you can't wake up, this is not a dream. you're part of a machine, you are not a human being. with your face all made up, living on a screen. low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline.
Nightmare: I’ll write my character having a nightmare about yours, or vice versa.
a girl. like snow white in her appearance. pale skin, red lips, dark hair. textbook princess, pretty in countenance, an indescribable aura, of some sort. not that lisa would know, she never cared much for things like those. pretty dress, flowing behind her like a wind on its own, like a force of nature.
a girl. she walks like a nymph does on water. one foot in front of the other, slowly, but somehow purposefully. it was a strange juxtaposition, but it worked.
there’s a feeling in lisa’s chest, something daunting, foreboding, and not at all nice. like the start of the worst horror movie, a plucking of the strings ( violin strings or heart strings? who really knows? these kinds of thing were always hard to tell ). but her feet are glued to the spot, rubber soles of her boots against rough concrete, trying to make sense of the situation at hand.
there’s a shadow behind the girl in white, slithering toward her like the most agile snake, like a cloud, or perhaps a piece of silk, smooth, fluid.
but in all its beauty, it’s evil. and even lisa in her confusion knew that.
“run!” she screams, trying to warn the girl. lisa didn’t know why — the girl was a mere stranger, a figment of her imagination, the product of an overactive brain late at night, making pictures in her mind, keeping her entertained as her body recharged. why she wanted to help, she wasn’t sure. but she felt the need somewhere deep within her bones, shooting up her spine, up to her brain.
but the girl doesn’t run, hardly bats an eyelash at her warning, a fact for which lisa feels a twinge of annoyance.
she should let the girl get captured by whatever shadowy figure was behind her. what was she going to do if her warnings went unheard? it was like a wasted effort, energy put behind nothingness.
but still, she runs, boots beating against the ground, arm outstretched to widen her body. she kicks up dust, every step bringing her closer to the girl. one by one, feet following the beat of her heart, faster and even faster. the rocks beneath her feat are crumbling, not built to withstand the abuse that it’s getting.
hand reaches out, the ends of her dress so, so close. fingers close around the fabric, only to go through it like a cloud of water vapor.
despair, the feeling she couldn’t put her finger on, crystal clear as she woke up.
Love — I’ll write a drabble of my character admitting they love yours.Lust — I’ll write a drabble of our characters making love together.
there are times when she sees it, when they’re walking along the sidewalks of the city and she turns back to tell him something. there’s a certain look in his eyes, something that makes the city feel like it contains only her, and not millions of people. it catches her off guard every time, makes her feel exposed, like she’s being scrutinized, but some not uncomfortable.
there are times when she hears it in the way he says her name, two simple syllables rolling off his tongue, floating like a symphony of four letters into the space between them, filling her ears with a music she had never heard before. she hears it in the way they laugh when they’re together, him sweetly, her somewhat reluctantly, tripping over each other’s words like children on a sidewalk crack and floating, always floating.
and there are times when she almost says it, when she’s laying her head on his chest, wrapped up in a feeling that’s unique to him, or when he visits her at work, eyes glancing from side to side, a tiny giggle as they sneak kisses across the counter. the words are already formed, and she stops, looks at him from underneath her bangs, lips ready to make the first ‘i’ sound. but it always gets caught in her throat, unable to come out.
( “seungcheol?”
“yeah?”
“i...um...i- i was just wondering what we were going to have for dinner tonight. )
it’s never easy, at least not for her. but then again, the best things are never easy.
she kisses him deeply, sweetly, as if it was her job, as if his body was her artwork, a picture painted meticulously with each stroke of her lips. one, two, three on his jawline, one, two, three on his neck, pooling at the hollows of his collarbone, fingers unbuttoning each button slowly, deliberately, as if the sheets were strands of a meticulously built spider’s web, as if going any faster would break the gossamer strands from their grasp.
she angles her hips, hands on his chest, following the cadence of his heartbeat as she lowers herself. she’s like a ship, rising and falling with the waves, exposed skin like a tide, pulling her in then pushing her out ( slowly, always slowly ).
they’re pixie dust, fallen from the stars only to rise back up, path ambiguous, but destination as clear as crystal. they rise high, higher, stars at their fingertips, dizzy from the lack of oxygen at altitudes so far up. breaths quicken, hearts beat faster, limbs entangled, hands on her hips, teeth at her lips.
and when they fall they crash, she sees light in front of her eyes, alarmingly, blindingly, as if the solar system had clattered through the ceiling, fell around them with sunbeams and starlight.
she climbs off him, pulling the covers over them both as she nestled her head into his chest, mind cloudy and clear all at once. it didn’t make sense, but it didn’t have to.
“i love you.” she whispers in the dark, against his skin as her lips feel the beat of his heart, the most honest words spoken as she drifts off to sleep.
Seduce: I’ll write my character trying to seduce yours or vice versa
she doesn’t know when it happened, when her mind decided that it was tired of being the pursued, switched gears all at once to become the pursuer. she doesn’t know when she decided that their banter, no matter how awful, no matter how irritating, was part of a routine that she had come to expect, come to anticipate after some time.
she doesn’t know but she doesn’t dwell on it. thinking about these things just made her more frustrated.
“lisa, lisa.” he says her name like a song, like a melody that she had never heard, but wanted to listen to again and again after the first taste on her tongue. it was sugar, it was honey for a girl who always had a sweet tooth hidden away somewhere. “eating with me again? if i didn’t know better, i would think you may like me.”
she slides into the seat next to him, rolling her eyes again at his words, too aware, too conscious of the air between them, palpable since the first time they met, growing as the clock ticked by.
but she knows it’s only a matter of time, patience wearing thin, refusal more difficult every time and she knows that giving in is inevitable. she knows this, and she hates herself for her lack of self-restraint. the girl inches closer, slides toward him on the seat, eyelashes like butterflies as she blinked, fluttering against her cheeks. her lips curve into something more of a smirk than a smile, the irony clear on her expression, not that she cared anymore. “good thing you know better.”
her past refusals came back, hitting her with full force on the small of the back, as if pushing her toward him with all the times she pushed him away. she didn’t know how to do this, how to be alluring, but there was a sort of instinct, a facet of evolution that she had inherited, and it made her flirty, coquettish.
words are barely necessary in the presence of blinking eyes and flushed cheeks, of fingers intertwining with his, rising from the cafe table and leading him toward the break room in the back.
his fingers grip her hips, limbs together, teeth pulling at the pink fibers of her lips. her fingers trail like tiny dancers on his shirt, undo buttons one by one by one, tongue tasting of lust and victory and him.
my ego might be big, but it’s healthy – like other parts of me. ( * his words are unplanned, leap from his lips like arrows that curve in the air, seem to hit their target with the same brusque energy that formed them. he smiles after, entirely proud of himself, and his eyes thin in response; his fingers flatten against the table; his torso turns just enough to face her. this is where he should wink, give her a location, an offer, but he’s always figured lisa has too much class for that. still, he leans forward, lowers himself into comfort. and for a moment he thinks a spark crackles between them – thinks that energy tightens and loosens, a strain of attraction, a glimmer of hope, but perhaps, like last time, it’s his imagination. ) you look nice today, as usual. can you choose my meal for me? i want to have your favorite little combo and bring two just in case you have time to come sit with me; i’ll pay extra. ( * here he smiles, opens the laptop he’s brought, waits for the screen to flicker. ) you can keep me company while i do business. ( * “business” refers to reading strings of video comments where people fight, but a white lie, he figures, doesn’t hurt his chances. )
( * she chooses to ignore his words, rolling her eyes at his banter, though it wasn’t anything new. it was the same kind of routine, planned like a semester’s school schedule, so predictable she could narrate what would happen next. she watches him, leans closer, closer, eyes locking with his, hand on the table to keep her balance. ) you’re going to buy your way into my bed? ( * she smiles, lips curving up at the corners somewhat ironically until she pulls back suddenly, straightening her braid and taking her notepad as she turns on her heels, walking back toward the counter. ) maybe you should try harder. ( * she says this with a sort of flippancy, a sort of mirth in her tone as she starts to prepare her favorite dish at the cafe, the only one she really cared to prepare. it was a simple sandwich, chicken and melted cheese and an awful amount of butter. she considers his offer carefully, all too ready to turn it down. but her stomach was empty, breakfast sacrificed for a few more minutes of sleep that morning, and doing this meant she could take a break and say she was ‘helping a customer’. plus, it was out of their routine, a small deviation that would be interesting, if nothing else. so she makes two, puts a iced tea and a cookie on the side, bringing both over to the table. she sits down across from him, expression typically blank as she slides one over to him. ) i better be tipped well for this.
Holiday: I’ll write our characters celebrating a holiday together.
“okay so....” lisa took an ornament out of the box, staring at it as she held the red shiny thing between her thumb and forefinger, still not entirely convinced of the entire holiday. everything seemed to drip glitter, from the decorations in the mall to every single greeting card tinged with sparkly snow ( fake, faker ). “why are we hanging balls on a tree?”
and she supposed that she did like christmas when she was younger, when she was free of responsibilities, when the weight of betrayal and falsehood weren’t burdened upon her shoulders. those days she could sit in waiting for santa claus, waiting at the bottom of the grand staircase watching the crackling of the fireplace until her eyelids became droopy with sleep.
not that christmas had ever been very meaningful for her family — it was more about presents and public displays of charity than anything else. her family always said ‘oh my god’ more than they actually believed in god.
“the three kings followed the star to baby jesus, so we have to put it on top.” jennie said, standing on top of a chair as she put the said ( also sparkly ) star carefully above the branches.
“okay...but that doesn’t explain the tiny lights. or the balls. or the fat bearded man who breaks into your house?”
“well, that’s just tradition.” jennie smiled as lisa handed her the strings of lights, winding it around the branches of the tree until every inc was lit. “you have to just take it at face value sometimes. besides, it’s fun, isn’t it?”
she looked at the ornaments around them, the bright colors an the promise of presents, then back to her friend. “yeah, i guess it is.”
Date — I’ll write a drabble of my character taking yours out on a date.
it was a pretty day, one that indicated the end of a winter, promised warmer, brighter days. but lisa never thought about her hours like this. every day seemed to blend into the next. colder today, warmer tomorrow, it didn’t really make a difference to her.
and it was probably because of this that her friends made her do this in the first place. ‘you need to get out,’ they had said, meaning well as anyone, a kind of hopefulness in their voices, intentions all too clear. but there was no point in arguing when even she knew deep down that sitting on her couch, wasting her life away, wasn’t going to get her anywhere. at nineteen years old she was as pretty and as energetic as she would ever be in her life, and there had to be something to show for it.
she walks alongside him, feeling the sun’s rays kiss exposed skin. her head turns every so often, sneaks glances at his eyes, his hair, his lips, blinking as if she’s still unsure about this, as if she’s doubting.
“i don’t do this often.” her admittance comes with a bit of a wince, fingers going straight up to her hair, playing frivolously with the ends. a bad habit, if there ever was one. there’s no good reason why she said that, but she can’t stop it once it escapes from her lips, each word flitting like a flower petal, left and right until it lands in its intended destination.
“don’t do what? walk?” there’s a certain amusement in his words, and she looks up suddenly, walls carefully built brick by brick, meticulously tended to so she could explain, so she could shield herself from whatever he could say. but her eyes find his and every syllable is forgotten as she squints her eyes, mind whirling in order to figure it out.
there’s a kind of safety in his smile, a kind of warmth that seemed to be taken from the sun itself, moulded at compressed into a quirk of his lips, a lift at the corners. it was the kind of smile that promised only good things, promised to take her monochrome view of the world, open her eyes and show her reds and blues and pinks. it promised to take away silence, let her hear the crash of waves at it hit a rock, the cheers of schoolchildren when the last bell rang, the crackle of fireworks as it burst in the air.
it said ‘trust me’, and lisa couldn’t help but lower her armor, peeking outside of her walls. her lips curve into a half grin, barely noticeable but certainly there.
after all, it’s easy to talk to him. dull moments are made vivid in his presence, as if he took a crayon and colored them in. following every contour, bright and brighter. there’s no silence, no awkwardness as they trip over each other’s words like cracks on a sidewalk, the sunlight becoming the best source of energy as they walked down the street.
“let’s do this again.” his words come with a bout of bittersweetness, a kind of sadness that the day was over, the light fading and making way for the moon to take its station. there’s a certain promise that’s attached onto his voice, a kind that makes lisa look down, a slight pink flushing her cheeks as she let go of his hand.
“tomorrow?” she’s hopeful, holding her breath as she waits for his answer, the possibility of rejection stopping any kind of oxygen to her lungs.
“tomorrow.” she exhales, a feeling of relief warming her from the inside out when he agrees, a bright grin spreading across her lips as she stands up on tiptoe, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek before walking backwards toward her door.
Love — I’ll write a drabble of my character admitting they love yours.
“i love you.” she whispers, voice wavering, words dropping one by one, floating feather light into the space between them, squeezing in between the cracks of limbs and chests, breathing in, breathing out. her fingers trace the outline of his jaw up to the bottom of his lip like she was a blind man, like she couldn’t see the irises of his eyes or the curve of his nose.
she’s unsure, the spaces between each syllable betraying a hesitation, the words unfamiliar on her tongue. love was a foreign concept to a girl who had been blindsided by it, to a girl who had tasted it in her youth and lost everything because of it. treacherous, treasonous, ribcage closed, heard steeled, a little girl laying in an unfamiliar bed, recoiling from the scent of the sheets, making promises that love would never capture her again, never find its way to her.
because love could destroy you as soon as it lifted you up. because it consumed you, engulfed you in flames that masked initially as warmth, then showed its true colors once you were singed at the fingertips.
and she knew this. she knew the toxicity, that it was better to drink a vial of cyanide than succumb to love because then at least the death was quick, the pain short lived. but love tortured, it ripped you apart at the seams and left you shredded, gasping for air, suffocating but never dead.
but it doesn’t feel that way when she’s with him. it doesn’t feel anything like that when her hand traces from his jawline to his collarbone, down to soft fabric at the shoulders, down his arm until her fingers intertwines with his, holding it tight as if he would slip away otherwise.
“i love you.” she says louder this time, words more firmly rooted, each in its place. she inches closer, tiny movements among wrinkled sheets, pressing a slow kiss to his lips. she tastes a sweetness, a kind of sugar that wasn’t at all saccharine, a beat against her chest, then another and another until she was sure he could hear it as well. she can’t fight against gravity, can’t help the fact that she’s falling, losing the battle against the laws of physics.
“i love you.” there’s a finality this time, voice soft but filled with a certain conviction. and she kisses him again, deeply, sweetly, honestly.
HOW TO PLAY ! send me one (or more) of the words below and i’ll write the corresponding drabble for our muses! please be specific as to who should be doing the action, unless you’d rather leave it to me to decide. remember the rp karma: if you want to receive, then send!
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( * the cafe is quiet when he arrives, ventures to a corner booth with slow, careful steps, as though he’s sneaking in; as though he doesn’t want lisa to notice, not yet. he doesn’t want her to arrive until he’s unpacked what he’s brought: a small square of chocolates, a laptop he’s bought for the occasion, his phone, a tangled mound of headphones, and a mint in case she gives in. as for himself, he chooses to wear all black, twists a goofy smile into something more charming, more smooth – fashions cool lines from the warm shape of joy he needs to be convincing, after all, and charisma requires control and cold construction. once he’s finished with a makeshift shrine – once he’s ready for her attention – he raises his gaze and looks her familiar frame, lifts a hand as if to summon her presence; but that would never work, he knows, since it requires routine, and magical girls are always so fickle. instead he mumbles to himself. ) lisa, lisa, where are you, lisa.
( * she leans against the counter of the cafe, pressing her back against the cool material, ears filled with a comfortable kind of quiet save for the slow drip drop of the coffee machine. she’s thankful for these quiet hours, the proverbial calm before the storm she knew would come once school let out and feral creatures came running in, looking for nourishment to power their little antics, practically foaming at the mouth from what she saw, but she knew she was being harsh. her eyes roll at the thought, but she supposed she had time before it would happen. her fingers run down the smooth plait of her usual hairstyle, the color of caramel macchiatos made right ( though she had been considering blonde lately ) and she sighs as the front door bell rings, signaling her to yet another customer she had to care for. with a notebook and a pen in hand, she walks over to the table. ) hello and welcome- ( * she stops short, eyes squinting when she sees who it is that paid her a visit. ) our special today is lemon poundcake served with a large topping of oversized ego, but i guess you already have enough of that.
she prides herself in being what you would call –– carefree. though, to many she’d probably fall under the category of ‘idiot’ and ‘reckless’. it’s just who she is really. jisoo’s always been one to give into temptation easily and to act on impulse. that trait of hers more often than not usually ends up in her caught in rather unsightly situations.
such as this, caught by the police for doing something wrong and rebellious with lisa beside her as she rests her head on the wall. she’s not in prison, no, she’s just detained… or something like that. it had been her stupid idea though in her defense if the car hadn’t looked so old and if it hadn’t been parked at such an odd area, she never would’ve spray painted it in the first place.
( “it’ll be a good idea! i’m always full of good ideas!” she had told lisa with much gusto. )
“where’s jennie,” jisoo finds herself whining, turning to look at lisa like a kicked puppy. “where is our saviour. where is she. i miss her. i miss the fresh air,” she continues on and she doesn’t miss the annoyed look that spreads across the officer’s face.
“if anything i think us spray painting the car only added more personality to it. i don’t know about you but i think we did the owner a favour,” she says, shrugging as though she’d committed no wrong.
lisa always knew not to get caught in bad plans, she knew how to see a judge a bad situation and to run far, far away. it was ingrained in her at this point, although she didn’t really know if it was a good thing — it was a result of the teachings of her parents, after all, and god knew how she felt about that.
or so she thought. although her senses of self preservation may not have been as good as she thought, especially considering where she was seated.
she really could have been angry, but she couldn’t even bring herself to feel any bit of vexation, only because she should have seen it coming. she should have had some kind of foresight, a telescope into a future so close she could have gotten away with looking with a good pair of glasses. when had any of jisoo’s ‘good ideas’ ever turned out to be anything but bad? lisa supposed they said that history repeats itself for a reason, not that she ever learned from her mistakes.
it was only because at this point jisoo knew well enough that lisa would follow on her antics if she was nagged enough. and besides, there was a bit of an adrenaline rush, a kind of elation as slim legs ran through the darkness, spray paint in one hand and unlimited possibilities in the other.
‘i want the pink one’ she had said as soon as they got to the car, apprehension forgotten in the cloud of rosy paint on dark, shiny surfaces.
pink pigment turns to pink bubblegum, bright and iridescent as lisa blows a bubble with a loud ‘pop’ echoing through the room. her expression is one of true apathy as she rolls her eyes, flicking a strand of blonde over her shoulder.
“she’ll be here soon enough. hopefully.” she leans back against the walls, arms crossed at her chest as she looks at her friend. “i don’t know why i go along with these plans. they’re awful.” she pauses just long enough to consider what she had done, not that it mattered much anyways.
“that heart on the windshield was a nice touch though.”
she’s frozen, feet glued to the spot that she came, completely and utterly helpless against some kind of magic. she didn’t ask for this life, or perhaps she did. but conscious choice was limited in the face of the kind of adversity that she faced. she ran because she had to, stayed because she had to, nothing in the way of decisions marking her life, and she stands in one place because she can’t otherwise move.
so much for running.
she moves against her will, silently, unblinkingly, the expression on her face too impassive for the situation. but her face is carefully practiced, an enigma searching for its turing, a key so it can be cracked.
the monsters are in front of her, watching silently as the players are shuffled around. she laughs inwardly at the irony, but she doesn’t find it the least bit funny.
especially not when the monster is right in front of her, staring at her from above. it twists and turns in front of her, violets and cyans and scarlets making a field of color, and overloading of senses right at her fingertips, if she could only move them. so many colors, but lisa could only see shades. she supposes its an effect of tunnelvision, the most narrow, the most focused, a kind of nucleus she couldn’t tear her eyes from.
it turns into a man and a woman, looking at her with some kind of feeling in their eyes, but lisa couldn’t tell what, exactly. she was never good with feelings, not anymore.
and suddenly she’s twelve again, knocking on the door of who knows what, running with a purpose that she didn’t even understand. her feet tap on the ground, rubber soles of her sneakers stepping as if even they knew the importance. everything looks the same, so much that she can’t distinguish between one house and the next, an endless blending of streets in her field of vision, grey and more grey.
“mom?”
the monster is human, with human flesh and human eyes, a likeness too similar for lisa’s tastes, not that it mattered. the perfect image of a mother — hair permed, clothes neat — stands in front of her.
“poor lisa, loved by no one.”
its voice is pure saccharine, dripping from the corners of pink lips down to white skin and neck and pooling in the hollows of its collarbone. if only lisa could keep thinking of the monster as an it instead of as a she.
she stares, eyes shifting from left to right, trying to get some sense of how to escape from this. there’s a tightening in her stomach, a pressure on her ribcage weighing down on her heart. color inside the lines, but think outside the box — isn’t that what all children are taught from the moment they enter into school? two things that, in theory, should be mutually exclusive, but they’re expected in conjunction nonetheless.
but what were the lines? where was the box? there were no instructions for life, no manual on how to survive these kinds of things. there were only orders that expected action.
there were no steps to follow when she found out her parents didn’t care, and she spent her time wishing it wouldn’t happen again, but real life never seemed to work out the way she wanted it to. she bites down softly on her bottom lip, eyes widening just slightly, pulse quickening as possibilities run through her mind.
unloved. she weighed the word in her mind, whispered it just to feel the effects on her tongue. it felt like a punch in the stomach. in fact, she would rather a punch than this.
“we don’t love you. we never loved you.”
she doesn’t scream, she’s never been loud. she’s a good girl, a quiet girl, never making trouble for anyone, but look where that got her. where was the karma that people said would come back? she didn’t see it, but she had never weighed her beliefs too heavily on that kind of thing.
but she’s always been sensible, analytical in a way that her tutors taught her ( because god knows her parents didn’t teach her anything ). a critical eye, always scrutinizing, always judging. was that a good thing? she didn’t know anymore.
“then i don’t love you either.” she stares back, indignant in a way that was learned. she couldn’t count on people, she knew that now. the weight in her stomach didn’t go away, but it changed. it changed to embers, to a flame then a fire. she was angry at the world, angry at the decisions she never made and the choices that were out of her control, angry at the fact that she had to bear the consequences for something she didn’t do.
“i don’t need you. i don’t need anyone’s love.”
the monster breaks, skin melting away bit by bit as it disappeared. her feet are unfrozen, and she runs.
because she’s not a fire, not an inferno. she’ll be a phoenix, and she’ll rise from the ashes that her parents made.
