top of your head, something that is meant to be felt, something that is proclaimed.
(There is a distinction between Mother and Mom.
Mother is the one who gave birth to you. Mother is the one who was with you for the first three years of your life.
Mom is Ms. Seo, the one who gave birth to Juntae. Mom is the one who was with you after the the first three years of your life.)
You somehow became a friend of Juntae’s friends, you don't go to the same school but they always invite you to hangout. That is how you ended up here; sitting in the basketball court, chatting with the guys about everything and nothing.
The amber lights shine down harshly on all of you, a colour that can be only found in Vivaldian music and for a moment you are taken aback when Sieun cracks a small smile at the antics of Juntae’s—now your—friends.
And it's the moment you saw him for the first time again, the time stopped like you were just mere beetles trapped in amber forever, you wish you were insects in amber and the time stopped on this moment forever.
That night you thought of his smile, beautiful smile, and thought:
Love is like the gentle moonlight.
IV.
How many songs I write
Your birth mother was a pianist, a talented one at that. People did know of her. One of your earliest memories is of her playing a melody on the keys of the piano, the same tune that she always sang for you to put you to sleep. A tender composition she created just for you, however, no matter how much you try to recreate it with your own hands, you simply cannot. She did not leave behind the manuscript for that specific song.
Mother had a knack for all things musical. The melody she had created just for you was very raw, it's still clear in your memory, raw like the tender flesh of a bruised heart. And the melody was light and gentle, like the sunlight that seeps into your skin during winter, light and warm enough to comfort you when the snow melts slowly. And you still remember the sickly sweetness of the melody, quite like a jar of freshly harvested honey, yellowish colour with tinges of orange like the setting sun.
Despite remembering it oh so clearly, you could never recreate it. It is there but also not.
But such is the pain of a musician, no matter how hard you try, you never capture the true essence of the actual piece in front of you, the river of time flows and smudges the colours of the intricate painting leaving you with only a faint membrane of what used to be.
Maybe that's why you chose to drown yourself in the same liquor as your Mother; music.
Maybe it was in your warm blood, the urge to just create something, to create art. Art is eternal, a river that passes yet remains, unlike your Mother. Art could never die and leave you.
Maybe it was to connect to your Mother. The child's instinct is always to look for the mother, after all. Maybe that's why you try to drown yourself in this cool river, maybe a ghost will pull you down to the depths of your mind and maybe then you will be able to finally recreate the lullaby your Mother sang you to sleep and played for you on the piano.
Deep within your mind, you are still looking for your Mother.
Looking back, you remember only three memories of your Mother.
First, where she tucks you to bed and kisses your nose and continues to hum the same lullaby. She never wrote it down on any sheets because she thought she would always be there to sing it for you.
Second, where she feeds you peaches with the softest of flesh, you can still taste them in your mouth and the way they melted and the way they had hints of sourness.
Third, where she hugs you for the last time. Her hair tickles your face as she pulls you in, she pats your back and you see her smile. And it is warm. Like the melody she always played for you.
You sigh as you fill in the notehead in front of you, scratching your pen until it's completely filled the same way your heart is filled yearning for the peach-eyed boy.
“You okay? You've been sighing a lot.” Your seat partner asks you.
“Mhm. Just thinking about him.” You answer slowly, your words roll out in a dreamy drawl, like your attention is elsewhere in the prettiest gardens of paradise.
“Him who?”
“My muse.” You say, with your eyes still focused on the sheet on your desk. The eyebrows of your partner quirk up, this is some new gossip topic. “His name has three syllables. You know what else has three syllables? ‘I love you.’”
Your seat partner looks at you strangely.
You seem to have forgotten that most Korean names are composed of three syllables. But it's still the most poetic thing to you.
You pay your seatmate no mind as you continue to fill in the staves with the dripping emotions that have latched onto your mind. Your hand reaches up to touch your sternum through your uniform to feel the quickening rhythm of your tender heart.
V.
You'll be my sunlight
“So, are you going to tell him?” Juntae says with a soft voice, like he's treading into a territory he's not meant to, he slowly crunches leaves that have fallen down.
The weather has gone chillier, in a way that makes wisps of fog appear when you speak.
“Tell who what?” You say dumbly. You do have inkling of what your dear brother means but you're not ready to accept that he took notice of what he might say next.
“Sieun. About your feelings.” Of course he knows. This sneaky bastard. When you turn to face him finally, there's a slight smirk on his face. Was your crush so obvious?
“I don't know, man.” You sigh. You've never imagined taking your crush to that level and confessing, you cannot imagine Sieun being your boyfriend, he's better off as a muse. You kick a pebble away.
He's a sweet boy though, Yeon Sieun, he always listens to you ramble when others lose focus because of their lack of musical knowledge.
He also listens to the songs you recommend, he likes them sometimes, sometimes they're not his taste. But at least he's honest enough to accept when he likes something and when he doesn't.
He doesn't talk much, but when he speaks, he says what he means and what he wants to. This is something you admire about him.
“Mhm.” Juntae hums as he sees you get lost in your thoughts again, the smirk doesn't leave his feature though. If you can't tell Sieun about your feelings, he sure can.
𓂃
In the sky, pinks meet the orange, a soft colour is conceived, a colour that looks like peach soda. You're sitting next to Sieun. Juntae, Baku and Gotak are still playing basketball, they seem to have better stamina than Sieun.
You lose your focus, the world blurs a little, you're too deep in your thoughts, riveting in the notes ringing in your head. You've been practicing a lot, recently. Perfecting the composition you came up with, your fingers and shoulder have gone tired with the countless hours you've been pouring into your craft.
There is a certain joy that comes with perfection. When you can move people with the music that you create, you reach a state of euphoria and the hard work you put on yourself finally feels worth it.
As the music in your head slowly dissipates as it comes towards the end, you turn to look at Sieun, who is drinking water. The way his Adam's apple bobs with every gulp has you entranced, but you soon realise that you might be looking like a weirdo so you turn away.
Sieun puts the water bottle away.
Well, it's now or never, right?
With your heart beating like a wild beast that was chained inside a cage of bones, you finally gather courage.
“Sieun-ah.” You start. A crow caws in the distance and the sneakers against the ground screech.
When he turns to look at you, you're taken back to the moment where the yellowish lights of the outside court had you feeling like insects swimming in pools of honey, the moment where you wished time stopped forever because of the twinkle of Sieun’s eyes.
“Has anyone told you before that you have pretty eyes?”
You don't know if it's the sky that is casting down pinkish hues on Sieun or if he's actually blushing.
𓂃
You let out a soft sigh as you sit on the sofa, tired from a long day of practicing violin. You even have dreams of playing the specific composition, the one you've titled ‘Peach eyes’.
Your Mom pulls you close to her into a side hug. She pats you slowly, her touch is gentle and soothing.
“Don’t stress yourself too much. I know you'll do great, my child.” She speaks brightly, her words filled with nothing but love.
“Thank you. I love you.” And with that you sink yourself deeper into her embrace.
VI.
How could I not rely
On you, peach eyes?
The silence is broken by the sound of bow meeting the strings, the first touch is always gentle like a lover's kiss, it always starts slowly and builds momentum. The notes flow endlessly and beautifully into the air, with a certain warmth that comes with love.
At first, it is like rich cashmere being undone, thread by thread, slowly and painfully unravelled, something akin to accepting that you are in love and the fear that comes with it. When you accept you are in love, you're baring your soul. The sound that comes with each friction of bow and violin slowly dissolves the tension built up in the pit of your stomach. The sound is now like a knife cutting through flesh, thorough and sharp and easy. There is a sting in it, the kind felt by snow when the sun shines its rays on it harshly to melt it away, with that the fear in your mind melts away slowly too.
The unraveling is firm yet gentle, the touch is soft like water that envelopes your feet at the beach but it's firm, like the hardened bark of a tree. It feels like a lover undoing your being, slowly exposing your secrets to themselves and loving you despite.
The song builds up, it's now haunting like whispers of the past, something you can see on the back of your eyelids when you close them but something that fades away when you try to reach out for it.
The audience is completely trapped into the hypnotising performance you're putting, they're stuck in a trance like bugs caught up in sticky-trap.
There is pain in longing and you captured it perfectly in your music sheets and you've now turned it into music, the music that reverberates through your upper body, the music you made is being fed on by your heart.
The song is now turning like a tide, at first it was like expensive cloth being unstitched but now, it feels as though the seams are being sewn together again, this time better than they were before. Each note is like a torrent of brushstrokes on a canvas, each stroke building up to a precise picture.
You're pouring out every single emotion you've felt for the peach-eyed boy into this performance. Each note you play feels like a breath that brings you back to life. It now feels like a faint touch of moonlight on skin.
When you finish the melodies still linger in the air, like the whistling wind on a stormy day. The audience is quiet for a short moment, taking in the opus they just experienced but they soon break into applause.
Afterwards, you meet up with your friends after your violin solo ends. Juntae had invited his friends too, and they're all drowning you in praises. You try not to pay attention to the person that your solo was dedicated to, instead you chat with your friends as you lead them back to the hall for the next performance.
You're left alone outside the theatre hall, and you breathe out a sigh of satisfaction. You decide to go back to the artist’s lounge to pack up your things and just as you turn, Sieun appears, holding a bouquet of roses.
“You seem to be avoiding me.” He speaks with a matter-of-fact tone.
You look around and then point at yourself.
“Me? Haha, never.”
Sieun doesn't say anything else, and for a second, silence settles over both of you. You finally look into the eyes you were avoiding the entire evening, and now, you are in a trance. Like a snake being charmed by a snake charmer, you are charmed by the boy in front of you. You look into his eyes and they look soft and filled with stars like always.
Sieun hands you the bouquet, and his fingers brush against yours, you take in the rich peach and white coloured flowers to your view to ignore the loud beating of your heart and the blood rushing to your cheeks.
“The performance was beautiful.” He states.
But you are more beautiful; you want to say.
And a whisper of a smile appears on Sieun’s face.
Maybe, falling in love with you was imminent for Yeon Sieun too.
woohoo! 3.4k words, that was a long ride, i hope you enjoyed! likes, reblogs & comments are appreciated.
if it wasn't clear; y/n is a music student who is juntae's step-sibling. y/n's father remarried juntae's mom! y/n's birth mother was a pianist who passed away. y/n can play three instruments—piano, violin & acoustic guitar. the final scene was them performing a violin solo they composed.
𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 to 𝒱argrℬlood’s special event !
where music wafts through air & sinks into words itself, where words are so loud they ring out like the most beautiful of crescendos ; where stories of love are told
so tell me 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟, what is love to 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ?
𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 a deep breath in & pick the one that 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠
TRACK ONE : LOVE IS IMMINENT
song summary. It is imminent in the same way as natural phenomena, just like how the winter is followed by spring, how the moon influences the tides and how every bud is meant to blossom into a beautiful flower.
track length. 3.4k+
song genres. romance, one sided yearning, open ending.
TRACK TWO: LOVE IS ???
????
more tracks to be revealed soon.
vargrblood speaks !
to commemorate me reaching 100+ followers, i have decided to publish this event! i will release one shots based on love (for weak hero class). they will be based on the songs attached or on the vibe of the song! i hope you enjoy ( ⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝) !!!
based on req 𔘓 scroll till the end for notes
I. Peach eyes and blue skies
Love is imminent.
Love is just imminent, you're bound to fall in love with someone sooner or later. Doesn't matter if it's today, tomorrow or the next day or the next next day— you're bound to fall in love with someone.
It is imminent in the same way as natural phenomena, just like how the winter is followed by spring, how the moon influences the tides and how every bud is meant to blossom into a beautiful flower.
It can happen in many ways. It might just be someone you've known for a long time and in a moment everything just shifts, you see them in a different light, in a way so different that it makes your heart pound so hard that it feels as if it is going to burst out of your ribcage and jump into their hands.
It can happen in a way that when you first lay your eyes on them you just know; that this is going to the person my world will revolve around, that this is going to be the person my heart beats for, that this is going to be the person that will plague my every waking thought & appear in my dreams, that this is going to be the person i love for the rest of my life.
It really does happen like that sometimes, that you know the person you just laid your eyes on will be the object of your affection for the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.
When you first laid your eyes on Yeon Sieun, you just knew.
It is a truth, like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that earth is the third planet from the sun and that universe is forever expanding till it ends.
It is the truth.
You are in love.
Your heart will chase him like the sun chases the moon or the moon chases the sun across the canvas of the beautiful sky over us all.
Your heart will chase him and beat for him.
Your heart will beat in such rhythms that will be impossible for you to ignore the loud vibrations that will soon drip into your compositions and creations.
The truth is; you are in love with the peach eyed boy.
II.
I'll be with you on your ride
The first time you meet Yeon Sieun, it is at the cultural centre Juntae and his friends are volunteering. You—Juntae’s sibling— were tasked by your mom to keep an eye on Juntae and see if his friends were any trouble.
The school had called after all, saying how Juntae had gotten into a fight near the school and the guys he had fought had not shown up at the school the next day. Which was funny because Juntae never fights.
Regardless.
The day you met him, you still remember so clearly because how could you forget?
The wind was a little chilly, the kind of chilly you enjoy when you are enveloped by the warmth of your favourite sweater. The kind of chilly, when the wind blows onto your face you feel like a weak leaf falling off the tree and dancing in the wind to the tune of nature.
The sky was blue, no clouds, just a calming presence on top of your heads as you went about your day. But, now that you look back, you think it was the same shade of blue that your wallpaper was in your childhood bedroom.
When you first walked into the room where Juntae and Sieun were, you were un-suspecting. You had walked towards Juntae, not minding his friend, after all you had no actual business with him. But when you had called out for your brother, he had turned too, and when you met his eyes the time had slowed down, sluggish in its movements around you and Sieun, time had slowed down. It was like being suspended in honey, sweet and sticky, slowly dripping down.
Sieun had looked like he had picked the most beautiful constellations in the entirety of the night sky, collected them by hand and put them in a bucket and later poured down the contents of the bucket in the pools of his eyes. The creases of his eyelids were beautiful too, though they were a little assymetrical.
For a second, you wonder if the boy in front of you feels the same thing you are feeling, did time stop for him too?
But does it matter if he feels the same?
You feel it. It is real for you. It is as real as the warmth of the sun you crave when the weather’s too cool, and it is as real as the tender flesh of the tangerines your mom peeled for you the day before.
It is real and it is love.
Love at first sight.
III.
It's on the moonlight
Artists are, well, strange creatures with the ability to make you feel things you've never experienced before, or have experienced before but are too scared to relive those moments or experiences you will never experience. But the bottom line is, artists are strange creatures of experience.
Experience is like drops of lemon juice on savoury food, something that's not a necessary ingredient to cook the food but something that enhances the experience of enjoying it.
That is what your teacher says. She says that you can always write and compose about things you might have not gone through, they might be beautiful, but the true glimmer always shines when you create a piece about something you've experienced deeply.
And now that you're finally in love, no matter what you play, there are hints of yearning.
When you play the violin, love loosens out and flows like drops of sap on a tree, it sticks onto the haunting and eerie crescendo and then with painfully slow movement, it's present in the drop that comes with the aching decrescendo.
When you play the piano, love blooms like the brightest flower that always catches your attention when you walk by its bush, it attaches itself onto the notes and glides through the air.
When you play the guitar, love coos like a cuckoo bird, the sound that you always hear when you need to, the sound that always catches your attention no matter what you're doing.
Your teacher catches onto it, she tells you to hold onto it, drown in the feeling so it sinks into your very being, so that it can be embossed into your creations.
To you, the love you've just started to feel is like a gentle caress of a mother on the face of her child after the child has fallen asleep.
It is the same faint touch of your birth mother you remember, the gentle yet warm parting hug.
It is also similar to the the firm touch of your father, not to hard, not to soft that one can mistake for a ghostly whisper.
It is also like the kiss your Mom—Ms. Seo— presses on to the top of your head, something that is meant to be felt, something that is proclaimed.
(There is a distinction between Mother and Mom.
Mother is the one who gave birth to you. Mother is the one who was with you for the first three years of your life.
Mom is Ms. Seo, the one who gave birth to Juntae. Mom is the one who was with you after the the first three years of your life.)
You somehow became a friend of Juntae’s friends, you don't go to the same school but they always invite you to hangout. That is how you ended up here; sitting in the basketball court, chatting with the guys about everything and nothing.
The amber lights shine down harshly on all of you, a colour that can be only found in Vivaldian music and for a moment you are taken aback when Sieun cracks a small smile at the antics of Juntae’s—now your—friends.
And it's the moment you saw him for the first time again, the time stopped like you were just mere beetles trapped in amber forever, you wish you were insects in amber and the time stopped on this moment forever.
That night you thought of his smile, beautiful smile, and thought:
Love is like the gentle moonlight.
IV.
How many songs I write
Your birth mother was a pianist, a talented one at that. People did know of her. One of your earliest memories is of her playing a melody on the keys of the piano, the same tune that she always sang for you to put you to sleep. A tender composition she created just for you, however, no matter how much you try to recreate it with your own hands, you simply cannot. She did not leave behind the manuscript for that specific song.
Mother had a knack for all things musical. The melody she had created just for you was very raw, it's still clear in your memory, raw like the tender flesh of a bruised heart. And the melody was light and gentle, like the sunlight that seeps into your skin during winter, light and warm enough to comfort you when the snow melts slowly. And you still remember the sickly sweetness of the melody, quite like a jar of freshly harvested honey, yellowish colour with tinges of orange like the setting sun.
Despite remembering it oh so clearly, you could never recreate it. It is there but also not.
But such is the pain of a musician, no matter how hard you try, you never capture the true essence of the actual piece in front of you, the river of time flows and smudges the colours of the intricate painting leaving you with only a faint membrane of what used to be.
Maybe that's why you chose to drown yourself in the same liquor as your Mother; music.
Maybe it was in your warm blood, the urge to just create something, to create art. Art is eternal, a river that passes yet remains, unlike your Mother. Art could never die and leave you.
Maybe it was to connect to your Mother. The child's instinct is always to look for the mother, after all. Maybe that's why you try to drown yourself in this cool river, maybe a ghost will pull you down to the depths of your mind and maybe then you will be able to finally recreate the lullaby your Mother sang you to sleep and played for you on the piano.
Deep within your mind, you are still looking for your Mother.
Looking back, you remember only three memories of your Mother.
First, where she tucks you to bed and kisses your nose and continues to hum the same lullaby. She never wrote it down on any sheets because she thought she would always be there to sing it for you.
Second, where she feeds you peaches with the softest of flesh, you can still taste them in your mouth and the way they melted and the way they had hints of sourness.
Third, where she hugs you for the last time. Her hair tickles your face as she pulls you in, she pats your back and you see her smile. And it is warm. Like the melody she always played for you.
You sigh as you fill in the notehead in front of you, scratching your pen until it's completely filled the same way your heart is filled yearning for the peach-eyed boy.
“You okay? You've been sighing a lot.” Your seat partner asks you.
“Mhm. Just thinking about him.” You answer slowly, your words roll out in a dreamy drawl, like your attention is elsewhere in the prettiest gardens of paradise.
“Him who?”
“My muse.” You say, with your eyes still focused on the sheet on your desk. The eyebrows of your partner quirk up, this is some new gossip topic. “His name has three syllables. You know what else has three syllables? ‘I love you.’”
Your seat partner looks at you strangely.
You seem to have forgotten that most Korean names are composed of three syllables. But it's still the most poetic thing to you.
You pay your seatmate no mind as you continue to fill in the staves with the dripping emotions that have latched onto your mind. Your hand reaches up to touch your sternum through your uniform to feel the quickening rhythm of your tender heart.
V.
You'll be my sunlight
“So, are you going to tell him?” Juntae says with a soft voice, like he's treading into a territory he's not meant to, he slowly crunches leaves that have fallen down.
The weather has gone chillier, in a way that makes wisps of fog appear when you speak.
“Tell who what?” You say dumbly. You do have inkling of what your dear brother means but you're not ready to accept that he took notice of what he might say next.
“Sieun. About your feelings.” Of course he knows. This sneaky bastard. When you turn to face him finally, there's a slight smirk on his face. Was your crush so obvious?
“I don't know, man.” You sigh. You've never imagined taking your crush to that level and confessing, you cannot imagine Sieun being your boyfriend, he's better off as a muse. You kick a pebble away.
He's a sweet boy though, Yeon Sieun, he always listens to you ramble when others lose focus because of their lack of musical knowledge.
He also listens to the songs you recommend, he likes them sometimes, sometimes they're not his taste. But at least he's honest enough to accept when he likes something and when he doesn't.
He doesn't talk much, but when he speaks, he says what he means and what he wants to. This is something you admire about him.
“Mhm.” Juntae hums as he sees you get lost in your thoughts again, the smirk doesn't leave his feature though. If you can't tell Sieun about your feelings, he sure can.
𓂃
In the sky, pinks meet the orange, a soft colour is conceived, a colour that looks like peach soda. You're sitting next to Sieun. Juntae, Baku and Gotak are still playing basketball, they seem to have better stamina than Sieun.
You lose your focus, the world blurs a little, you're too deep in your thoughts, riveting in the notes ringing in your head. You've been practicing a lot, recently. Perfecting the composition you came up with, your fingers and shoulder have gone tired with the countless hours you've been pouring into your craft.
There is a certain joy that comes with perfection. When you can move people with the music that you create, you reach a state of euphoria and the hard work you put on yourself finally feels worth it.
As the music in your head slowly dissipates as it comes towards the end, you turn to look at Sieun, who is drinking water. The way his Adam's apple bobs with every gulp has you entranced, but you soon realise that you might be looking like a weirdo so you turn away.
Sieun puts the water bottle away.
Well, it's now or never, right?
With your heart beating like a wild beast that was chained inside a cage of bones, you finally gather courage.
“Sieun-ah.” You start. A crow caws in the distance and the sneakers against the ground screech.
When he turns to look at you, you're taken back to the moment where the yellowish lights of the outside court had you feeling like insects swimming in pools of honey, the moment where you wished time stopped forever because of the twinkle of Sieun’s eyes.
“Has anyone told you before that you have pretty eyes?”
You don't know if it's the sky that is casting down pinkish hues on Sieun or if he's actually blushing.
𓂃
You let out a soft sigh as you sit on the sofa, tired from a long day of practicing violin. You even have dreams of playing the specific composition, the one you've titled ‘Peach eyes’.
Your Mom pulls you close to her into a side hug. She pats you slowly, her touch is gentle and soothing.
“Don’t stress yourself too much. I know you'll do great, my child.” She speaks brightly, her words filled with nothing but love.
“Thank you. I love you.” And with that you sink yourself deeper into her embrace.
VI.
How could I not rely
On you, peach eyes?
The silence is broken by the sound of bow meeting the strings, the first touch is always gentle like a lover's kiss, it always starts slowly and builds momentum. The notes flow endlessly and beautifully into the air, with a certain warmth that comes with love.
At first, it is like rich cashmere being undone, thread by thread, slowly and painfully unravelled, something akin to accepting that you are in love and the fear that comes with it. When you accept you are in love, you're baring your soul. The sound that comes with each friction of bow and violin slowly dissolves the tension built up in the pit of your stomach. The sound is now like a knife cutting through flesh, thorough and sharp and easy. There is a sting in it, the kind felt by snow when the sun shines its rays on it harshly to melt it away, with that the fear in your mind melts away slowly too.
The unraveling is firm yet gentle, the touch is soft like water that envelopes your feet at the beach but it's firm, like the hardened bark of a tree. It feels like a lover undoing your being, slowly exposing your secrets to themselves and loving you despite.
The song builds up, it's now haunting like whispers of the past, something you can see on the back of your eyelids when you close them but something that fades away when you try to reach out for it.
The audience is completely trapped into the hypnotising performance you're putting, they're stuck in a trance like bugs caught up in sticky-trap.
There is pain in longing and you captured it perfectly in your music sheets and you've now turned it into music, the music that reverberates through your upper body, the music you made is being fed on by your heart.
The song is now turning like a tide, at first it was like expensive cloth being unstitched but now, it feels as though the seams are being sewn together again, this time better than they were before. Each note is like a torrent of brushstrokes on a canvas, each stroke building up to a precise picture.
You're pouring out every single emotion you've felt for the peach-eyed boy into this performance. Each note you play feels like a breath that brings you back to life. It now feels like a faint touch of moonlight on skin.
When you finish the melodies still linger in the air, like the whistling wind on a stormy day. The audience is quiet for a short moment, taking in the opus they just experienced but they soon break into applause.
Afterwards, you meet up with your friends after your violin solo ends. Juntae had invited his friends too, and they're all drowning you in praises. You try not to pay attention to the person that your solo was dedicated to, instead you chat with your friends as you lead them back to the hall for the next performance.
You're left alone outside the theatre hall, and you breathe out a sigh of satisfaction. You decide to go back to the artist’s lounge to pack up your things and just as you turn, Sieun appears, holding a bouquet of roses.
“You seem to be avoiding me.” He speaks with a matter-of-fact tone.
You look around and then point at yourself.
“Me? Haha, never.”
Sieun doesn't say anything else, and for a second, silence settles over both of you. You finally look into the eyes you were avoiding the entire evening, and now, you are in a trance. Like a snake being charmed by a snake charmer, you are charmed by the boy in front of you. You look into his eyes and they look soft and filled with stars like always.
Sieun hands you the bouquet, and his fingers brush against yours, you take in the rich peach and white coloured flowers to your view to ignore the loud beating of your heart and the blood rushing to your cheeks.
“The performance was beautiful.” He states.
But you are more beautiful; you want to say.
And a whisper of a smile appears on Sieun’s face.
Maybe, falling in love with you was imminent for Yeon Sieun too.
woohoo! 3.4k words, that was a long ride, i hope you enjoyed! likes, reblogs & comments are appreciated.
if it wasn't clear; y/n is a music student who is juntae's step-sibling. y/n's father remarried juntae's mom! y/n's birth mother was a pianist who passed away. y/n can play three instruments—piano, violin & acoustic guitar. the final scene was them performing a violin solo they composed.
based on req 𔘓 scroll till the end for notes
I. Peach eyes and blue skies
Love is imminent.
Love is just imminent, you're bound to fall in love with someone sooner or later. Doesn't matter if it's today, tomorrow or the next day or the next next day— you're bound to fall in love with someone.
It is imminent in the same way as natural phenomena, just like how the winter is followed by spring, how the moon influences the tides and how every bud is meant to blossom into a beautiful flower.
It can happen in many ways. It might just be someone you've known for a long time and in a moment everything just shifts, you see them in a different light, in a way so different that it makes your heart pound so hard that it feels as if it is going to burst out of your ribcage and jump into their hands.
It can happen in a way that when you first lay your eyes on them you just know; that this is going to the person my world will revolve around, that this is going to be the person my heart beats for, that this is going to be the person that will plague my every waking thought & appear in my dreams, that this is going to be the person i love for the rest of my life.
It really does happen like that sometimes, that you know the person you just laid your eyes on will be the object of your affection for the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.
When you first laid your eyes on Yeon Sieun, you just knew.
It is a truth, like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that earth is the third planet from the sun and that universe is forever expanding till it ends.
It is the truth.
You are in love.
Your heart will chase him like the sun chases the moon or the moon chases the sun across the canvas of the beautiful sky over us all.
Your heart will chase him and beat for him.
Your heart will beat in such rhythms that will be impossible for you to ignore the loud vibrations that will soon drip into your compositions and creations.
The truth is; you are in love with the peach eyed boy.
II.
I'll be with you on your ride
The first time you meet Yeon Sieun, it is at the cultural centre Juntae and his friends are volunteering. You—Juntae’s sibling— were tasked by your mom to keep an eye on Juntae and see if his friends were any trouble.
The school had called after all, saying how Juntae had gotten into a fight near the school and the guys he had fought had not shown up at the school the next day. Which was funny because Juntae never fights.
Regardless.
The day you met him, you still remember so clearly because how could you forget?
The wind was a little chilly, the kind of chilly you enjoy when you are enveloped by the warmth of your favourite sweater. The kind of chilly, when the wind blows onto your face you feel like a weak leaf falling off the tree and dancing in the wind to the tune of nature.
The sky was blue, no clouds, just a calming presence on top of your heads as you went about your day. But, now that you look back, you think it was the same shade of blue that your wallpaper was in your childhood bedroom.
When you first walked into the room where Juntae and Sieun were, you were un-suspecting. You had walked towards Juntae, not minding his friend, after all you had no actual business with him. But when you had called out for your brother, he had turned too, and when you met his eyes the time had slowed down, sluggish in its movements around you and Sieun, time had slowed down. It was like being suspended in honey, sweet and sticky, slowly dripping down.
Sieun had looked like he had picked the most beautiful constellations in the entirety of the night sky, collected them by hand and put them in a bucket and later poured down the contents of the bucket in the pools of his eyes. The creases of his eyelids were beautiful too, though they were a little assymetrical.
For a second, you wonder if the boy in front of you feels the same thing you are feeling, did time stop for him too?
But does it matter if he feels the same?
You feel it. It is real for you. It is as real as the warmth of the sun you crave when the weather’s too cool, and it is as real as the tender flesh of the tangerines your mom peeled for you the day before.
It is real and it is love.
Love at first sight.
III.
It's on the moonlight
Artists are, well, strange creatures with the ability to make you feel things you've never experienced before, or have experienced before but are too scared to relive those moments or experiences you will never experience. But the bottom line is, artists are strange creatures of experience.
Experience is like drops of lemon juice on savoury food, something that's not a necessary ingredient to cook the food but something that enhances the experience of enjoying it.
That is what your teacher says. She says that you can always write and compose about things you might have not gone through, they might be beautiful, but the true glimmer always shines when you create a piece about something you've experienced deeply.
And now that you're finally in love, no matter what you play, there are hints of yearning.
When you play the violin, love loosens out and flows like drops of sap on a tree, it sticks onto the haunting and eerie crescendo and then with painfully slow movement, it's present in the drop that comes with the aching decrescendo.
When you play the piano, love blooms like the brightest flower that always catches your attention when you walk by its bush, it attaches itself onto the notes and glides through the air.
When you play the guitar, love coos like a cuckoo bird, the sound that you always hear when you need to, the sound that always catches your attention no matter what you're doing.
Your teacher catches onto it, she tells you to hold onto it, drown in the feeling so it sinks into your very being, so that it can be embossed into your creations.
To you, the love you've just started to feel is like a gentle caress of a mother on the face of her child after the child has fallen asleep.
It is the same faint touch of your birth mother you remember, the gentle yet warm parting hug.
It is also similar to the the firm touch of your father, not to hard, not to soft that one can mistake for a ghostly whisper.
It is also like the kiss your Mom—Ms. Seo— presses on to the top of your head, something that is meant to be felt, something that is proclaimed.
(There is a distinction between Mother and Mom.
Mother is the one who gave birth to you. Mother is the one who was with you for the first three years of your life.
Mom is Ms. Seo, the one who gave birth to Juntae. Mom is the one who was with you after the the first three years of your life.)
You somehow became a friend of Juntae’s friends, you don't go to the same school but they always invite you to hangout. That is how you ended up here; sitting in the basketball court, chatting with the guys about everything and nothing.
The amber lights shine down harshly on all of you, a colour that can be only found in Vivaldian music and for a moment you are taken aback when Sieun cracks a small smile at the antics of Juntae’s—now your—friends.
And it's the moment you saw him for the first time again, the time stopped like you were just mere beetles trapped in amber forever, you wish you were insects in amber and the time stopped on this moment forever.
That night you thought of his smile, beautiful smile, and thought:
Love is like the gentle moonlight.
IV.
How many songs I write
Your birth mother was a pianist, a talented one at that. People did know of her. One of your earliest memories is of her playing a melody on the keys of the piano, the same tune that she always sang for you to put you to sleep. A tender composition she created just for you, however, no matter how much you try to recreate it with your own hands, you simply cannot. She did not leave behind the manuscript for that specific song.
Mother had a knack for all things musical. The melody she had created just for you was very raw, it's still clear in your memory, raw like the tender flesh of a bruised heart. And the melody was light and gentle, like the sunlight that seeps into your skin during winter, light and warm enough to comfort you when the snow melts slowly. And you still remember the sickly sweetness of the melody, quite like a jar of freshly harvested honey, yellowish colour with tinges of orange like the setting sun.
Despite remembering it oh so clearly, you could never recreate it. It is there but also not.
But such is the pain of a musician, no matter how hard you try, you never capture the true essence of the actual piece in front of you, the river of time flows and smudges the colours of the intricate painting leaving you with only a faint membrane of what used to be.
Maybe that's why you chose to drown yourself in the same liquor as your Mother; music.
Maybe it was in your warm blood, the urge to just create something, to create art. Art is eternal, a river that passes yet remains, unlike your Mother. Art could never die and leave you.
Maybe it was to connect to your Mother. The child's instinct is always to look for the mother, after all. Maybe that's why you try to drown yourself in this cool river, maybe a ghost will pull you down to the depths of your mind and maybe then you will be able to finally recreate the lullaby your Mother sang you to sleep and played for you on the piano.
Deep within your mind, you are still looking for your Mother.
Looking back, you remember only three memories of your Mother.
First, where she tucks you to bed and kisses your nose and continues to hum the same lullaby. She never wrote it down on any sheets because she thought she would always be there to sing it for you.
Second, where she feeds you peaches with the softest of flesh, you can still taste them in your mouth and the way they melted and the way they had hints of sourness.
Third, where she hugs you for the last time. Her hair tickles your face as she pulls you in, she pats your back and you see her smile. And it is warm. Like the melody she always played for you.
You sigh as you fill in the notehead in front of you, scratching your pen until it's completely filled the same way your heart is filled yearning for the peach-eyed boy.
“You okay? You've been sighing a lot.” Your seat partner asks you.
“Mhm. Just thinking about him.” You answer slowly, your words roll out in a dreamy drawl, like your attention is elsewhere in the prettiest gardens of paradise.
“Him who?”
“My muse.” You say, with your eyes still focused on the sheet on your desk. The eyebrows of your partner quirk up, this is some new gossip topic. “His name has three syllables. You know what else has three syllables? ‘I love you.’”
Your seat partner looks at you strangely.
You seem to have forgotten that most Korean names are composed of three syllables. But it's still the most poetic thing to you.
You pay your seatmate no mind as you continue to fill in the staves with the dripping emotions that have latched onto your mind. Your hand reaches up to touch your sternum through your uniform to feel the quickening rhythm of your tender heart.
V.
You'll be my sunlight
“So, are you going to tell him?” Juntae says with a soft voice, like he's treading into a territory he's not meant to, he slowly crunches leaves that have fallen down.
The weather has gone chillier, in a way that makes wisps of fog appear when you speak.
“Tell who what?” You say dumbly. You do have inkling of what your dear brother means but you're not ready to accept that he took notice of what he might say next.
“Sieun. About your feelings.” Of course he knows. This sneaky bastard. When you turn to face him finally, there's a slight smirk on his face. Was your crush so obvious?
“I don't know, man.” You sigh. You've never imagined taking your crush to that level and confessing, you cannot imagine Sieun being your boyfriend, he's better off as a muse. You kick a pebble away.
He's a sweet boy though, Yeon Sieun, he always listens to you ramble when others lose focus because of their lack of musical knowledge.
He also listens to the songs you recommend, he likes them sometimes, sometimes they're not his taste. But at least he's honest enough to accept when he likes something and when he doesn't.
He doesn't talk much, but when he speaks, he says what he means and what he wants to. This is something you admire about him.
“Mhm.” Juntae hums as he sees you get lost in your thoughts again, the smirk doesn't leave his feature though. If you can't tell Sieun about your feelings, he sure can.
𓂃
In the sky, pinks meet the orange, a soft colour is conceived, a colour that looks like peach soda. You're sitting next to Sieun. Juntae, Baku and Gotak are still playing basketball, they seem to have better stamina than Sieun.
You lose your focus, the world blurs a little, you're too deep in your thoughts, riveting in the notes ringing in your head. You've been practicing a lot, recently. Perfecting the composition you came up with, your fingers and shoulder have gone tired with the countless hours you've been pouring into your craft.
There is a certain joy that comes with perfection. When you can move people with the music that you create, you reach a state of euphoria and the hard work you put on yourself finally feels worth it.
As the music in your head slowly dissipates as it comes towards the end, you turn to look at Sieun, who is drinking water. The way his Adam's apple bobs with every gulp has you entranced, but you soon realise that you might be looking like a weirdo so you turn away.
Sieun puts the water bottle away.
Well, it's now or never, right?
With your heart beating like a wild beast that was chained inside a cage of bones, you finally gather courage.
“Sieun-ah.” You start. A crow caws in the distance and the sneakers against the ground screech.
When he turns to look at you, you're taken back to the moment where the yellowish lights of the outside court had you feeling like insects swimming in pools of honey, the moment where you wished time stopped forever because of the twinkle of Sieun’s eyes.
“Has anyone told you before that you have pretty eyes?”
You don't know if it's the sky that is casting down pinkish hues on Sieun or if he's actually blushing.
𓂃
You let out a soft sigh as you sit on the sofa, tired from a long day of practicing violin. You even have dreams of playing the specific composition, the one you've titled ‘Peach eyes’.
Your Mom pulls you close to her into a side hug. She pats you slowly, her touch is gentle and soothing.
“Don’t stress yourself too much. I know you'll do great, my child.” She speaks brightly, her words filled with nothing but love.
“Thank you. I love you.” And with that you sink yourself deeper into her embrace.
VI.
How could I not rely
On you, peach eyes?
The silence is broken by the sound of bow meeting the strings, the first touch is always gentle like a lover's kiss, it always starts slowly and builds momentum. The notes flow endlessly and beautifully into the air, with a certain warmth that comes with love.
At first, it is like rich cashmere being undone, thread by thread, slowly and painfully unravelled, something akin to accepting that you are in love and the fear that comes with it. When you accept you are in love, you're baring your soul. The sound that comes with each friction of bow and violin slowly dissolves the tension built up in the pit of your stomach. The sound is now like a knife cutting through flesh, thorough and sharp and easy. There is a sting in it, the kind felt by snow when the sun shines its rays on it harshly to melt it away, with that the fear in your mind melts away slowly too.
The unraveling is firm yet gentle, the touch is soft like water that envelopes your feet at the beach but it's firm, like the hardened bark of a tree. It feels like a lover undoing your being, slowly exposing your secrets to themselves and loving you despite.
The song builds up, it's now haunting like whispers of the past, something you can see on the back of your eyelids when you close them but something that fades away when you try to reach out for it.
The audience is completely trapped into the hypnotising performance you're putting, they're stuck in a trance like bugs caught up in sticky-trap.
There is pain in longing and you captured it perfectly in your music sheets and you've now turned it into music, the music that reverberates through your upper body, the music you made is being fed on by your heart.
The song is now turning like a tide, at first it was like expensive cloth being unstitched but now, it feels as though the seams are being sewn together again, this time better than they were before. Each note is like a torrent of brushstrokes on a canvas, each stroke building up to a precise picture.
You're pouring out every single emotion you've felt for the peach-eyed boy into this performance. Each note you play feels like a breath that brings you back to life. It now feels like a faint touch of moonlight on skin.
When you finish the melodies still linger in the air, like the whistling wind on a stormy day. The audience is quiet for a short moment, taking in the opus they just experienced but they soon break into applause.
Afterwards, you meet up with your friends after your violin solo ends. Juntae had invited his friends too, and they're all drowning you in praises. You try not to pay attention to the person that your solo was dedicated to, instead you chat with your friends as you lead them back to the hall for the next performance.
You're left alone outside the theatre hall, and you breathe out a sigh of satisfaction. You decide to go back to the artist’s lounge to pack up your things and just as you turn, Sieun appears, holding a bouquet of roses.
“You seem to be avoiding me.” He speaks with a matter-of-fact tone.
You look around and then point at yourself.
“Me? Haha, never.”
Sieun doesn't say anything else, and for a second, silence settles over both of you. You finally look into the eyes you were avoiding the entire evening, and now, you are in a trance. Like a snake being charmed by a snake charmer, you are charmed by the boy in front of you. You look into his eyes and they look soft and filled with stars like always.
Sieun hands you the bouquet, and his fingers brush against yours, you take in the rich peach and white coloured flowers to your view to ignore the loud beating of your heart and the blood rushing to your cheeks.
“The performance was beautiful.” He states.
But you are more beautiful; you want to say.
And a whisper of a smile appears on Sieun’s face.
Maybe, falling in love with you was imminent for Yeon Sieun too.
woohoo! 3.4k words, that was a long ride, i hope you enjoyed! likes, reblogs & comments are appreciated.
if it wasn't clear; y/n is a music student who is juntae's step-sibling. y/n's father remarried juntae's mom! y/n's birth mother was a pianist who passed away. y/n can play three instruments—piano, violin & acoustic guitar. the final scene was them performing a violin solo they composed.
based on req 𔘓 scroll till the end for notes
I. Peach eyes and blue skies
Love is imminent.
Love is just imminent, you're bound to fall in love with someone sooner or later. Doesn't matter if it's today, tomorrow or the next day or the next next day— you're bound to fall in love with someone.
It is imminent in the same way as natural phenomena, just like how the winter is followed by spring, how the moon influences the tides and how every bud is meant to blossom into a beautiful flower.
It can happen in many ways. It might just be someone you've known for a long time and in a moment everything just shifts, you see them in a different light, in a way so different that it makes your heart pound so hard that it feels as if it is going to burst out of your ribcage and jump into their hands.
It can happen in a way that when you first lay your eyes on them you just know; that this is going to the person my world will revolve around, that this is going to be the person my heart beats for, that this is going to be the person that will plague my every waking thought & appear in my dreams, that this is going to be the person i love for the rest of my life.
It really does happen like that sometimes, that you know the person you just laid your eyes on will be the object of your affection for the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.
When you first laid your eyes on Yeon Sieun, you just knew.
It is a truth, like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that earth is the third planet from the sun and that universe is forever expanding till it ends.
It is the truth.
You are in love.
Your heart will chase him like the sun chases the moon or the moon chases the sun across the canvas of the beautiful sky over us all.
Your heart will chase him and beat for him.
Your heart will beat in such rhythms that will be impossible for you to ignore the loud vibrations that will soon drip into your compositions and creations.
The truth is; you are in love with the peach eyed boy.
II.
I'll be with you on your ride
The first time you meet Yeon Sieun, it is at the cultural centre Juntae and his friends are volunteering. You—Juntae’s sibling— were tasked by your mom to keep an eye on Juntae and see if his friends were any trouble.
The school had called after all, saying how Juntae had gotten into a fight near the school and the guys he had fought had not shown up at the school the next day. Which was funny because Juntae never fights.
Regardless.
The day you met him, you still remember so clearly because how could you forget?
The wind was a little chilly, the kind of chilly you enjoy when you are enveloped by the warmth of your favourite sweater. The kind of chilly, when the wind blows onto your face you feel like a weak leaf falling off the tree and dancing in the wind to the tune of nature.
The sky was blue, no clouds, just a calming presence on top of your heads as you went about your day. But, now that you look back, you think it was the same shade of blue that your wallpaper was in your childhood bedroom.
When you first walked into the room where Juntae and Sieun were, you were un-suspecting. You had walked towards Juntae, not minding his friend, after all you had no actual business with him. But when you had called out for your brother, he had turned too, and when you met his eyes the time had slowed down, sluggish in its movements around you and Sieun, time had slowed down. It was like being suspended in honey, sweet and sticky, slowly dripping down.
Sieun had looked like he had picked the most beautiful constellations in the entirety of the night sky, collected them by hand and put them in a bucket and later poured down the contents of the bucket in the pools of his eyes. The creases of his eyelids were beautiful too, though they were a little assymetrical.
For a second, you wonder if the boy in front of you feels the same thing you are feeling, did time stop for him too?
But does it matter if he feels the same?
You feel it. It is real for you. It is as real as the warmth of the sun you crave when the weather’s too cool, and it is as real as the tender flesh of the tangerines your mom peeled for you the day before.
It is real and it is love.
Love at first sight.
III.
It's on the moonlight
Artists are, well, strange creatures with the ability to make you feel things you've never experienced before, or have experienced before but are too scared to relive those moments or experiences you will never experience. But the bottom line is, artists are strange creatures of experience.
Experience is like drops of lemon juice on savoury food, something that's not a necessary ingredient to cook the food but something that enhances the experience of enjoying it.
That is what your teacher says. She says that you can always write and compose about things you might have not gone through, they might be beautiful, but the true glimmer always shines when you create a piece about something you've experienced deeply.
And now that you're finally in love, no matter what you play, there are hints of yearning.
When you play the violin, love loosens out and flows like drops of sap on a tree, it sticks onto the haunting and eerie crescendo and then with painfully slow movement, it's present in the drop that comes with the aching decrescendo.
When you play the piano, love blooms like the brightest flower that always catches your attention when you walk by its bush, it attaches itself onto the notes and glides through the air.
When you play the guitar, love coos like a cuckoo bird, the sound that you always hear when you need to, the sound that always catches your attention no matter what you're doing.
Your teacher catches onto it, she tells you to hold onto it, drown in the feeling so it sinks into your very being, so that it can be embossed into your creations.
To you, the love you've just started to feel is like a gentle caress of a mother on the face of her child after the child has fallen asleep.
It is the same faint touch of your birth mother you remember, the gentle yet warm parting hug.
It is also similar to the the firm touch of your father, not to hard, not to soft that one can mistake for a ghostly whisper.
It is also like the kiss your Mom—Ms. Seo— presses on to the top of your head, something that is meant to be felt, something that is proclaimed.
(There is a distinction between Mother and Mom.
Mother is the one who gave birth to you. Mother is the one who was with you for the first three years of your life.
Mom is Ms. Seo, the one who gave birth to Juntae. Mom is the one who was with you after the the first three years of your life.)
You somehow became a friend of Juntae’s friends, you don't go to the same school but they always invite you to hangout. That is how you ended up here; sitting in the basketball court, chatting with the guys about everything and nothing.
The amber lights shine down harshly on all of you, a colour that can be only found in Vivaldian music and for a moment you are taken aback when Sieun cracks a small smile at the antics of Juntae’s—now your—friends.
And it's the moment you saw him for the first time again, the time stopped like you were just mere beetles trapped in amber forever, you wish you were insects in amber and the time stopped on this moment forever.
That night you thought of his smile, beautiful smile, and thought:
Love is like the gentle moonlight.
IV.
How many songs I write
Your birth mother was a pianist, a talented one at that. People did know of her. One of your earliest memories is of her playing a melody on the keys of the piano, the same tune that she always sang for you to put you to sleep. A tender composition she created just for you, however, no matter how much you try to recreate it with your own hands, you simply cannot. She did not leave behind the manuscript for that specific song.
Mother had a knack for all things musical. The melody she had created just for you was very raw, it's still clear in your memory, raw like the tender flesh of a bruised heart. And the melody was light and gentle, like the sunlight that seeps into your skin during winter, light and warm enough to comfort you when the snow melts slowly. And you still remember the sickly sweetness of the melody, quite like a jar of freshly harvested honey, yellowish colour with tinges of orange like the setting sun.
Despite remembering it oh so clearly, you could never recreate it. It is there but also not.
But such is the pain of a musician, no matter how hard you try, you never capture the true essence of the actual piece in front of you, the river of time flows and smudges the colours of the intricate painting leaving you with only a faint membrane of what used to be.
Maybe that's why you chose to drown yourself in the same liquor as your Mother; music.
Maybe it was in your warm blood, the urge to just create something, to create art. Art is eternal, a river that passes yet remains, unlike your Mother. Art could never die and leave you.
Maybe it was to connect to your Mother. The child's instinct is always to look for the mother, after all. Maybe that's why you try to drown yourself in this cool river, maybe a ghost will pull you down to the depths of your mind and maybe then you will be able to finally recreate the lullaby your Mother sang you to sleep and played for you on the piano.
Deep within your mind, you are still looking for your Mother.
Looking back, you remember only three memories of your Mother.
First, where she tucks you to bed and kisses your nose and continues to hum the same lullaby. She never wrote it down on any sheets because she thought she would always be there to sing it for you.
Second, where she feeds you peaches with the softest of flesh, you can still taste them in your mouth and the way they melted and the way they had hints of sourness.
Third, where she hugs you for the last time. Her hair tickles your face as she pulls you in, she pats your back and you see her smile. And it is warm. Like the melody she always played for you.
You sigh as you fill in the notehead in front of you, scratching your pen until it's completely filled the same way your heart is filled yearning for the peach-eyed boy.
“You okay? You've been sighing a lot.” Your seat partner asks you.
“Mhm. Just thinking about him.” You answer slowly, your words roll out in a dreamy drawl, like your attention is elsewhere in the prettiest gardens of paradise.
“Him who?”
“My muse.” You say, with your eyes still focused on the sheet on your desk. The eyebrows of your partner quirk up, this is some new gossip topic. “His name has three syllables. You know what else has three syllables? ‘I love you.’”
Your seat partner looks at you strangely.
You seem to have forgotten that most Korean names are composed of three syllables. But it's still the most poetic thing to you.
You pay your seatmate no mind as you continue to fill in the staves with the dripping emotions that have latched onto your mind. Your hand reaches up to touch your sternum through your uniform to feel the quickening rhythm of your tender heart.
V.
You'll be my sunlight
“So, are you going to tell him?” Juntae says with a soft voice, like he's treading into a territory he's not meant to, he slowly crunches leaves that have fallen down.
The weather has gone chillier, in a way that makes wisps of fog appear when you speak.
“Tell who what?” You say dumbly. You do have inkling of what your dear brother means but you're not ready to accept that he took notice of what he might say next.
“Sieun. About your feelings.” Of course he knows. This sneaky bastard. When you turn to face him finally, there's a slight smirk on his face. Was your crush so obvious?
“I don't know, man.” You sigh. You've never imagined taking your crush to that level and confessing, you cannot imagine Sieun being your boyfriend, he's better off as a muse. You kick a pebble away.
He's a sweet boy though, Yeon Sieun, he always listens to you ramble when others lose focus because of their lack of musical knowledge.
He also listens to the songs you recommend, he likes them sometimes, sometimes they're not his taste. But at least he's honest enough to accept when he likes something and when he doesn't.
He doesn't talk much, but when he speaks, he says what he means and what he wants to. This is something you admire about him.
“Mhm.” Juntae hums as he sees you get lost in your thoughts again, the smirk doesn't leave his feature though. If you can't tell Sieun about your feelings, he sure can.
𓂃
In the sky, pinks meet the orange, a soft colour is conceived, a colour that looks like peach soda. You're sitting next to Sieun. Juntae, Baku and Gotak are still playing basketball, they seem to have better stamina than Sieun.
You lose your focus, the world blurs a little, you're too deep in your thoughts, riveting in the notes ringing in your head. You've been practicing a lot, recently. Perfecting the composition you came up with, your fingers and shoulder have gone tired with the countless hours you've been pouring into your craft.
There is a certain joy that comes with perfection. When you can move people with the music that you create, you reach a state of euphoria and the hard work you put on yourself finally feels worth it.
As the music in your head slowly dissipates as it comes towards the end, you turn to look at Sieun, who is drinking water. The way his Adam's apple bobs with every gulp has you entranced, but you soon realise that you might be looking like a weirdo so you turn away.
Sieun puts the water bottle away.
Well, it's now or never, right?
With your heart beating like a wild beast that was chained inside a cage of bones, you finally gather courage.
“Sieun-ah.” You start. A crow caws in the distance and the sneakers against the ground screech.
When he turns to look at you, you're taken back to the moment where the yellowish lights of the outside court had you feeling like insects swimming in pools of honey, the moment where you wished time stopped forever because of the twinkle of Sieun’s eyes.
“Has anyone told you before that you have pretty eyes?”
You don't know if it's the sky that is casting down pinkish hues on Sieun or if he's actually blushing.
𓂃
You let out a soft sigh as you sit on the sofa, tired from a long day of practicing violin. You even have dreams of playing the specific composition, the one you've titled ‘Peach eyes’.
Your Mom pulls you close to her into a side hug. She pats you slowly, her touch is gentle and soothing.
“Don’t stress yourself too much. I know you'll do great, my child.” She speaks brightly, her words filled with nothing but love.
“Thank you. I love you.” And with that you sink yourself deeper into her embrace.
VI.
How could I not rely
On you, peach eyes?
The silence is broken by the sound of bow meeting the strings, the first touch is always gentle like a lover's kiss, it always starts slowly and builds momentum. The notes flow endlessly and beautifully into the air, with a certain warmth that comes with love.
At first, it is like rich cashmere being undone, thread by thread, slowly and painfully unravelled, something akin to accepting that you are in love and the fear that comes with it. When you accept you are in love, you're baring your soul. The sound that comes with each friction of bow and violin slowly dissolves the tension built up in the pit of your stomach. The sound is now like a knife cutting through flesh, thorough and sharp and easy. There is a sting in it, the kind felt by snow when the sun shines its rays on it harshly to melt it away, with that the fear in your mind melts away slowly too.
The unraveling is firm yet gentle, the touch is soft like water that envelopes your feet at the beach but it's firm, like the hardened bark of a tree. It feels like a lover undoing your being, slowly exposing your secrets to themselves and loving you despite.
The song builds up, it's now haunting like whispers of the past, something you can see on the back of your eyelids when you close them but something that fades away when you try to reach out for it.
The audience is completely trapped into the hypnotising performance you're putting, they're stuck in a trance like bugs caught up in sticky-trap.
There is pain in longing and you captured it perfectly in your music sheets and you've now turned it into music, the music that reverberates through your upper body, the music you made is being fed on by your heart.
The song is now turning like a tide, at first it was like expensive cloth being unstitched but now, it feels as though the seams are being sewn together again, this time better than they were before. Each note is like a torrent of brushstrokes on a canvas, each stroke building up to a precise picture.
You're pouring out every single emotion you've felt for the peach-eyed boy into this performance. Each note you play feels like a breath that brings you back to life. It now feels like a faint touch of moonlight on skin.
When you finish the melodies still linger in the air, like the whistling wind on a stormy day. The audience is quiet for a short moment, taking in the opus they just experienced but they soon break into applause.
Afterwards, you meet up with your friends after your violin solo ends. Juntae had invited his friends too, and they're all drowning you in praises. You try not to pay attention to the person that your solo was dedicated to, instead you chat with your friends as you lead them back to the hall for the next performance.
You're left alone outside the theatre hall, and you breathe out a sigh of satisfaction. You decide to go back to the artist’s lounge to pack up your things and just as you turn, Sieun appears, holding a bouquet of roses.
“You seem to be avoiding me.” He speaks with a matter-of-fact tone.
You look around and then point at yourself.
“Me? Haha, never.”
Sieun doesn't say anything else, and for a second, silence settles over both of you. You finally look into the eyes you were avoiding the entire evening, and now, you are in a trance. Like a snake being charmed by a snake charmer, you are charmed by the boy in front of you. You look into his eyes and they look soft and filled with stars like always.
Sieun hands you the bouquet, and his fingers brush against yours, you take in the rich peach and white coloured flowers to your view to ignore the loud beating of your heart and the blood rushing to your cheeks.
“The performance was beautiful.” He states.
But you are more beautiful; you want to say.
And a whisper of a smile appears on Sieun’s face.
Maybe, falling in love with you was imminent for Yeon Sieun too.
woohoo! 3.4k words, that was a long ride, i hope you enjoyed! likes, reblogs & comments are appreciated.
if it wasn't clear; y/n is a music student who is juntae's step-sibling. y/n's father remarried juntae's mom! y/n's birth mother was a pianist who passed away. y/n can play three instruments—piano, violin & acoustic guitar. the final scene was them performing a violin solo they composed.
based on req 𔘓 scroll till the end for notes
I. Peach eyes and blue skies
Love is imminent.
Love is just imminent, you're bound to fall in love with someone sooner or later. Doesn't matter if it's today, tomorrow or the next day or the next next day— you're bound to fall in love with someone.
It is imminent in the same way as natural phenomena, just like how the winter is followed by spring, how the moon influences the tides and how every bud is meant to blossom into a beautiful flower.
It can happen in many ways. It might just be someone you've known for a long time and in a moment everything just shifts, you see them in a different light, in a way so different that it makes your heart pound so hard that it feels as if it is going to burst out of your ribcage and jump into their hands.
It can happen in a way that when you first lay your eyes on them you just know; that this is going to the person my world will revolve around, that this is going to be the person my heart beats for, that this is going to be the person that will plague my every waking thought & appear in my dreams, that this is going to be the person i love for the rest of my life.
It really does happen like that sometimes, that you know the person you just laid your eyes on will be the object of your affection for the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.
When you first laid your eyes on Yeon Sieun, you just knew.
It is a truth, like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that earth is the third planet from the sun and that universe is forever expanding till it ends.
It is the truth.
You are in love.
Your heart will chase him like the sun chases the moon or the moon chases the sun across the canvas of the beautiful sky over us all.
Your heart will chase him and beat for him.
Your heart will beat in such rhythms that will be impossible for you to ignore the loud vibrations that will soon drip into your compositions and creations.
The truth is; you are in love with the peach eyed boy.
II.
I'll be with you on your ride
The first time you meet Yeon Sieun, it is at the cultural centre Juntae and his friends are volunteering. You—Juntae’s sibling— were tasked by your mom to keep an eye on Juntae and see if his friends were any trouble.
The school had called after all, saying how Juntae had gotten into a fight near the school and the guys he had fought had not shown up at the school the next day. Which was funny because Juntae never fights.
Regardless.
The day you met him, you still remember so clearly because how could you forget?
The wind was a little chilly, the kind of chilly you enjoy when you are enveloped by the warmth of your favourite sweater. The kind of chilly, when the wind blows onto your face you feel like a weak leaf falling off the tree and dancing in the wind to the tune of nature.
The sky was blue, no clouds, just a calming presence on top of your heads as you went about your day. But, now that you look back, you think it was the same shade of blue that your wallpaper was in your childhood bedroom.
When you first walked into the room where Juntae and Sieun were, you were un-suspecting. You had walked towards Juntae, not minding his friend, after all you had no actual business with him. But when you had called out for your brother, he had turned too, and when you met his eyes the time had slowed down, sluggish in its movements around you and Sieun, time had slowed down. It was like being suspended in honey, sweet and sticky, slowly dripping down.
Sieun had looked like he had picked the most beautiful constellations in the entirety of the night sky, collected them by hand and put them in a bucket and later poured down the contents of the bucket in the pools of his eyes. The creases of his eyelids were beautiful too, though they were a little assymetrical.
For a second, you wonder if the boy in front of you feels the same thing you are feeling, did time stop for him too?
But does it matter if he feels the same?
You feel it. It is real for you. It is as real as the warmth of the sun you crave when the weather’s too cool, and it is as real as the tender flesh of the tangerines your mom peeled for you the day before.
It is real and it is love.
Love at first sight.
III.
It's on the moonlight
Artists are, well, strange creatures with the ability to make you feel things you've never experienced before, or have experienced before but are too scared to relive those moments or experiences you will never experience. But the bottom line is, artists are strange creatures of experience.
Experience is like drops of lemon juice on savoury food, something that's not a necessary ingredient to cook the food but something that enhances the experience of enjoying it.
That is what your teacher says. She says that you can always write and compose about things you might have not gone through, they might be beautiful, but the true glimmer always shines when you create a piece about something you've experienced deeply.
And now that you're finally in love, no matter what you play, there are hints of yearning.
When you play the violin, love loosens out and flows like drops of sap on a tree, it sticks onto the haunting and eerie crescendo and then with painfully slow movement, it's present in the drop that comes with the aching decrescendo.
When you play the piano, love blooms like the brightest flower that always catches your attention when you walk by its bush, it attaches itself onto the notes and glides through the air.
When you play the guitar, love coos like a cuckoo bird, the sound that you always hear when you need to, the sound that always catches your attention no matter what you're doing.
Your teacher catches onto it, she tells you to hold onto it, drown in the feeling so it sinks into your very being, so that it can be embossed into your creations.
To you, the love you've just started to feel is like a gentle caress of a mother on the face of her child after the child has fallen asleep.
It is the same faint touch of your birth mother you remember, the gentle yet warm parting hug.
It is also similar to the the firm touch of your father, not to hard, not to soft that one can mistake for a ghostly whisper.
It is also like the kiss your Mom—Ms. Seo— presses on to the top of your head, something that is meant to be felt, something that is proclaimed.
(There is a distinction between Mother and Mom.
Mother is the one who gave birth to you. Mother is the one who was with you for the first three years of your life.
Mom is Ms. Seo, the one who gave birth to Juntae. Mom is the one who was with you after the the first three years of your life.)
You somehow became a friend of Juntae’s friends, you don't go to the same school but they always invite you to hangout. That is how you ended up here; sitting in the basketball court, chatting with the guys about everything and nothing.
The amber lights shine down harshly on all of you, a colour that can be only found in Vivaldian music and for a moment you are taken aback when Sieun cracks a small smile at the antics of Juntae’s—now your—friends.
And it's the moment you saw him for the first time again, the time stopped like you were just mere beetles trapped in amber forever, you wish you were insects in amber and the time stopped on this moment forever.
That night you thought of his smile, beautiful smile, and thought:
Love is like the gentle moonlight.
IV.
How many songs I write
Your birth mother was a pianist, a talented one at that. People did know of her. One of your earliest memories is of her playing a melody on the keys of the piano, the same tune that she always sang for you to put you to sleep. A tender composition she created just for you, however, no matter how much you try to recreate it with your own hands, you simply cannot. She did not leave behind the manuscript for that specific song.
Mother had a knack for all things musical. The melody she had created just for you was very raw, it's still clear in your memory, raw like the tender flesh of a bruised heart. And the melody was light and gentle, like the sunlight that seeps into your skin during winter, light and warm enough to comfort you when the snow melts slowly. And you still remember the sickly sweetness of the melody, quite like a jar of freshly harvested honey, yellowish colour with tinges of orange like the setting sun.
Despite remembering it oh so clearly, you could never recreate it. It is there but also not.
But such is the pain of a musician, no matter how hard you try, you never capture the true essence of the actual piece in front of you, the river of time flows and smudges the colours of the intricate painting leaving you with only a faint membrane of what used to be.
Maybe that's why you chose to drown yourself in the same liquor as your Mother; music.
Maybe it was in your warm blood, the urge to just create something, to create art. Art is eternal, a river that passes yet remains, unlike your Mother. Art could never die and leave you.
Maybe it was to connect to your Mother. The child's instinct is always to look for the mother, after all. Maybe that's why you try to drown yourself in this cool river, maybe a ghost will pull you down to the depths of your mind and maybe then you will be able to finally recreate the lullaby your Mother sang you to sleep and played for you on the piano.
Deep within your mind, you are still looking for your Mother.
Looking back, you remember only three memories of your Mother.
First, where she tucks you to bed and kisses your nose and continues to hum the same lullaby. She never wrote it down on any sheets because she thought she would always be there to sing it for you.
Second, where she feeds you peaches with the softest of flesh, you can still taste them in your mouth and the way they melted and the way they had hints of sourness.
Third, where she hugs you for the last time. Her hair tickles your face as she pulls you in, she pats your back and you see her smile. And it is warm. Like the melody she always played for you.
You sigh as you fill in the notehead in front of you, scratching your pen until it's completely filled the same way your heart is filled yearning for the peach-eyed boy.
“You okay? You've been sighing a lot.” Your seat partner asks you.
“Mhm. Just thinking about him.” You answer slowly, your words roll out in a dreamy drawl, like your attention is elsewhere in the prettiest gardens of paradise.
“Him who?”
“My muse.” You say, with your eyes still focused on the sheet on your desk. The eyebrows of your partner quirk up, this is some new gossip topic. “His name has three syllables. You know what else has three syllables? ‘I love you.’”
Your seat partner looks at you strangely.
You seem to have forgotten that most Korean names are composed of three syllables. But it's still the most poetic thing to you.
You pay your seatmate no mind as you continue to fill in the staves with the dripping emotions that have latched onto your mind. Your hand reaches up to touch your sternum through your uniform to feel the quickening rhythm of your tender heart.
V.
You'll be my sunlight
“So, are you going to tell him?” Juntae says with a soft voice, like he's treading into a territory he's not meant to, he slowly crunches leaves that have fallen down.
The weather has gone chillier, in a way that makes wisps of fog appear when you speak.
“Tell who what?” You say dumbly. You do have inkling of what your dear brother means but you're not ready to accept that he took notice of what he might say next.
“Sieun. About your feelings.” Of course he knows. This sneaky bastard. When you turn to face him finally, there's a slight smirk on his face. Was your crush so obvious?
“I don't know, man.” You sigh. You've never imagined taking your crush to that level and confessing, you cannot imagine Sieun being your boyfriend, he's better off as a muse. You kick a pebble away.
He's a sweet boy though, Yeon Sieun, he always listens to you ramble when others lose focus because of their lack of musical knowledge.
He also listens to the songs you recommend, he likes them sometimes, sometimes they're not his taste. But at least he's honest enough to accept when he likes something and when he doesn't.
He doesn't talk much, but when he speaks, he says what he means and what he wants to. This is something you admire about him.
“Mhm.” Juntae hums as he sees you get lost in your thoughts again, the smirk doesn't leave his feature though. If you can't tell Sieun about your feelings, he sure can.
𓂃
In the sky, pinks meet the orange, a soft colour is conceived, a colour that looks like peach soda. You're sitting next to Sieun. Juntae, Baku and Gotak are still playing basketball, they seem to have better stamina than Sieun.
You lose your focus, the world blurs a little, you're too deep in your thoughts, riveting in the notes ringing in your head. You've been practicing a lot, recently. Perfecting the composition you came up with, your fingers and shoulder have gone tired with the countless hours you've been pouring into your craft.
There is a certain joy that comes with perfection. When you can move people with the music that you create, you reach a state of euphoria and the hard work you put on yourself finally feels worth it.
As the music in your head slowly dissipates as it comes towards the end, you turn to look at Sieun, who is drinking water. The way his Adam's apple bobs with every gulp has you entranced, but you soon realise that you might be looking like a weirdo so you turn away.
Sieun puts the water bottle away.
Well, it's now or never, right?
With your heart beating like a wild beast that was chained inside a cage of bones, you finally gather courage.
“Sieun-ah.” You start. A crow caws in the distance and the sneakers against the ground screech.
When he turns to look at you, you're taken back to the moment where the yellowish lights of the outside court had you feeling like insects swimming in pools of honey, the moment where you wished time stopped forever because of the twinkle of Sieun’s eyes.
“Has anyone told you before that you have pretty eyes?”
You don't know if it's the sky that is casting down pinkish hues on Sieun or if he's actually blushing.
𓂃
You let out a soft sigh as you sit on the sofa, tired from a long day of practicing violin. You even have dreams of playing the specific composition, the one you've titled ‘Peach eyes’.
Your Mom pulls you close to her into a side hug. She pats you slowly, her touch is gentle and soothing.
“Don’t stress yourself too much. I know you'll do great, my child.” She speaks brightly, her words filled with nothing but love.
“Thank you. I love you.” And with that you sink yourself deeper into her embrace.
VI.
How could I not rely
On you, peach eyes?
The silence is broken by the sound of bow meeting the strings, the first touch is always gentle like a lover's kiss, it always starts slowly and builds momentum. The notes flow endlessly and beautifully into the air, with a certain warmth that comes with love.
At first, it is like rich cashmere being undone, thread by thread, slowly and painfully unravelled, something akin to accepting that you are in love and the fear that comes with it. When you accept you are in love, you're baring your soul. The sound that comes with each friction of bow and violin slowly dissolves the tension built up in the pit of your stomach. The sound is now like a knife cutting through flesh, thorough and sharp and easy. There is a sting in it, the kind felt by snow when the sun shines its rays on it harshly to melt it away, with that the fear in your mind melts away slowly too.
The unraveling is firm yet gentle, the touch is soft like water that envelopes your feet at the beach but it's firm, like the hardened bark of a tree. It feels like a lover undoing your being, slowly exposing your secrets to themselves and loving you despite.
The song builds up, it's now haunting like whispers of the past, something you can see on the back of your eyelids when you close them but something that fades away when you try to reach out for it.
The audience is completely trapped into the hypnotising performance you're putting, they're stuck in a trance like bugs caught up in sticky-trap.
There is pain in longing and you captured it perfectly in your music sheets and you've now turned it into music, the music that reverberates through your upper body, the music you made is being fed on by your heart.
The song is now turning like a tide, at first it was like expensive cloth being unstitched but now, it feels as though the seams are being sewn together again, this time better than they were before. Each note is like a torrent of brushstrokes on a canvas, each stroke building up to a precise picture.
You're pouring out every single emotion you've felt for the peach-eyed boy into this performance. Each note you play feels like a breath that brings you back to life. It now feels like a faint touch of moonlight on skin.
When you finish the melodies still linger in the air, like the whistling wind on a stormy day. The audience is quiet for a short moment, taking in the opus they just experienced but they soon break into applause.
Afterwards, you meet up with your friends after your violin solo ends. Juntae had invited his friends too, and they're all drowning you in praises. You try not to pay attention to the person that your solo was dedicated to, instead you chat with your friends as you lead them back to the hall for the next performance.
You're left alone outside the theatre hall, and you breathe out a sigh of satisfaction. You decide to go back to the artist’s lounge to pack up your things and just as you turn, Sieun appears, holding a bouquet of roses.
“You seem to be avoiding me.” He speaks with a matter-of-fact tone.
You look around and then point at yourself.
“Me? Haha, never.”
Sieun doesn't say anything else, and for a second, silence settles over both of you. You finally look into the eyes you were avoiding the entire evening, and now, you are in a trance. Like a snake being charmed by a snake charmer, you are charmed by the boy in front of you. You look into his eyes and they look soft and filled with stars like always.
Sieun hands you the bouquet, and his fingers brush against yours, you take in the rich peach and white coloured flowers to your view to ignore the loud beating of your heart and the blood rushing to your cheeks.
“The performance was beautiful.” He states.
But you are more beautiful; you want to say.
And a whisper of a smile appears on Sieun’s face.
Maybe, falling in love with you was imminent for Yeon Sieun too.
woohoo! 3.4k words, that was a long ride, i hope you enjoyed! likes, reblogs & comments are appreciated.
if it wasn't clear; y/n is a music student who is juntae's step-sibling. y/n's father remarried juntae's mom! y/n's birth mother was a pianist who passed away. y/n can play three instruments—piano, violin & acoustic guitar. the final scene was them performing a violin solo they composed.
based on req 𔘓 scroll till the end for notes
I. Peach eyes and blue skies
Love is imminent.
Love is just imminent, you're bound to fall in love with someone sooner or later. Doesn't matter if it's today, tomorrow or the next day or the next next day— you're bound to fall in love with someone.
It is imminent in the same way as natural phenomena, just like how the winter is followed by spring, how the moon influences the tides and how every bud is meant to blossom into a beautiful flower.
It can happen in many ways. It might just be someone you've known for a long time and in a moment everything just shifts, you see them in a different light, in a way so different that it makes your heart pound so hard that it feels as if it is going to burst out of your ribcage and jump into their hands.
It can happen in a way that when you first lay your eyes on them you just know; that this is going to the person my world will revolve around, that this is going to be the person my heart beats for, that this is going to be the person that will plague my every waking thought & appear in my dreams, that this is going to be the person i love for the rest of my life.
It really does happen like that sometimes, that you know the person you just laid your eyes on will be the object of your affection for the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.
When you first laid your eyes on Yeon Sieun, you just knew.
It is a truth, like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that earth is the third planet from the sun and that universe is forever expanding till it ends.
It is the truth.
You are in love.
Your heart will chase him like the sun chases the moon or the moon chases the sun across the canvas of the beautiful sky over us all.
Your heart will chase him and beat for him.
Your heart will beat in such rhythms that will be impossible for you to ignore the loud vibrations that will soon drip into your compositions and creations.
The truth is; you are in love with the peach eyed boy.
II.
I'll be with you on your ride
The first time you meet Yeon Sieun, it is at the cultural centre Juntae and his friends are volunteering. You—Juntae’s sibling— were tasked by your mom to keep an eye on Juntae and see if his friends were any trouble.
The school had called after all, saying how Juntae had gotten into a fight near the school and the guys he had fought had not shown up at the school the next day. Which was funny because Juntae never fights.
Regardless.
The day you met him, you still remember so clearly because how could you forget?
The wind was a little chilly, the kind of chilly you enjoy when you are enveloped by the warmth of your favourite sweater. The kind of chilly, when the wind blows onto your face you feel like a weak leaf falling off the tree and dancing in the wind to the tune of nature.
The sky was blue, no clouds, just a calming presence on top of your heads as you went about your day. But, now that you look back, you think it was the same shade of blue that your wallpaper was in your childhood bedroom.
When you first walked into the room where Juntae and Sieun were, you were un-suspecting. You had walked towards Juntae, not minding his friend, after all you had no actual business with him. But when you had called out for your brother, he had turned too, and when you met his eyes the time had slowed down, sluggish in its movements around you and Sieun, time had slowed down. It was like being suspended in honey, sweet and sticky, slowly dripping down.
Sieun had looked like he had picked the most beautiful constellations in the entirety of the night sky, collected them by hand and put them in a bucket and later poured down the contents of the bucket in the pools of his eyes. The creases of his eyelids were beautiful too, though they were a little assymetrical.
For a second, you wonder if the boy in front of you feels the same thing you are feeling, did time stop for him too?
But does it matter if he feels the same?
You feel it. It is real for you. It is as real as the warmth of the sun you crave when the weather’s too cool, and it is as real as the tender flesh of the tangerines your mom peeled for you the day before.
It is real and it is love.
Love at first sight.
III.
It's on the moonlight
Artists are, well, strange creatures with the ability to make you feel things you've never experienced before, or have experienced before but are too scared to relive those moments or experiences you will never experience. But the bottom line is, artists are strange creatures of experience.
Experience is like drops of lemon juice on savoury food, something that's not a necessary ingredient to cook the food but something that enhances the experience of enjoying it.
That is what your teacher says. She says that you can always write and compose about things you might have not gone through, they might be beautiful, but the true glimmer always shines when you create a piece about something you've experienced deeply.
And now that you're finally in love, no matter what you play, there are hints of yearning.
When you play the violin, love loosens out and flows like drops of sap on a tree, it sticks onto the haunting and eerie crescendo and then with painfully slow movement, it's present in the drop that comes with the aching decrescendo.
When you play the piano, love blooms like the brightest flower that always catches your attention when you walk by its bush, it attaches itself onto the notes and glides through the air.
When you play the guitar, love coos like a cuckoo bird, the sound that you always hear when you need to, the sound that always catches your attention no matter what you're doing.
Your teacher catches onto it, she tells you to hold onto it, drown in the feeling so it sinks into your very being, so that it can be embossed into your creations.
To you, the love you've just started to feel is like a gentle caress of a mother on the face of her child after the child has fallen asleep.
It is the same faint touch of your birth mother you remember, the gentle yet warm parting hug.
It is also similar to the the firm touch of your father, not to hard, not to soft that one can mistake for a ghostly whisper.
It is also like the kiss your Mom—Ms. Seo— presses on to the top of your head, something that is meant to be felt, something that is proclaimed.
(There is a distinction between Mother and Mom.
Mother is the one who gave birth to you. Mother is the one who was with you for the first three years of your life.
Mom is Ms. Seo, the one who gave birth to Juntae. Mom is the one who was with you after the the first three years of your life.)
You somehow became a friend of Juntae’s friends, you don't go to the same school but they always invite you to hangout. That is how you ended up here; sitting in the basketball court, chatting with the guys about everything and nothing.
The amber lights shine down harshly on all of you, a colour that can be only found in Vivaldian music and for a moment you are taken aback when Sieun cracks a small smile at the antics of Juntae’s—now your—friends.
And it's the moment you saw him for the first time again, the time stopped like you were just mere beetles trapped in amber forever, you wish you were insects in amber and the time stopped on this moment forever.
That night you thought of his smile, beautiful smile, and thought:
Love is like the gentle moonlight.
IV.
How many songs I write
Your birth mother was a pianist, a talented one at that. People did know of her. One of your earliest memories is of her playing a melody on the keys of the piano, the same tune that she always sang for you to put you to sleep. A tender composition she created just for you, however, no matter how much you try to recreate it with your own hands, you simply cannot. She did not leave behind the manuscript for that specific song.
Mother had a knack for all things musical. The melody she had created just for you was very raw, it's still clear in your memory, raw like the tender flesh of a bruised heart. And the melody was light and gentle, like the sunlight that seeps into your skin during winter, light and warm enough to comfort you when the snow melts slowly. And you still remember the sickly sweetness of the melody, quite like a jar of freshly harvested honey, yellowish colour with tinges of orange like the setting sun.
Despite remembering it oh so clearly, you could never recreate it. It is there but also not.
But such is the pain of a musician, no matter how hard you try, you never capture the true essence of the actual piece in front of you, the river of time flows and smudges the colours of the intricate painting leaving you with only a faint membrane of what used to be.
Maybe that's why you chose to drown yourself in the same liquor as your Mother; music.
Maybe it was in your warm blood, the urge to just create something, to create art. Art is eternal, a river that passes yet remains, unlike your Mother. Art could never die and leave you.
Maybe it was to connect to your Mother. The child's instinct is always to look for the mother, after all. Maybe that's why you try to drown yourself in this cool river, maybe a ghost will pull you down to the depths of your mind and maybe then you will be able to finally recreate the lullaby your Mother sang you to sleep and played for you on the piano.
Deep within your mind, you are still looking for your Mother.
Looking back, you remember only three memories of your Mother.
First, where she tucks you to bed and kisses your nose and continues to hum the same lullaby. She never wrote it down on any sheets because she thought she would always be there to sing it for you.
Second, where she feeds you peaches with the softest of flesh, you can still taste them in your mouth and the way they melted and the way they had hints of sourness.
Third, where she hugs you for the last time. Her hair tickles your face as she pulls you in, she pats your back and you see her smile. And it is warm. Like the melody she always played for you.
You sigh as you fill in the notehead in front of you, scratching your pen until it's completely filled the same way your heart is filled yearning for the peach-eyed boy.
“You okay? You've been sighing a lot.” Your seat partner asks you.
“Mhm. Just thinking about him.” You answer slowly, your words roll out in a dreamy drawl, like your attention is elsewhere in the prettiest gardens of paradise.
“Him who?”
“My muse.” You say, with your eyes still focused on the sheet on your desk. The eyebrows of your partner quirk up, this is some new gossip topic. “His name has three syllables. You know what else has three syllables? ‘I love you.’”
Your seat partner looks at you strangely.
You seem to have forgotten that most Korean names are composed of three syllables. But it's still the most poetic thing to you.
You pay your seatmate no mind as you continue to fill in the staves with the dripping emotions that have latched onto your mind. Your hand reaches up to touch your sternum through your uniform to feel the quickening rhythm of your tender heart.
V.
You'll be my sunlight
“So, are you going to tell him?” Juntae says with a soft voice, like he's treading into a territory he's not meant to, he slowly crunches leaves that have fallen down.
The weather has gone chillier, in a way that makes wisps of fog appear when you speak.
“Tell who what?” You say dumbly. You do have inkling of what your dear brother means but you're not ready to accept that he took notice of what he might say next.
“Sieun. About your feelings.” Of course he knows. This sneaky bastard. When you turn to face him finally, there's a slight smirk on his face. Was your crush so obvious?
“I don't know, man.” You sigh. You've never imagined taking your crush to that level and confessing, you cannot imagine Sieun being your boyfriend, he's better off as a muse. You kick a pebble away.
He's a sweet boy though, Yeon Sieun, he always listens to you ramble when others lose focus because of their lack of musical knowledge.
He also listens to the songs you recommend, he likes them sometimes, sometimes they're not his taste. But at least he's honest enough to accept when he likes something and when he doesn't.
He doesn't talk much, but when he speaks, he says what he means and what he wants to. This is something you admire about him.
“Mhm.” Juntae hums as he sees you get lost in your thoughts again, the smirk doesn't leave his feature though. If you can't tell Sieun about your feelings, he sure can.
𓂃
In the sky, pinks meet the orange, a soft colour is conceived, a colour that looks like peach soda. You're sitting next to Sieun. Juntae, Baku and Gotak are still playing basketball, they seem to have better stamina than Sieun.
You lose your focus, the world blurs a little, you're too deep in your thoughts, riveting in the notes ringing in your head. You've been practicing a lot, recently. Perfecting the composition you came up with, your fingers and shoulder have gone tired with the countless hours you've been pouring into your craft.
There is a certain joy that comes with perfection. When you can move people with the music that you create, you reach a state of euphoria and the hard work you put on yourself finally feels worth it.
As the music in your head slowly dissipates as it comes towards the end, you turn to look at Sieun, who is drinking water. The way his Adam's apple bobs with every gulp has you entranced, but you soon realise that you might be looking like a weirdo so you turn away.
Sieun puts the water bottle away.
Well, it's now or never, right?
With your heart beating like a wild beast that was chained inside a cage of bones, you finally gather courage.
“Sieun-ah.” You start. A crow caws in the distance and the sneakers against the ground screech.
When he turns to look at you, you're taken back to the moment where the yellowish lights of the outside court had you feeling like insects swimming in pools of honey, the moment where you wished time stopped forever because of the twinkle of Sieun’s eyes.
“Has anyone told you before that you have pretty eyes?”
You don't know if it's the sky that is casting down pinkish hues on Sieun or if he's actually blushing.
𓂃
You let out a soft sigh as you sit on the sofa, tired from a long day of practicing violin. You even have dreams of playing the specific composition, the one you've titled ‘Peach eyes’.
Your Mom pulls you close to her into a side hug. She pats you slowly, her touch is gentle and soothing.
“Don’t stress yourself too much. I know you'll do great, my child.” She speaks brightly, her words filled with nothing but love.
“Thank you. I love you.” And with that you sink yourself deeper into her embrace.
VI.
How could I not rely
On you, peach eyes?
The silence is broken by the sound of bow meeting the strings, the first touch is always gentle like a lover's kiss, it always starts slowly and builds momentum. The notes flow endlessly and beautifully into the air, with a certain warmth that comes with love.
At first, it is like rich cashmere being undone, thread by thread, slowly and painfully unravelled, something akin to accepting that you are in love and the fear that comes with it. When you accept you are in love, you're baring your soul. The sound that comes with each friction of bow and violin slowly dissolves the tension built up in the pit of your stomach. The sound is now like a knife cutting through flesh, thorough and sharp and easy. There is a sting in it, the kind felt by snow when the sun shines its rays on it harshly to melt it away, with that the fear in your mind melts away slowly too.
The unraveling is firm yet gentle, the touch is soft like water that envelopes your feet at the beach but it's firm, like the hardened bark of a tree. It feels like a lover undoing your being, slowly exposing your secrets to themselves and loving you despite.
The song builds up, it's now haunting like whispers of the past, something you can see on the back of your eyelids when you close them but something that fades away when you try to reach out for it.
The audience is completely trapped into the hypnotising performance you're putting, they're stuck in a trance like bugs caught up in sticky-trap.
There is pain in longing and you captured it perfectly in your music sheets and you've now turned it into music, the music that reverberates through your upper body, the music you made is being fed on by your heart.
The song is now turning like a tide, at first it was like expensive cloth being unstitched but now, it feels as though the seams are being sewn together again, this time better than they were before. Each note is like a torrent of brushstrokes on a canvas, each stroke building up to a precise picture.
You're pouring out every single emotion you've felt for the peach-eyed boy into this performance. Each note you play feels like a breath that brings you back to life. It now feels like a faint touch of moonlight on skin.
When you finish the melodies still linger in the air, like the whistling wind on a stormy day. The audience is quiet for a short moment, taking in the opus they just experienced but they soon break into applause.
Afterwards, you meet up with your friends after your violin solo ends. Juntae had invited his friends too, and they're all drowning you in praises. You try not to pay attention to the person that your solo was dedicated to, instead you chat with your friends as you lead them back to the hall for the next performance.
You're left alone outside the theatre hall, and you breathe out a sigh of satisfaction. You decide to go back to the artist’s lounge to pack up your things and just as you turn, Sieun appears, holding a bouquet of roses.
“You seem to be avoiding me.” He speaks with a matter-of-fact tone.
You look around and then point at yourself.
“Me? Haha, never.”
Sieun doesn't say anything else, and for a second, silence settles over both of you. You finally look into the eyes you were avoiding the entire evening, and now, you are in a trance. Like a snake being charmed by a snake charmer, you are charmed by the boy in front of you. You look into his eyes and they look soft and filled with stars like always.
Sieun hands you the bouquet, and his fingers brush against yours, you take in the rich peach and white coloured flowers to your view to ignore the loud beating of your heart and the blood rushing to your cheeks.
“The performance was beautiful.” He states.
But you are more beautiful; you want to say.
And a whisper of a smile appears on Sieun’s face.
Maybe, falling in love with you was imminent for Yeon Sieun too.
woohoo! 3.4k words, that was a long ride, i hope you enjoyed! likes, reblogs & comments are appreciated.
if it wasn't clear; y/n is a music student who is juntae's step-sibling. y/n's father remarried juntae's mom! y/n's birth mother was a pianist who passed away. y/n can play three instruments—piano, violin & acoustic guitar. the final scene was them performing a violin solo they composed.
Sieun turned towards the source of the voice and there you were—leaning against the rusted railing, hood of your black jacket pulled up and an unlit cigarette between your lips.
Sieun’s gaze is like always, unblinking and dissecting. He looks at you like you are a little mouse taped on a table and he's a student tasked to dissect you and study your insides.
“Got a second to spare?” You ask moving towards him, more like sauntered towards him as if you both had all the time the clock has to offer. You halted for a second as you pulled out your phone to check something, unlocking the phone with one hand easily while your other hand reached out to remove the unlit cigarette from between your lips. After you were done with whatever you were doing, you finally turned towards the guy— Yeon Sieun, was it?
He must've heard ‘spar’ instead of ‘spare’ because his hand swiftly reached for his blazer pocket to take out a pen. Your lip curls on the left side and you scoff, you look into his eyes and see an emotion not usually found in the eyes of Eunjang kids. It was not simple anger, no, it was rage. Like you had personally offended him by stealing his grandma’s dentures or something.
“Oh, no, no, I am not here to pick a fight.” You say fawningly, raising your arms in mock surrender. “I am here to talk.”
Sieun looks at you, unblinking and unraveling, trying to find if you were being for real or not. The look in his eyes is unchanging and suspicious. The look stays for a hot second, in a silent stare down with you and then he finally puts his pen back in his pocket. You pull down your arms on cue and wink at him and then start walking.
He follows you cautiously, wary of the shit you might pull. “Heard you were the guy who beat the shit out of Seongje.” You start, “It wa–”
“What is this about?” He questions.
“Want me to cut to the chase?” You ask, it's a bummer he doesn't want to do small talk. You were interested in this ‘newbie’ who had irked both Baekjin and Seongje and managed to defeat one of them. You throw away the unlit cigarette with a frustrated sigh.
“Let me borrow your pen.” He looks at you strangely, like you asked him for his kidney, not just some pen. He takes out his pen slowly, his eyes never leaving your figure. He hands you his pen.
You take his hand in yours, drawing out his palm and you write your phone number. Sieun’s gaze flickers down onto his palm and then back at you when you're finished.
“My number. Call me if you need help with anything regarding the Union. Just make sure that Baekjin doesn't find out I am fraternising with the enemy.” Sieun looks back at his hand, you're still holding it.
“But you're kinda cute so call me whenever.” You wink. You write down your name under your number and return his pen.
You smile and walk away. Sieun stares at his palm, ‘L/N Y/N ♡’ written in blue ink stares at him back.
──────── seo juntae
The first time you meet Juntae (when off-duty from the Union) isn't something very climatic or romantic, it's just that you run into each other at a wedding. You're from the Union and he's from Eunjang—this is nothing less than a star-crossed-lovers-Romeo-Juliet-Enemies-to-Lovers shit to you. You find it funny actually. You think of playing with the boy a little, teasing him a little, trying to get him flustered. Mind you, you haven't even gone up to him or anything, you're just scheming from a distance.
When Juntae sees you staring at him from a distance it feels like a vulture flying over it's next body and the first thing he thinks is— Great! I am some sort of lunatic magnet. He tries to ignore you but you are like a persistent stain on a light coloured cloth. He wonders if you crashed the wedding or something and if you did not, you both might somehow be related.
When you start to walk towards him, that's when he actually gets worried, the Union guys (not guys actually, just Seongje) and ‘lunatics’ he has attracted over the course of his existence on his planet have been weird and not afraid pulling strange shit in public, even if comes at the cost of making yourself look like a complete idiot in front of adults.
He slowly and stealthily tries to sneak away from his spot and takes small steps and he successfully finds himself halfway across the venue, but when he turns, you're still hot in his heels. He continues to run away from you.
It's not long before he runs into a dead end, screw these Korean wedding venues!
You take your sweet time trailing towards him. Like a little bug stuck in an elaborate web of a clever spider, Juntae cannot escape. He looks around but there's just no way and then! Here you are.
Wait?!
You're kabedon-ing him?!
Juntae feels like he's in some flop shoujo manga that got discontinued because of its low viewership.
But all you feel is as if your heart has been pierced by cupid’s arrow. Is this the guy who's strong enough to be Eunjang’s top dog according to Seongje? This cutie right here?
The way he appears so meek and cute and the way his nose twitches when his eyes meet you, it makes you feel squishy and mushy inside.
A waiter passes you by but excuses your both thinking that you're hormonal teenagers and does nothing and sadly to Juntae’s disbelief, he's still stuck between your arms and your face is awfully close to his and then he takes notice of your face— the way the lights above you both are makes it look like you have constellations trapped in your eyes, the way your lashes are so thick and pretty, he can see his own reflection in your eyes because of your close proximity and the way your lips look so moisturized and kissable right now and, and, and–
“Can I have your number?” That pulls Juntae out of his god awful thoughts and where they were heading but wait what? You, one of the top (more like ex-top) members of the Union, are asking for his number? Why?
But then he takes in your body language, the way there's a slight tremble in your lips and the way you refuse to meet his eyes all of sudden, is it what he is thinking?
“Why?” He blurts out.
You pull your hands back and look at your shoes, then take a turn and then kabedon him again, this time with one hand only, your other hand slowly reaches to fix his glasses that have tipped slightly on his nose.
“You’re cute, that’s why.”
──────── go hyuntak
Hospitals have always been a source of discomfort for you. The lights were always too bright, the bulbs always burned onto your retinas. The floor was always too clean, too pristine, it made you feel like you were violating the sanctity of such a pure place. The air always smelled weird… with the pungent smell of antiseptics mixed with that of cleaners and air purifiers. The scents were always suffocating.
They were always too sterile and you always felt like a foreign germ, unwelcome and impure.
You take a deep breath in, inhaling the bouquet in your hand, and letting the sweet scent of roses fill your nostrils and soothe you a little. The baby's breaths, soft and gentle, tickle your skin when your face reaches too close to the bouquet. It calms you a little—the fragrance of the roses, however, there is a persistent beating in the back of your mind screaming that you are not welcome here.
Offering the receptionist a polite smile you inquire about the ward of the person you've come to visit—Go Hyuntak. She tells you the room number and you excuse yourself to visit the patient.
The walk towards the floor and room is nothing short of suffocating. You keep on rehearsing what to say and what expressions to make. What if he doesn't let you speak? What if he throws something at you and acts mean? Before your disparaging thoughts can cause your brain to burst you're already in front of the door.
You take in the long breath, mentally preparing yourself for what's to come and utter a small ‘Fighting!’ to yourself. You try to peek through the little glass in the door but it's not enough to make out the room so you open the door. The tough plastic handle meets the pads of your fingers as you slide it open.
“Go Hyuntak….?” You say helplessly. The said boy peeks out of the drawn curtains and his expression sours so quickly— first it was full of curiosity and now it is nothing less than disdain. You are not welcome here.
You make your way slowly towards his bed, taking in his condition. There's a few bandages scattered around his face and there's a cast on one of his legs. Just as you open your mouth to say something he starts.
“Did Baekjin guy send you here to mock me?” He motions towards the flowers in your left hand and the bag in your right one. You are not welcome here.
“No!” You exclaim, your expression melts into one of pain at the accusation but of course he would think that. You are in the Union working under the guy who broke his knee and rendered him in such a condition. “I came here of my own accord.” He lets you continue.
“It’s just that…” He raises his eyebrows as you start and you look away unable to meet his eyes.
“It’s just that I feel bad for what happened to you. What Baekjin did was unfair and he crossed the line. I'm sorry.”
Hyuntak looks around for a second wondering if this is a hidden camera prank and Baekjin might pop out any second. He tries to be tough though, Na Baekjin doesn't seem like a guy to do that.
“Okay….?” Hyuntak says unsure, he does feel the genuinity in your words but he can't trust you yet.
You hand him the bouquet and place the bag on the side table.
“Eat the pastry. It's very nice.” You say awkwardly.
You're just about to take your leave when he says;
“You can have a seat, you know.”
──────── park 'baku' humin
“Humin?”
Baku feels his world pause for a second, a voice he had not heard in a long time—your voice, cuts through the air like a ripple in still water, something rare, something that makes the molecules vibrate all of sudden.
He turns towards you and there you are, there's a little change in your features over the course of a year and half that Humin had not seen you during, you have a nose piercing and your hair has changed a little too, with electric blue dye at the tips. You have grown a little too.
Humin feels his walls crumbling.
“(First Name).” He exhales, his features neutralise, his expression seems unreadable but his eyes are a little glassy.
You both walk around the neighbourhood for while, roaming in the chilly autmun air as the night starts to fall over the cityscape. You both talk a little, sharing pleasantries and catching up, you both have history. But it's all in the past now, you don't share the same bond you did in the past, after all when you tie back a torn thread, it does not go back to as it once was—there’s a knot there now. The thread cannot be the same again.
Baku passes a joke and you burst into laughter, Baku feels as if time has slowed down when he looks at you, eye crinkled and a wide smile, the streetlight hits your face just right and it makes you look… simply, ethereal.
After you both quieten down and are about to finish the round around the neighbourhood, Baku’s dad’s shop appears in your line of vision.
You turn towards Humin and he stiffens, the look on your face is quite serious, he doesn't know what to expect and he is afraid. He is afraid that the words that might come out of your mouth might be the reason that he will lose you again.
“I still consider you a precious friend, you know. So, this is coming from a place of concern. Join the Union, it's for the best.”
Humin’s jaw tightens at this. Just how dare you show up in his life after all this time and ask him to join the Union of all things?
“You have changed (First Name).” He says, seething with contempt. When did you become one of Baekjin’s dogs?
“Baekjin has changed too. You don't understand what he's capable–”
“Leave.”
You suck your teeth and nod.
“Take care. Bye.”
And with that, you walk away leaving Humin with the remnants of crumbled walls of his heart.
note Ꮺ
tumblr stop fucking up challenge failed miserably. Like?? it kept on fucking up the position of the images for no reason at all and erasing the read more break thingie for no reason, i had to go and crop every image into 1:1 ratio manually ㅠㅠ
this happened on my alt acc too when i tried to post the suho excerpt... does anyone know what's happening?
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