[ currently viewing this page as @/cr4shc0urse ] … did you see? yesterday, BAE SUNHEE (SHE/THEY) was spotted at the airport! you know, that 28 year old who was part of that one film's MEDIA ARTISTS? the cursed one that they never finished? yeah, they were the SOUNDTRACK ARTIST / GUITARIST OF LAST LIGHT! i know everyone already knows they're RESTLESS and A CARBON COPY OF THEIR FATHER, but i heard that WHILE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING WITH THE ALBUM, THEY RENTED THEIR OWN PRIVATE STUDIO TO GET DRUNK AND HIGH IN. apparently they’re a MUSICIAN now, but i guess they’ve got unfinished business with this movie, or this movie’s got unfinished business with them.
[...]
he's proven right moments later, already on the move. wonshik props his shoulder up against the doorframe and squashes down that part of him that thinks that kiyong looks pretty there, messed up hair and up on the counter where he'd be easy to kiss. "just use mine." who the hell would pack an extra toothbrush? not wonshik, that's for sure. not on a trip like this. wonshik nods at his open toiletry bag. "did you go through sunhee's stuff too or am i that special?"
all the night before, sunhee breaks into her private stash of booze, drinks until the world grows fuzzy in her ears, and waits for her father's lullaby to stream in through the vents and sing her to sleep. the logic was this: if she got drunk enough, she might conjure up a vision of her father's ghost. it didn't even have to be all of him. she would've settled for a fraction of his face, or his disembodied voice. do you hear that music? hand on her hair, humming in her ears.
towards the end of her father's life, he had started saying more and more things like that. like a lot of creative types, he suffered a sickening strain of romanticism up until the end, often sitting with his head tilted towards a source of sound only he could hear.
listen, little sparrow. the universe is singing for us again.
even when she got angry. even when she snapped and said there's nothing there stop saying that don't you know you're making things worse. his eyes, belonging to her father but not really all him anymore, gleaning the walls and ceilings for the secret song that he was convinced ran through them.
sunhee doesn't hear anything throughout the night. she oversleeps, wakes up to pull her curtains shut, and sleeps some more. when she really wakes up, cheek red from pressing into her pillow for so long, the sky's dark outside again and there's light coming from her and wonshik's bathroom. and voices.
no lullaby, but the sound of wonshik and kiyong floods her with the same kind of relief. certain times veered uncomfortably close to those blackout moments in the studio, but she's getting her shit together now, she's getting better, she's getting away from whatever bad genetics ran through her.
also, she needs an actual drink, as in water.
she swipes a bottle of painkillers from her back and opens her side of the bathroom. instantly, her eyes are assaulted by the light and she has to shield herself with a wrist. "ugh. why's the light so fucking loud?" she mumbles a hey to kiyong, bumping her shin with her knee on her way to the sink. she runs it on cold water and gets a handful to swallow her painkillers with, then gets to work on brushing her teeth. "he went through my stuff last time, so it's your turn to pay the kiyong tax," she informs wonshik through the mirror. she figures he doesn't really mind. they're almost sweet, it's sickening.
she glances between them, wondering if they've already talked about it, where it is the fact that kiyong's roommate is probably dead. between everything, there had been no time to corner kiyong somewhere there weren't cameras and gauge how he was or to corner wonshik and ask if he knew how kiyong was, so in a way, it's lucky they both happened to deposit themselves into her bathroom. sunhee tries to tell herself this, because for some reason, there's a bad feeling brewing in her stomach.
"are they letting you stay with wonshik now?" she finally settles on asking, looking up at kiyong. "or another room, at least? that's got to be fucked up, if they're making you stay in yours." she wonders if police have confiscated anything. does kiyong have a bunch of yellow tape around his bathroom now? she's surprised it took him this long to come over if they just left all of heesung's stuff in place.
[...]
with a swift move, she flips her straightened hair over her shoulder, tucking her small diamond purse under her arm. "come," without hesitation, she turns to the camera, linking her arm with the woman's and guides them toward the table. "let's talk somewhere else, tell me what you had in mind for your music video."
it's not often that she feels out of depth, but she feels— well, out of depth. in some ways, she'd never really gotten used to the attention when the internet decided that last light was suddenly relevant, and, god. that whole blur of a month that it happened, sitting mind-numbed in a room of execs and doing her best to listen to their terms, and then the year that followed: mechanical motions, plastic smiles, doing whatever so-and-so said because that was what was good for the band and just because she was going through something didn't mean she could just fuck it up for everyone else too. it wasn't until she started sobering up that she realized she might as well have dumped the whole year down the drain.
maybe a part of her thinks she can still salvage it. if she can just build something out of that mess, she wouldn't have to write it off as a waste.
but she should've paid more attention during those meetings. maybe then she'd know how to network better.
sunhee follows her to the table, glancing around to make sure she can't see the camera crew anymore before sitting down. "those designs you did for the movie. i've been wanting to make the music video an actual tribute to the movie, but we're working with our own stylists, and i wasn't exactly around every day on set like some of the others were, so it's been hard to tell them what i want, you know? i know the studio's probably got you under ten different NDAs, so i won't ask about getting a look at the designs, but i figured—you actually worked on them. maybe you could give us some artistic direction, help make it feel like it's part of the film?" and help her feel like she actually did something to help out her band with this project, and not just drag behind them the whole time.
she's a little self conscious in front of nari, straightening up when she catches herself in a habitual slouch. "sorry. i just grabbed you because i didn't want to deal with that camera," she says with a nervous chuckle. "i'm not trying to be that dick who brings up work at a party. i do love your stuff, though."
[...]
before sunhee decides to actually make good on her promise, his grip on the towel tightens as he pulls his arm closer to his body. “no way — there’ll probably be an article tomorrow about how you brutally played with my poor feelings by giving me hope and then taking it away.” a pause to reconsider, then amends his statement, shrugging. “or a crimson seal post. both work.”
sunhee rolls her eyes as the inevitable question for her room comes up, swatting his pinky promise away. "yes, i promise you can have the main role. i'll sing the song that plays when you get chased down the hallway by a serial killer." because at this point, a serial killer or a deranged super-fan at this point was more likely than a curse from some mask that some costume designer whipped up on a drawing board. or some actual bleeding out. for both of their sakes, she starts pushing him towards the elevator.
"my room's on the third floor, just don't get your blood and...bad luck on my stuff. you know wonshik, right?" with luck, she can pawn jihoo off on him. she jams the up button, glancing at the towel wrapped around his arm. she hopes it really is nothing. she can't remember a thing about any onsite medical team and she's pretty sure she saw the only clinic in town sitting empty with a busted window, so jihoo better hope it's nothing too.
the elevator arrives with a ring, and sunhee herds him inside. it's weird, playing the "responsible" one. maybe if she'd grown up with siblings, she would be better at things like this, but all she has to go off of is the one time she sprained her ankle sneaking out, and her dad decided that tough love was the way through it.
she clicks the button for the third floor before stepping back to lean on the railing, closing her eyes with an exhale. she's tired. for some reason, this doesn't feel like something that should be on camera—like it's an admission of weakness, to take a fucking breath.
the elevator rattles under her feet. when she reopens her eyes, it comes to a stop, and the small display tells her that they're on floor 4.
"uh," she says, frowning at jihoo, who she assumes had clicked the fourth floor button. "i thought you wanted to go to my room?"
the elevator light flickers. that little bell rings again, but the door doesn't move.
"dude." she pushes off the railing, past jihoo, and starts jamming the door open button repeatedly. "what did you do? i'm not in the mood for a prank."
[...]
“Scary? My talent agent when I dropped my latest project. Thought he was going to push me out the window.” Kiyong laughs at that like it’s funny. He doesn’t mention the nightmares, and for once it doesn’t feel like a lie. The nightmares have been getting worse, but they’ve always been there. By now and Kiyong’s normalized them. “What about you, stalked by a demon?” He pauses only long enough to filter out more of that smoke, “should we have stolen some salt from the kitchen, brought it as back up?” He smiles again, and this time he rocks himself sideways, close enough to jostle his shoulder in against hers.
she snickers at his answer, which is somehow one of the more honest things she's heard since even before she got here. the threads she weaves with people these days are flimsy at best, tied loosely so they can slip in and out of her life as she goes. it's been the most painless way to get through things lately, but it means a lot of smiling and waving, nod and don't blink, pretend you're not both dragging the weight of a whole life behind you. half the time they see each other without their masks, it becomes painfully evident which one wasn't even a thread and more like a lifeline, cast out of blind desperation.
kiyong might still be one, but sunhee is just grateful she's not expected to twirl around like a dancing monkey around him. surprised, too, when he mentions the dropped project and the agent, glimpses past that mask she's used to. "oh, god forbid," she says dryly, shaking her head. "you should've volunteered him to come instead of you. i think that's the kind of scary the producers want. "pretending to make a face, she bumps kiyong right back. "no, no demons. just the normal stalking." she waves her hand noncommittally. "i got a bunch of weird things in the mail around the time you guys wrapped up the movie. you know, hey, tell us what happened or else, or give us the songs or else. like i have any control over what that studio does."
crazy fans with too much time on their hands existed all the time, she just never thought she'd actually have to deal with them. it was all that stupid song's fault. sometimes she missed that middling place of obscurity, where at least she could do whatever she wanted. or picked a more boring type of music to make, like her father. she doesn't mention the studio, the song, the sleeping. she glances at him and thinks maybe he knows a little about that too; he looks more tired than she remembers. she can't tell how much of it is just the environment.
"why'd you drop your thing? was it too normal after the circus bells they made you wear?" she leans back and raises an eyebrow pointedly at him. last she remembers, kiyong's an actor. she'd seen him in costume on the set and learned an association to kerosene there, but can't imagine that was the only reason someone would put themselves through a literal circus.
"don't tell me it was somehow worse than this movie." a pause. she has a habit of underestimating things. "was it?"
SUNHEE ENTERS THE DINING ROOM ON BAD TIMING. by the time she sees that the traveling camera crew has finally released their last victim, it's too late and she's standing alone and unanchored by the entrance, just easy pickings.
the one holding the camera turns towards her, and sunhee can practically feel its crosshairs locking on her. she instantly whirls around.
anyone. just find anyone, just look busy, just blend in—
"hey!" the sound of her own voice grates her ears. she's overly bright as she maneuvers into someone else's line of sight, purposefully turning away from the approaching cameras.
this person looks familiar. not just saw-you-once-on-set familiar, but sunhee swears she's seen her face plastered online before.
"wait, are you nari? as in, NARINA?" her exaggerated smile melts away into a genuinely stunned look for a moment as she takes in jeon nari in the flesh. "dude, i love your stuff. i heard they signed you on for this movie and hoped they'd have us work with you for the music video, but i guess i'm the only one who saw the vision." she glances behind nari, wincing when she spots the cameraman still heading in her direction. "uh, sorry, but don't look behind you. i'm trying to get away from this camera crew. i think they're interviewing people before dinner."
@/throwaway22266555 said: did you truly read the full contract before signing on for the film?
@/cr4shc0urse said:
i did lol but like. 2 weeks after we signed it? but its whatever. i was dealing with my a bunch of other shit then, so honestly if i HAD read it at the beginning and saw all the strings attached i probably would've said no, but. it ended up being good for the band. so. i guess i dont regret it that much? that feels weird to say
@/okyong: if you were a guitar, what kind of guitar would you be. :) :) :) :) :)
@/cr4shc0urse said:
kiyong wtf
my mother would probably say one of those triple neck ones, and iiiiii would prob agree. theyre bulky and completely unmanageable, but if you chopped one of them off, its still a useful guitar yk? actually one day ill convince my bandmates to try it
"I'M SURE IT'S JUST SOME WILD ANIMAL." words that would, and should, be taken as a warning in virtually any other situation, but she can't tell yet if heesung's like the others, who would probably leap with joy at a wild animal being the source of the weird noises in the dark and not some vengeful spirit.
this particular weird noise had sounded like an unnatural cross between croaking and hissing. the pathway that led from town up to the hill of the overlook was relatively well-lit with streetlamps on either side, but in between, where those halos of light didn't overlap, the night only looked starker. a fence separated the path from the trees, but sunhee can easily imagine an animal jumping over, or even through it. she doesn't say this to heesung, though. she's the one who'd asked if he wanted to come with her to scrounge for something more decent to eat in town, and unfortunately, she was raised to follow through on her commitments.
"come on, i don't remember the walk being that long. we're probably five, ten minutes away, tops." she glances at heesung, schooling her expression into casual indifference. no need to look worried about the noise, and the dark, and whatever the fuck was in it. "if anything jumps out, i'll throw the kimbap at it and we run." she shakes the small plastic bag she's been carrying. "but, if you do get hurt—i mean, if we get hurt, we could sue the show and make money."
SUNHEE HAS BEEN TO PLENTY OF PARTIES BEFORE, but only a few where she had to be trussed up like a prize turkey. the last one in recent memory was when some representative from the studio brought her and the others from the band out for dinner. in retrospect, they probably picked that fancy restaurant with the fancy bar and had them all in fancy clothes to really drive the point in, that you'll be working with one of the biggest names in the industry right now, that don't you know a lifeline when you've been tossed one, but all it did was sow an angry seed of resentment in her that night. it had been a week after the funeral; one week, and she still felt the phantom clench of the black dress she'd worn, like hands around her neck. she lasted about half an hour into the dinner party before she had to excuse herself, and rode the train back to her shitty apartment with people staring at her cocktail dress.
but she's a fast learner. when that letter said to bring formalwear, she'd made sure to pack things she could breathe in. a panic attack in a place with a hundred cameras and the only way out through a train that ran twice a day was not happening on her watch.
her reflection stares back at her in the elevator now. black silk shirt, charcoal blazer, matching trousers. her hair falls in choppy waves around her shoulders. she tries a smile. her father smiles back.
the elevator rings and slides open, and in comes a wave of music somewhere down the hall. sunhee steps out, and she instantly spots a small camera crew positioned near the doors to the ballroom like a pack of vultures. she takes a breath and reminds herself it's nothing she hasn't done before.
down the hall, through the doors: the crew don't say a word to her, but the camera latches onto her for the whole walk. the ballroom opens up to a tall, vast room, with the bar on one side and an elevated stage on the other. a few people on their way to the dining room give her passing smiles. the band is still setting up, which is odd when she thought she'd heard them playing, but with nothing there to interest her, she moves towards the bar instead. thankfully, one thing works out in her favor tonight: wonshik is already there.
"come here often?" she says by way of greeting, sidling up next to him. she flashes wonshik a smile that'll look casual enough on camera, making a show of looking around at the bar in case there are any more. "this is kind of nostalgic, in a fucked up way. we're just missing kiyong." meeting wonshik at a bar isn't a new thing, but meeting wonshik in formalwear is. funny how that works. most of her memories with wonshik are fevered blurs — good, but blurs — and now she's sharing a bathroom with him. "can we get drunk before dinner, or do we have to do this sober?"
[...]
it's too much. she huffs out a breath, taking another drag, mouth twisting into something like a smile, raising an eyebrow, teasing. "we could hash something else out for tv ratings, you know. if you forgive me, and you c'mere."
somehow, minji apologizing is worse than her just saying that sunhee was right and they had run their course. a morbid part of her wishes that minji had. the fate of every relationship was just a schrödinger's cat. most times, she didn't care what she'd find when she opened the box, but there were the rare ones that made her hesitate out of— out of—?
anyway. she had already performed the exercise of thinking about it, rationalizing it, drinking through it, and then, finally, killing all the things she felt for it. accept the worst case scenario, open the box, and breathe a sigh of relief when she finds it done without a doubt. she can close the box back up, and, because a killed thing can't be un-killed, she won't have to wonder if it was still alive in there anymore.
but now it's different. minji is extending an olive branch, so it's different.
it crosses sunhee's mind that she can be the one to kill it. if she doesn't, god knows she'll just be closing the box back up and letting it sit for another week, another month, or however long until the next time they're due to look inside and check if it's still breathing. someone would have to be fucked up to willingly want to go through that mindgame over and over again, she thinks grimly, and yet here she is, taking two steps closer to the bench. the statue's fine. if it was going to do anything, it would have done it by now.
"i'll forgive you because 'a hard month' sounds like an understatement." sunhee crosses her arms, taking in the scratch marks etched down minji's face. "if this is all it was, you could have just told me. 'hey, sorry, i can't make the appointment, i got mauled by a...' what did you do?" it doesn't look like a human's, but it doesn't quite look like an animal's either. its jaggedness vaguely reminds her of the tattoos she's let minji leave on her before—the kind that she was going to let her again. permanence was difficult to stomach, but for some reason easier with minji.
"kind of makes you look badass." despite herself, sunhee's voice softens. she looks down at minji in front of her and her hand twitches, almost reaching for her cheek. "does it still hurt?"
[...]
“There’s probably somewhere in town to buy them. I bet like, seventy-five percent of the old and new production crew smokes.” Maybe more. All he has to do is be a little discreet about it, he’s not a big enough name for anyone to want to bother looking all that closely at him. Nobody is waiting around curious to see how Kiyong takes his coffee in the morning, it should likely make him feel bitter, but it doesn’t. He likes his privacy. She keeps talking and he blinks his eyes hard, twice, to try and wake himself up enough for a conversation. “God. The fucking dinner. I should’ve backed out the moment they told everyone to pack formal wear.” He lets his head fall against the wall at his back, adds more ash to the tiny pile growing somewhere near his thigh. “No way they don’t serve alcohol, right?” Kiyong hadn’t actually bothered to read most of the information provided to him, maybe he should already know the answer to that question.
kiyong looks and sounds tired. in a way, that's relieving; she won't have to kick up her energy to match. her own shoulders slouch once kiyong leans back against the wall, and she has to rub her eyes to keep yawning from just looking at him. a second later, there's a rustle as she pulls off her jacket and lays it out behind her to lay on, looking up at all that dark. "mm, true. i don't know how else you'd pass the time in a place like this."
self reflection? self healing? writing? it should probably be writing. this is a decent place to exist away from city noise and do something for herself, but sunhee thinks that people sometimes have to be born a certain way to do certain things. maybe if she'd been born a different way, with different blueprints for the way her existence would unfold, she would've spent this night in her room good and grateful for the silence. maybe. digging deeper into that would require her to be less sober, and she's trying not to fall into a substance dependency before they even get through a week, so she chooses to focus on the snowfall of ash that kiyong sends to the ground instead.
the smell of nicotine is weirdly comforting. it makes her think of the recording studio, of her father having a morning smoke at hidden times in the morning he didn't think she would see. sunhee's fingers twitch over her ratty band shirt, plucking out the opening notes of an old song. she wonders how this place sounds to kiyong; she wonders if he hears the music in it sometimes.
but that would be crazy talk.
"there is a bar in that ballroom," she murmurs, remembering the staff she'd seen going in and out of the doors. "i saw them bringing crates in there yesterday, so i'm hoping they didn't just blow the budget on a hundred hidden cameras and got us something good. actually, you know," she pauses, "it has to be good, because good alcohol will get people talking about the kind of stuff they want on broadcast." she tilts her head aside, eyes sliding over to kiyong with the kind of amusement that implies she doesn't put any stock in it at all. "what about you? anything scary in the last six months that oh kiyong's adoring fans are dying to hear about?"
SCENE. several days into arrival week, at the HOTEL. MUSE has given themselves a minor injury, and SUNHEE's the only one around to see.
"WELL, MAYBE THEY'LL SPIN A SIDEPLOT OUT OF THIS and you'll get more screentime," sunhee points out with a wry grin.
it doesn't look too bad. what was a horror reunion without some blood and flesh wounds? "uh, here. you should probably run that under some water or something. is your bathroom near here?" she hands over her towel, silently apologizing to the staff for the stain that that's going to leave on the pristine white cloth.
the whole reason she'd gotten lost in this place for the last two hours was to find that stupid towel, but it would have been more awkward if she'd just walked past someone clearly hurt. her good old father always warned her about sowing good karmic energy anyway, and she can hear his rattling voice in the back of her mind, pointing out that she's literally staying in a horror movie town. sunhee, what if it's you someday?
unlikely, but the blood isn't a pretty sight. she's not squeamish, but her imagination's been running overactive, and morbid, for the last year, and it can't help but paint the possibilities worse and worse. better to see it through now. "what even happened? and don't say anything about the curse, or i'm taking the towel back and letting you bleed out."
ABOUT TEN MINUTES BEFORE SHE STARTS DOWN THE LONG PATH INTO TOWN, sunhee remembers that she doesn't have to go so far to be alone.
it's taken about three days for her new reality to set in and one more for the inevitable claustrophobia. her mother had always wondered for her if a change of scenery would be nice, if it would help with the writing or the band these days, and in a fit of wistfulness sunhee used to wonder if she was right and that the answers to her problems were just an airline ticket way. a part of her had looked forward to the show for that. but this is little like what she'd been expecting.
she glances up at the hotel. at night, it looks older than the website said it did, and it seems to peer down on things on the ground. not enough to be noticeable, but enough to be unsettling. sunhee chalks this up to secondhand madness and turns and continues her way off.
kiyong had shown her this spot early on when he found her trying to bury a camera in one of the flower pots in the back. sunhee isn't embarrassed to admit that she's already been back a couple of times since, mostly to answer her mother's text messages without being paranoid that a camera was zooming in on her screen, but tonight she hasn't been able to get any service. it's good and it's bad: she has nothing to do.
so when she ducks out of the last camera's line of sight and finds kiyong already at the spot, she's mildly relieved.
"oh. hey." she doesn't know anything too meaningful about kiyong outside the kinds of crowds he used to hang out in, but she does know that he's one of the only other people here being sane about things lately. that's a good enough reason to not write him off, for now. "aren't you going to run out if you keep smoking this much?" sunhee drops down next to him with a grunt, clicking her phone's flashlight off at the same time. the homescreen informs her that her message has failed to send again. "i think you'll need it more for the dinner," she says dryly, eyeing his lighter.
SUNHEE HAS NEEDED A SMOKE SINCE SHE FIRST GOT ON THAT PLANE. her first time flying since she was 8 and trying to travel with her mother and finding out the hard way that she couldn't handle it, and it's for a reunion with these people she barely knows. what a waste.
she's sure that the resentment is mutual. she felt it from the tv crew all day, the snide little looks they threw her in direction every time they caught her poking at one of the not-so-hidden cameras, and that was fine. this isn't anything that she isn't already used to.
but this isn't just the usual anymore — she doesn't just have cameras shoved in her face, she's got cameras shoved in her face while they've backed her into some glass box, and maybe this was a mistake. maybe she should've called in sick or insane like the smart ones did.
she goes to the courtyard because she figures that if she's lucky, the crew will buy into this local hocus-pocus about the statues coming to life at night, and they'll save this place to be mic'd up for last. she still has some time: the sun is just now brushing the horizon, smearing orange low across the sky. the rest of it is a dark, impassive navy, dotted with faint stars starting to show.
she isn't looking where she's going, so she doesn't see minji until it's too late. oh, that's funny. that's fucking hilarious.
"sorry, didn't think anyone was here." she's dealt with too much today already, and there's been a minji-shaped rock lodged in her brain since the last time they talked and it gives her a headache every time she thinks about it. sunhee pivots, starts to walk back the way she'd come, except—
"actually." she pivots again. she frowns. she looks at minji, just existing on this courtyard bench, and frowns harder. "are we good?"
she doesn't think she's been on this side of this particular conversation before. it's humbling, and unbearable for other reasons. she hates the sound of the words to her own ears and the implied request for reassurance when there was nothing to be reassured about. they were fucking, and then they weren't. her reassurance should have been that month of radio silence, actually. aren't there worse ways to fall out with somebody?
"if we've got a problem, i'm not hashing it out for tv ratings or whatever. i just want to know so i don't make any more assumptions." she casts a wary look around the courtyard, her eyes lingering on the weeping woman. something about the deep clench of her shoulders, the leading lines of her mouth wrought into a sob behind her hands, makes sunhee's skin crawl.
hiii again, this is my (duha) second muse bae sunhee ('96, she/they), guitarist of last light & family disappointment. like i mentioned in my other intro, you can like this post if you're interested in plotting a thread with her (feel free to choose between her or taejun hehe)! i'm down to pre-plot something established or go off of chem. sunhee in particular is more open ended since she wasn't present on set as much, but she definitely gets around, so there's a decent chance they've already into each other off set or will see her around now (threat).
fun fact: she did, in fact, rent out her own studio to get drunk & high in while she was supposed to be helping her bandmates get the album together for the movie. this comes during her tailspin after her father's unexpected passing, which happened to break news around the same time their band is signed for the soundtrack, so her fallout with that collided spectacularly with their film involvement.
TOP 3 SONGS CREDITED TO BAE SUNHEE
"late bloom" - performed by last light, lyrics credited under sunhee's name. the lyrics allude to a narrator who has taken too long to realize their feelings for a girl, likening the realization to a flower's late bloom.
"friends in high places" - performed by last light, lyrics credited under sunhee's name. the lyrics play on the notion of having "friends in high places," though instead of it referring to having friends with social/political power, it refers to friends who are better-adjusted and in "higher" places in life.
"so anyway" - released as an unofficial recording on her personal twitter account in september 2024. a slow, dissonant rock, considered a departure from last light's sound but not entirely from her personality. the lyrics are through the perspective of someone talking to objects in their apartment as they're moving out.
TIMELINE
born to her loving parents bae jungho & bae heejin. they separate on amicable terms when she's 2, and they remain such responsible parents about it that later on, sunhee can't really point the cause of her neuroses towards a fractured family.
she just happens to become closer with her father. her mother is a decorated researcher and travels frequently for conferences, so sunhee grows up mostly with her dad. bae jungho is a retired classical musician, who was once a child prodigy. not a huge name with the normies, but definitely in the classical music world.
there are great expectations for sunhee at a young age, but again, her parents are remarkably responsible and remind her, over and over, that she can be anything she wants, that she can take her time, that she's allowed to make mistakes. sunhee thinks that's easy to say for people who are born gifted & so effortless about their contributions to Society. despite her parents' joint nurturing, she grows up troubled and constantly feeling like she's running out of time to be remarkable.
her father was a prodigy at 12. at 21, sunhee is sneaking out to rock concerts and hooking up with girls with cool guitars, pretending she doesn't care that she's probably disappointing her parents. she doesn't. they remind her constantly that they could never be disappointed in her, so. so.
the band saves her, in a way. gives her accountability, something to be responsible for that isn't just her hungover self. she latches, but soon her self sabotaging streak rears its ugly head.
at 27, her father passes. he leaves her most of his fortune, a nice little nest egg that's supposed to help her pursue her dreams. to his dying breath, he's a good father.
sunhee uses that money to rent the studio.
she still has it rented to her name to this day. she's had a piano brought in since; she's been starting to get back into piano again, as a side project from the band. sometimes, when she crashes out in the studio, she swears she can hear her father's favorite pieces playing. like he used to before, they help lull her to sleep.
IMPRESSIONS ON & OFF SET
whenever she visited the set, she gave the impression of being in a hurry. if you asked if she was busy, she would bluntly but honestly tell you no. she seemed unaware of the brusque nature she gives off.
off set, she's unfortunately a cliche of a troubled rockstar hurtling towards self destruction. sunhee seems aware of that, though. the bad publicity doesn't get to her --- not because she doesn't care, but because she seems to already know everything they say as a fact about herself.
makes friends fast, lets herself lose them fast.
abides by two adages: 1) people can't be disappointed in you if you set their expectations low from the beginning, and 2) no one really knows what the fuck they're doing with their lives, and the best you can do is sometimes go in and out of each other's and help make it good for a little while. you don't live the kind of life that people would want to end up in. if people go, then it's for the better, especially for them.
feels weirded out about everyone's reactions to this "curse." to her, she didn't experience anything, bc she just chalked up the "hearing your dead dad play piano to you" as part of her grief at the time. very steven crain from hill house the show about it, outspoken about the very real possibility that maybe they are all just psychologically troubled, not haunted.
CONNECTIONS
in place of a plots page for now, here are some pre-established connections she can have if anyone's interested:
closed. (fem locked, 27+ locked) regular fwbs who started seeing each other after the movie. sunhee is pretty strict about having no strings attached, but this might be the longest genuine connection she's had with someone (read: she doesn't immediately turn around and walk away when she sees them in a public setting). it's a little weird now that they'll see each other regularly, but they're both gotten good at ignoring everything else in favorite of a quick thrill.
(fem locked, 27+ locked) childhood friends, potentially a first love. i would love if this connection formed when they were younger and sunhee was less of a wreck as she is now. she would've been sweet on muse, though ultimately her personality would have never allowed her to actually pursue it. they reconnected at some point during the 2024 filming, but time has changed their dynamic --- we could plot out exactly how it did. ideally i'd love for the love that sunhee had for this muse to have transcended romantic love by now, and instead this muse just holds a special place in sunhee's heart. she'd be rather protective of them in present day.
a lyrical muse. one of the many inspirations for a song that sunhee wrote for their band...but inspiration can take so many forms. i'd love if this muse actually inspired one of her angriest songs LMAO, out of a pure hatred (onesided or mutual).
an "apprentice." apprentice is a loose term here. this muse would be someone, likely younger, who either has an interest in music, last light, or just thinks sunhee is cool in general (oh god). unfortunately, sunhee is not a good influence and regularly exposes muse to partying, alcohol, drugs, and other generally unsavory practices.
(25+ locked) a mutual bad influence. someone who shares a fascination in seeing just how bad things can get. they fuel each other's self destructive tendencies, are the worst enablers of their worst habits...but also find a weird companionship in waking up absolutely shitfaced from it together afterwards. the habit only picks up now that they're on this reunion together.
a stranger who knows you too well. they crossed paths during one of sunhee's crashouts post-filming. emotions were running high for both of them, and maybe they ended up almost or for real getting into trouble together that night, but it ended in them having an unexpected heart-to-heart about the things they were going through at the time. part of the reason they let their guards down was because both assumed they'd never see each other again after that, but, well...here they are now, still carrying around those little broken pieces of each other's hearts nbd.
fellow family disappointments. nursing any feelings of guilt, doom, fatalism, nihilism, or anything of the like? sunhee wants to hash it out over some alcohol --- or not. are they as emotionally stunted as her? that's okay, let's bring on the alcohol anyway.
"roommate." the one she's sharing a bathroom with for this trip... this is open to anyone and doesn't have to be pre-plotted, but if you DO want to plot smth specific involving them being neighbors then just let me know. :]
“you think you’re doing this because you’re loyal. but you’re not. you’re just scared.”
for your own good - leah horlick, mafia: definitive edition (hangar 13), bloodsport - yves olade, a primer for the small weird loves - richard siken, the end of poetry - ada limón, velvet hounds - aimee seu, as consciousness is harnessed to flesh: journals and notebooks (1964-1980) - susan sontag, mafia: definitive edition (hangar 13), boyish - japanese breakfast
