Yook Sungjae (S.J.) Age: 20 Omega | Pack Jongno “We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.”
1) clean and disinfect the area
2) dress the wound with a sterile pad or gauze
Stolen are chances but without coincidence nothing ever happens. Routines can be established or disrupted, nothing is ever guaranteed. There’s a familiar figure with a cup of americano. Is it nostalgia or sentiment that compels you to join him? Either way you do. It’s been a while, never makes it past your lips as you observe the individual between sips of coffee. Here is where you try to read his recent activity from the length of the nails, here is where you try to deduce his well being based on the creases in his shirt.
“You seem to be doing well,” slips, barely processed by the brain. Rarely are words unmeasured, consequences not considered. Few are those who can render you careless. You blame sentiment, you blame affection, but nothing can reel words back in so you continue: “A pack seems to do you good.”
Give yourself away but you’ve only ever wanted to wish him well.
Keep reading
You look up, compelled by reflex alone in such a short amount of time offered to you, as the chair is pulled out from neath your crossed ankles, feet falling with an abrupt thud to the floor. You’re wearing the old white converse with little speckles of dirt near the toes, a blood stain on the left ankle that you tried so desperately to get out with bleach, but it remained, stubborn and faded into the cloth. It’s rude of you in the first place, you reason, to treat public belongings like you would the items in your own home, but then you remember that you share a house with multiple people and the guilt subsides. Surely it was habit that made you so careless, but that’s a lie. You care a lot for someone your age, and normally for the smaller things because you never paid them much attention before they and the rest of your life had come to a standstill and then switched directions. Of course, it wasn’t up to you to decide whether your path was forward bound; sometimes you feel yourself ground under a heel and it’s then that you think you’re going downhill. Simplistic judgement, no expectations leads to no disappointments. Though the familiar faces tell you otherwise and you think maybe you’ve traveled in circles up to this point, extremely unobservant so each lap has new sights as if it were your first.
It goes as such: you meet a stranger’s eyes and think you know him because your heart feels like it’s knuckle deep in the earth, pounding in a warm rhythm, heavy and laborious sounds driving your internal compass to the timbre of his voice every time he opens his mouth to speak. Then you inhale after what seems like a period of time that you forgot you needed oxygen to live, and it’s in his eyes, gentle and a little tired around the corners, heavy lids falling low and relaxed over the faint glimmer of brightened windows reflecting from behind him.
You open your mouth to say something, anything, but the breath escapes you.
IX.
You lock yourself in the basement of the house you’ve been residing in for almost a year now. It’s a ritual you’ve been getting into while the others tend to their own because the rate of self-acceptance is vastly differing to yours. They respect that for the most part and you let them know not to remove the bookcase from in front of the door, regardless of what they hear. This is the price you’re willing to pay. You wonder why it is that you feel as alone as you do, back against a wall of cement, one harshly barred window draining moonlight onto the floor in stripes from over your head. You count four, growing brighter the higher their source rises into the sky, the one who’s accompanying stars you’ll never see on nights like this. It’s a luxury you’ve forced yourself to refuse even after all of the pain passes and you lie mangled in your new bones. Even after you spend the hours crying to yourself and your voice no longer holds human tonality, when your own mourning is something unrecognizable.
You don’t want to be alone
The reassurance is something ephemeral
It’s fireflies on summer nights, fractal dreams
Of someone worth following into ruin
But they never show up
Come sunrise the bookcase is removed, the clock restarted.
VIII.
You wait under a canopy of cedar branches and the rain is still soaking into your clothes, thinking that some part of you has surely gone insane, but you’re still willing to prove yourself wrong so you stand out there for hours, expecting something to change but never receiving anything beyond the sinking of your heart when truth is unavoidable. No one is coming to meet you. You’re too proud to call out to him and then you weigh the mess of syllables on your tongue. Like feathers. Like easily breakable objects, things you could only ever imagine.
You lack even a name to place and again he escapes you.
VII.
It’s a constant debate of whether you tell someone about the wolf that begins to rise in your memories, never a prominent figure but interwoven in your life nonetheless to a point where the aspect is unshakable. You see it everywhere, the moments where paths crossed, consciousness spilling out all that seemed suppressed until now. The possibility of telling someone is offered to you on the daily: playing chess and you want to say you’ve never been so desperate to see a pair of eyes before in your life and that something must be wrong with you; video-games and you’re distracted because it would be so easy to just ask the person beside you if they’ve ever seen what you’ve seen but you get cotton in your mouth at the worst of times. You assume you would be tired after a while of harboring an individual inside of you like a secret, but then you think that it’s only fair you trip on your own tongue, cannot possibly conjure the words from between your lips. Your body is telling you something, that you’re selfish, a coward —
That maybe you owe him this much.
VI.
When you see him again and play becomes a little rougher than usual ; your incisors come down on the tip of his ear with more force than they would if you were just rough-housing. Of course, you brush it off as an accident after the fact, instantly pressing it to the side of his head with your cheek because you don’t want him to hurt, even less, you don’t want to be the one that hurts him, but you needed to, you reason. The gap between you and a fleeting figure in the crowd can be closed instantly by the identification of this simplistic detail. Again, you come to terms that you are a selfish creature, curious and tip-toeing desperation. He closes his eyes and after staring for what feels like hours at what you’ve done just to get to know him outside of this; outside of pressing into his flank, tail tucking between you and the heavy slump you offer into his side that is honored with a huff, you lie your head over your paws, wanting to shake his hand. You want to hear the sound of his voice to see if the pull of his words resonate as loudly as his presence and you think it will, almost certain on the thought. A whine goes unheard, quiet in the back of your throat as it dies into the exchange of slumbering breath.
V.
You wonder if he sees you some days, sitting alone in public places as if waiting for something to happen that will change your life again and sweep the new normal from under your feet. Equally, you wonder if he cares enough, if he ever cared for you like how he lets on. That’s a horrible way to live, you think, to doubt care the moment it steps up to your doorstep, but you also remember the aftermath of what could happen when you let it in without knowledge of its authenticity. You don’t wish to live your life blinded, not anymore and if he wields a knife to your throat where the other’s marks have yet to heal, you wish to at least see it coming.
IV.
It’s another restless night and another heartache looming in your chest, waiting to destroy you again with its memories, the ones that were little and overlooked so they feel new to you now, edges sharp and lacerating as opposed to worn down by repetition. Soon comes the tempests of a disconnected voice telling you that you’re worth something more than gold and the tears you’re shedding, that your existence intertwined with their own was something bigger than the two of you so you stared into it like it was the sun. But when the earth is bathed in moonlight and the places where warmth infested are now hollow, you begin to wonder how something so profound could become anything but that.
You start blaming people and things that are meaningless.
You start to blame yourself for happenings that were out of your control.
He’s a savior from the perpetual sinking feeling, you think, when he finds you and his unspoken reassurance is clear enough to disperse all that’s festering in the corridors of your mind. The fragility dissipates; when he’s watching over you the ground comes up to meet your feet again. Sleep finds you instead of leading you on a chase and you don’t know how to say you’re thankful to a stranger because you don’t know him as much as you’d like to believe you do.
Because when you wake he’s there, even when you expect him not to be.
III.
Focusing gets harder, mind wandering back to the appearance of a nameless form as it wavers in and out of reality. You hear that sometimes people form imaginary figures to fill the roles they need, and that this habit is much more prevalent in individuals who have experienced traumatic events. It’s an interesting notion, that this role has not manifested itself as a human.
but rather the monster in yourself that you’re trying so hard to avoid.
II.
This is where their steps are too quick for you to keep up and somehow you always remain in the back where it feels like you’ve carved out a permanent niche. You don’t speak up or make any attempt to let them know how you’re struggling, maybe because you believe they see it and refuse to pity someone like you or maybe because, if they don’t, if the lack of acknowledgment is in fact ignorance, you would rather them keep it.
The last time you felt as if you hadn’t belonged somewhere is long forgotten because it wasn’t significant to you, the moments of silence, in no way, shaped you into who you are.
Or who you were.
Class clown bound by social constructs.
There was a love note in your locker saying you had pretty eyes and you blushed.
Then you threw it in the trash.
This karma scalds your tongue when you watch with your teeth laced together, biting back the feeling of abandonment that’s resurfacing. You want to be noticed in the way that quenches your need for acceptance, want it to be tangible. The words settle there, scraping over the roof of your mouth, in wait. “I need help and I need you to understand and I need just one fucking person, just one, to un-crinkle my edges and read my paragraphs like I mean something to them.”
You wouldn’t have imagined someone to walk into your life quite literally, pressing into your side the moment you stumble and making you believe in some semblance of miracles. The way you look at him encapsulates a benediction, taking root in you; your eyes reflect him.
This means something, surely, how in the clarity he remains until you have to part.
And even then you look back, keep looking back until his silhouette melts into the scenery.
I.
It’s raining on a weekend in September and the men around you carry black umbrellas with wooden handles. The one over your head has silver boning, you can tell as you move along the side-streets with how the grey light catches its points. It’s these little things that you’re holding onto in desperation too keep yourself from slipping, to keep your feet moving under your body, to keep yourself from crying in front of these strangers who couldn’t care less about you.
You’re another mistake, you think, another pity; they have a look that says it all, that they’ve done this before too many times to count and your throat keeps tightening around the corners.
Just don’t cry. The pretty auburn stare is already too much, too heavy. You think he can see right through you and the transparency makes you tremble.
Don’t cry.
Nulla.
They kiss your throat and you want their lips to brand your skin, nothing so perfect has ever graced you before and it’s only human of you to want to keep them there, gentle, warm, a monument to the day they dared to intertwine with you. When he laughs the sound triggers your breath to expel, fingers knotting into the back of his collar. He says you’re everything, not perfect but no one wants perfect and you know this; it doesn’t need to be clarified, but everything is such a vast expression and the profundity of becoming that for an individual makes your head spin a little like one too many drinks going to your better judgement. You could say you’re in love, but the sentiment barely breaches the surface.
You think, maybe one day.
But that day never comes.
I will not find rest in this blood, for my sins will surely follow me.
I’m too scared to open my eyes; death has become my reflection
{ ddxjunhyung
It’s perpetual feeling that you’ve left in me, a little like ice water or sitting in an uncomfortable position no matter which way you shift your weight. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s never been something I’ve taken a liking to no matter what way I look at it, what light I so desperately tried to put it under, and a name would only smother it’s profundity because I would like to think that if it’s resonating so loudly within me it has to be for some reason beyond me blowing things out of proportion. You would know I’ve had that habit of inflating reality to my liking because you would catch me highlighting parts in my homework that had nothing to do with the lesson. You said I did it because the words probably struck emotions in me that helped me remember, but I don’t remember studying them much whenever you were around so maybe it was all pointless now that I think of it. The act of trying to focus on anything but the sound of you humming some off-sounding tune during pre-calculus that faintly resembled my morning alarm, your ringed fingers reaching into my backpack to pull out your things. I carried them for you because I thought it was representative for something beyond the two of us. All of that poetic bull-shit that never caught your interest anyways, but I still tried.
It didn’t matter the subject, at some point in time all that I paid attention to was you, all that I put effort into was keeping you around.
I say this now thinking that perhaps I had always, somewhere, known you were going to leave one way or another but the cold reality was that I had no clue and you probably knew this like you managed to know everything else about me; it’s not like I was that hard of a book to read. I talked too much for my own good, tried to conform to the social norms so my class would recognize me and give me a title of importance, got in trouble more than I’d like to admit because my words somehow became the focal point of my popularity whether it was nonsensical or sharpened and I used them to make myself known. It should have been a sign when you sat next to me and I went speechless. Not just for a day, but for multiple, just trying to plan out how to introduce myself without stumbling over my own damned name. Then I did and you laughed it off for the both of us, loud and filled with this warm, heavy air like you were waiting for that moment to happen eventually and had been storing up all of the kindness in your system to give it to me and keep me from choking on my tongue. The class looked at us and I think they must have felt what I felt then, surprised, a little in love. Honestly, it could have also been that you were so quiet up until that moment, intimidating in that forbidden fruit sort of way. You would call me weird for comparing you to that in time, sitting on the hood of your car. The streetlights made your eyes so depthless. I swear I saw my death sitting smack-dab in the middle of them
I said I liked you that night, and not some friendly peace offering, but as if I were signing my soul away. I said it and imagined how the world could dissolve away under our feet and I wouldn’t have noticed; I said it like it was burning right through my tongue and I needed to get it out in the open before it destroyed me.
And here I am in the end, or at least what feels like the end, without you, without the world under my feet.
Destroyed.
When the moon is fullest I feel this the most; along with my bones dislocating and my spine bending in all of the places it shouldn’t, along with all of the pain that I’ve unfortunately had to learn how to stomach because of you, I begin to feel that rush in the back of my mind that reminds me what it’s like to have everything ripped from you in an instant, that reminds me of what it felt to trust you with everything I had. This is the worst part, I conclude, because I can’t necessarily control just when it floods my system or not and when I’m flashing back to the sienna of your eyes as moonlight begins to misshape my skin and I start to smell you in every piece of clothing I own, I can’t contain the part of me that wants to rip you out of each breathing fibril of my existence because you made a home in me that you left hollow. I come back to myself each sunrise to discover other parts of me missing. The light-bulbs dying, all of the heat draining out of the crevices in my windows and I really fucking hate it because I have no say.
I’ve never had a say.
There’s a moon out tonight that reminds me of you and somewhere I hear you laughing like we’ve met for the first time all over again and there’s this wolf that’s speckled gray between the clearing of a few poplar trees with eyes that fracture under starlight like I know yours did. I’m not saying it’s you, but on the off chance that it is I hope you can feel the devices you’ve given me in the wake of all that you’ve taken. They’re a little like you, so used to tearing apart the things they touch.
You don’t understand how angry I am.
I want my life back, my trust, my childish stupidity.
I don’t care if it made me ignorant or superficial or half of the person I am now
That’s not the point.
I want you to know the feeling of dying in more ways than one.
The wolf isn’t moving and I’m not sure what happened but it’s eyes are open and I cant close them and it’s reminding me of you, but I can see myself now so much clearer than I used to. I don’t want to come to this reality where the reflection isn’t someone I recognize, where I died and became death in the same sweep. I don’t want to look back at all of my highlighted words and see a life uncharacteristic of the person who held the pen.
The sky yields a color of sweet-cream, clouds saturated with an orange pigment overhead as they dissipate and feather out in the subsiding heat, nightfall only a few hours in the making, clearing out a canvas for its stars. Sungjae finds it strange that he’s in the parking lot of a museum, standing a little dazedly in the vacancy between a souped up motorcycle and a sedan with a long stripe keyed from bumper to bumper, staring expectantly at the double-doors of the establishment like he’s waiting for something particularly exciting to happen.
He normally wouldn’t correlate this location and description in the same scenario.
This however, isn’t because he was expecting some sort of show, but rather because he has no idea why he’s here and maybe that’s where the strange part comes in that triggers the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end, anticipation making a home far too large for one person; it occurs to him that he doesn’t remember any point up to this and what little he can recall is stuck under a flood of opaque waters, clarity breaching for a second and sinking in cellophane flickers. Tongue over his lips and he convinces himself that he tastes the sea in between a phantom hand on his shoulder, the smell of autumn, the amber of maple trees suspended in eyes that cut corners in his chest. He knows this because he still feels the ache behind his ribs like they never healed up right, like it happened yesterday but he doesn’t know how or why; a mystery bruise on his consciousness that he’s touching for the first time in a long time.
Inside the museum, after convincing himself to follow the leaden feeling, heavy on his shoulders and magnetizing his shoes to the ground, he notices the intensity lessen in a fashion similar to letting air out of a balloon, draining into the distractions around him as his eyes hook onto each individual piece for a sanctioned amount of time. Absentminded admiration, underlying relief giving the color back to his face and the warmth in his eyes when he furthers down exhibit hallways, loitering in some to catch up to himself so the pictures and sculptures could redefine into shapes and distinct images rather than the blurs bleeding past his peripheral, chasing away whatever lie pungent and thrumming under his skin until it’s breathing his air, alive at the base of his throat, curling around the fire in his sternum. Soon there’s no place to turn to that he hasn’t seen, and he thinks quietly that he had trapped himself from the start, maybe it’s a masochistic desire he needs to come to terms with, maybe a reminder to stop running away from these memories; he’s made of so many mistakes and if history were actually something that repeated itself, he thinks with a weary exhale, then he would surely have something to learn from them.
That’s when he smells it, whatever the source is that strings pictures together behind his eyelids. A warm, honeyed scent one would find when the leaves are turning, charcoal skies and the roads slick, mirror-like with the rain. Then the hood of an umbrella drawn over his head, he recalls footsteps, plenty of them but only one pair keeping up with his, strides in rhythm. He’s sure they were long, purposeful when his own appeared listless and when it melts away again he’s staring at the silhouette of someone in front of a cased display, their back turned to him and only a few meters out of reach. From this spot he can see himself in the reflection of meticulously cleaned plexiglass, perhaps a little too looming in the backdrop with his thumbs hooked into his pockets. Lingering, the sweetness pools a weight in his stomach just as another one intermingles, metallic and telltale.
The reflection fractures as another figure slips between them, frostbroth lulled over their skin. Sungjae nearly goes weak in the knees and not in the way one would from shock but the nerves that rack him between crouching strangers and the misplaced feeling of warmth ensnaring his shoulders ( fingers squeeze shoulders, a pretty accent lulls the fear of a lost boy)
You’re going to be okay.
The world is devoured by red.
He thinks he can feel life spilling into his hands.
Everything is going to be okay.
The florescent flutter of restroom lights illuminate unsightly visions as coherence bleeds back in. A paw print here and then a hand print there, on the walls, curling around the metal locks. Straight ahead his reflection comes back into focus in a speckled mirror, then out again. It takes a few repetitions to concentrate on what he’s trying to look at because the body, half sprawled over an open toilet seat and half bent, disfigured, over smeared tiles is a rather large distraction, but he notices his face eventually; the stains over his lips and drying onto his jaw, stopping midway down his throat in thick rivulets. He turns one of the faucets on, fingers trembling until they find purchase, and ushers the water tentatively over his skin until it resembles what it was before this. It’s hard to remember and Sungjae can only assume as the seconds start to drain into the sink, muddied, a sickly tint.
It’s still there, he thinks, a little lightheaded and far more confused than he feels he’s ever been, patting down his hands and his face with a paper towel as he emerges from the opening of the restroom hallway and back into a familiar exhibit, partly posing as a gallery for mid-century paintings and sculptures. It’s still there, he thinks, and then realizes when finally in the eyes of the individual from before ( they’re amber and so alive in the ambiance, he could choke on the breath leaving his lungs) who was unrecognizable until now, that sometimes memories catch up to you and there’s no choice but to reacquaint yourself with it.
“I’m grateful your sportsmanship is good enough for the both of us.”
Initial, structural imperfection correcting itself within upright posture, fingertips orchestrating a sporadic strum against tarnished tabletop, the softened contour of an indistinct smile gives curvature to otherwise formless lips, a subtle insinuation of happiness that Junhyung specifically identifies as satisfaction, he’s won again. Victory, now, is meaningless to him; he has never expected to lose, it’s the idealization of what the subordinate must be feeling that sensationalizes him, they’re the runt and to Junhyung, it’s a status that permeates every aspect of their existence.
Though they did not think that way, he surmises with validation, because there is an outlasting conviction that inspires them to persevere as they do now, in a situation as infinitesimal as this, and it comes with a notable determination. One that actualizes at their pith, spreading like venom and stealing the curtains over chocolate depths, unveiling them in a new light whose brilliance Junhyung squanders. Minimal destruction being pursued in something as meaningless as the chess game they play now.
“You’re very bad.” The commentary is accompanied by genuine laughter, whose warmth is more like an unkempt blaze, shattered sparks blanketing adversarial flesh with a particular relentlessness he hopes is searing. “— Sungjae.” He adds, repetitive loss inuring Junhyung to victory and its repercussions. Forgetting the omega is something he does not see changing any time soon, their failure demands it; overshadows even their own individuality, in his eyes, at least.
“You know, I can help you if you want. It has to be embarrassing, losing every day.” The laughter silences, its sentiment curving his lips to a smile. “Though of course, that means you’ll have to accept me pitying you.”
He sighs gently in the dormancy that ensues after the last chess piece has been moved to its final resting place, accepting that this will be another confirmation to a loss kept under his belt, but accumulated experience keeps his head upright instead of guiding it to the faded board embedded in the stone table between them like he had the first few times around. This is what it feels like to be humbled, he guesses. A shot in the dark met with countless walls and suddenly he just expects it to go nowhere. To think of it like that offers consolation just pacifying enough and he begins to quietly gather the pieces, after a moment or so, as if to collect his thoughts in tandem.
Maybe he is, but maybe he isn’t; this silence, distilled through a gentle smile that hooks further when welcomed by Junhyung’s cutting laughter, shows an adolescent ambiguity. The invitation is unspoken if it were an invitation at all, effervescent and transient under the gush of summer flooding their lungs. A honey bee whirs by as if announcing itself, a suitable afterthought, as he places his pieces in a withered cardboard box, previously stowed beneath his bench. He remembers to put them in as he would take them out, assuming that it would be his own hand to reacquaint with them after a few days time. A good rule of thumb for these occasions; he remembers how his mother stressed to leave his vacated spaces better than they were before he touched them and then he’s picturing his room back at a house he’s no longer a part of, wondering if it’s still in an unnoticeable disarray that only he could perceive, wondering if everything is in boxes by now because it’s been a year, wondering if the house is there at all. “I’m learning,” he replies, gentle in the afterglow of the other’s flame.
They never did this daily, he muses in an attempt to distract himself, while reaching for Junhyung’s collection, perhaps out of a subtle and mutual understanding that they would bore easily in that circumstance, Sungjae losing and never getting a chance to recoup into thinking he’d surely win today.
If not today, then maybe next time.
The thought never crossed his mind, that he wouldn’t at least one day win and that his time spent here in the park was a useless accumulation of his hours that could have been spent doing something more productive, because productivity was a baseless subject to him, one that if he spent searching its depths would misshape him, obsess him; he’s seen this happen to people before and knows himself well enough to understand he is unfortunately that type of individual too. These activities, on the other hand, were therapeutic, grounding, even if he couldn’t place a finger on a reason as to what from. He never liked board games much, let alone the strategic type that called for more attentive decisions and not on the hand of luck to give him a fighting chance. “If you teach me then you would be handing over to me the knowledge to beat you.” He slips the box, neatly filled back under his bench, offering an attentive glance to Junhyung that stays, unmoved even when he’s leaning back in his seat, kicking his long legs out a bit obnoxiously. “You do know that, right?” The bones under his shoulders offer a dull pop or two before falling back to his sides.
“Regardless, I’d like to learn how to do that on my own. Save you the trouble.”
Wanderlust was hardwired into his entire being, encompassing every feeling and turning them negative at the idea of a steady and comfortable home. Home was the farm he was born on, the house he was raised in and the fields that surrounded him as the sun rose no matter the weather. His father sold his home and Leo has been wandering ever since. It was much easier to hop aboard a boat or a plane nowadays with no particular destination in mind but the feeling of exhilaration and a new adventure. But he was here now and determined to see how long he would be able to stay before the feeling begged him to leave.
Korea was his home, Leo was familiar with wide open expanses of land and small dilapidating villages. He was familiar with the hustle and bustle of port cities and the sight of animals, both farm and pets, in the streets and yards. But Seoul was the epicenter of the South now, a large expansion of concrete, steel and glass. It was loud, it was bright, and it was startling. But still he would try to make it work. Nightlife here was akin to New York City, ever growing and never sleeping. It was easy to keep himself busy when there was always something to do. It was easy to feed when there was always someone around. But he learned that big cities called to the creatures who tended to drift in shadows, that’s how he met his maker and it was also how he ran into a wolf for the first time. Both were predators, but Leo wasn’t one to get into scuffles without reason so instead the confrontation was brief. But with the appearance of both creatures in the world, there was always the whisper of a similar predator on the wind. A predator that hunted both species, turning them into the prey instead; hunters they were called.
But Leo really wasn’t too worried if he were being honest. Hunters tended to look for packs or covens, lone wolves or vampires were rumored to often be left alone unless causing a scene. Leo wasn’t sure about the honesty in that statement but he tended to lead his life in one moment at a time. And so he continued in his nightly habits, haunting coffee shops and bookstores for ways to pass the time. Locks didn’t phase him, windows were easily pushed open in shops that were too poor to afford security systems. Security cameras were easy to avoid as were nighttime guards.
Tonight wasn’t any different than the others. He wandered through large crowds of intoxicated and loud humans as they traveled in herds down sidewalks and back alleyways. Roads and streets curved into one another until he was happening upon a park, the first length of vegetation he had found in his travels. And Leo, so hungry for the calm and quiet couldn’t help but to enter its boundaries. It’s the sound of something close by moving through the underbrush that made him pause mid-step. He tilted his head, wondering if it’s possible that it may be a simple human but the low growling that followed momentarily was most definitely not human. It had been quite sometime since he had crossed paths with an unfamiliar wolf, it seemed as though today would be different.
If he were someone with experience, Sungjae thinks he wouldn’t be feeling the earth move under his feet come the meeting of eyes through foliage, connecting briefly because he doesn’t have it in him to stare, doesn’t have the will to look at the unknown in speculation when he hardly possesses the knowledge to asses himself, so he tears them away as if he were guilty of an unspoken crime. The sounds from between his teeth quell in tandem, if only to regather themselves, his defenses solidifying in an attempt to scare the other person off, albeit not knowing if this would be fruitless once said and done, that maybe he holds himself on too high of a pedestal in terms of intimidation. What he finds new and frightening about himself, about the people like him, could be considered normal to those who have lived around these aspects for longer than he has. Perspective has a way with making the shadows angrier to the ones looking on from the light; he’s dawned with a label that should remind him of where his place is, wading in the shallow waters of a sea who’s limits were void of depth. And here he's attempting to become the predator on his distant horizon, taking shape of what he’s observed as if to make himself feel more at home amidst the sharks. (But you are one, you think, you are worthy of that title if your bones shift and your skin bristles.)
He still goes about the motions of hostility even if the thought alone of puzzle pieces fitting, of his nature being that of a his pack and not of his human threads quells his need for acceptance enough to assume it satiated. Origin of this stubbornness, perseverance, if that was a label worthy of his irrationality, finds home in his temper. A match that’s flame is nearly inextinguishable until it has burned him out with it. This is to say he makes decisions on the tongue of that lapping heat. His footsteps a challenging ricochet. The sound is weak and yet it is center stage, silence acting upon him as a force and he savors it, savors the way the atmosphere quakes, amplifies and twists him into a vision of power with the forest at his feet. It’s as if nature is paying its respect to the rightful inhabitants. An off thought conjures, just as he nears the shadow of another figure. Schoolyard foolishness; he was the boy who’s name frequented mouths, the social constructs of a time where he could afford to worry about trivial tribulations. The confrontations were word of mouth then and short-lived, he thinks with a brief glance to his hands. His knuckles haven’t had the chance to toughen because they never did anything useful besides holding his face up during lectures and there’s a subtle feeling, akin to nausea, that tells him no amount of animal nor pride in his system could possibly change his lack of knowledge.
Umber eyes remain downcast as they take in another pair of shoes, trail up legs — a torso, broad shoulders — the face of a stranger with curiosity embedded in their stare. (If you focus enough, you can see yourself, crooked and adolescent in the depths of his pupils and it sparks up your spine something cold, defensive and unlike yourself.) “Takes one hell-of-a poor decision to spit you up in the tracks of an entire pack.” Sungjae raises his head but his conviction barely rises with it, leaving him wondering how he’d managed to shrink in such a way. The juxtaposition between then and now somehow leaves a sour taste on his tongue, he’s aching to get off.
Hi there everyone! After settling into my new work schedule, I managed to form a few open plots. There will be more added in time, but I figure that, for now, I should put up what I have so far. Outside of this list, I’m still very open to plotting as well.
There are never guarantees in this world of constant change and Sungjae is retaught this important lesson possibly more frequently now that there are so many new spectrums to observe and attempt to fit into, that no matter how much he might yearn for a situation to develop in a certain manner, there are no forces strong enough to influence it beyond action and reaction, the rest an area painted in grey. Fate is a fickle word he rarely ponders upon, but somehow, there is no other way he could better describe that sensation of helplessness, when watching a scene unfold or an individual act on their own accord, than to simply place blame on fate; more so when the situation is undesirable, there is less of a responsibility to shoulder and no voice in the back of his head that strangely doesn’t sound like himself, telling him what he should have done to counteract what actually took place. Sure, fate is a fickle word, but it has a way with eliminating problems, nullifying the severity of life enough to make it palatable. He thinks that this is what everyone is guilty of doing, from time to time, an inescapable part of human nature that is exclusive to no facet of existence.
If he were to think of this on a level of retrospect, it’s unsure if becoming what he is would be a matter he could simply place in the hands of that coping mechanism. People intertwine it with love and events that have molded them for the better, but maybe he isn’t cut out to be someone who is valiantly shaped by the horrific trials and tribulations that have put him here. Looking back on the last year or so, there is still a part of him that wants to declare that he’s been destroyed by it even if he’s still standing and functioning with the rest of society and its monstrosities. It’s hard to say if he’ll grow out of it or not when there is proof everywhere on how fate has played for the other team and taken much more than it could give, from people just like him, people who never put themselves back together again, and when this begins to cross his mind, he can hardly refrain from recalling what an ideal life he had before having it stripped from him. Sungjae doesn’t want this to be the state of which he’s fallen, but lately it’s become much harder to convince himself otherwise.
Normal tasks start to eat away at the nerves, insecurities becoming viruses that consume him in moments that would have had no affect on him before. What’s left in the wake of this destruction always comes down to instinct, bypasses most average sentiment and straight to those of an animal. Then cue a moment in time much like the one he is within, standing behind a particularly inebriated man in a convenience store at some odd hour of the day, waiting for an absurdly long amount of time to buy a single box of cereal, after he was not informed that the last of it in the house was consumed earlier that morning. Though, this has been a regular thing that he’s taken note of; if anyone’s comforts were to be compromised it would be his, most of the time. One of the very few aspects of his life nowadays that he’s come to adapt to rather quickly, whether it be due to his status or something else entirely. But after watching with dwindling patience as this individual continued to waste his time, bumbling at the front desk with obviously no intentions of moving along, he concluded that there were lines in need of being drawn, statements he felt he should make. Safe to say, there is a side of his nature winning this moral battle.
“Hey” he begins, fingers curling slightly both over his pocket and around the box of cereal at his hip, “get your things and get going. You’re holding up the line.” It’s met with a scowl, milky eyes barely managing to properly give him a once over without losing focus. Extremities tighten and he barely notices that his knuckles are flushed from the tension, not registering that the box at rest by his side has acquired puncture marks where claws begin to mutilate cardboard in a futile attempt to quell the growing need to lash out in a way far different than any use of words could compensate for.
Hello hello hello it’s really nice to be here and finally get a start on writing for this kiddo. I recently just acquired a new job, so trying to get adjusted before the training period ( handing in documents, numbers etc.) and receiving a solidified schedule has taken up most of my time. That being said, I apologize for going M.I.A there for a bit, but I do really appreciate all of your lovely welcomes and will get to replying to those very soon. A plot page is currently under construction, but that too will be attended to and posted hopefully sometime here in the near future. I have an aim: sk.nnyred if anyone would wish to contact me there rather than through ask. Besides that, I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!
He follows with little on his conscience but obedience, as it had made a home in him now big enough to encompass the trivialities of pack business. The gentle tide that agendas such as this have lulled him into in his attempt to drift without drowning, it’s the closest sense of normalcy he could possibly find and rightly, at least he thinks, there is reason to satiate the loss of mundane comforts with it. If he possibly could, the footprints in front of him would meld to his own, the smells and sounds becoming him insomuch that there would be no emptiness lingering in the wake of memories, only present time, present context constructing him into something like the others, whose strides held a maturity he could only grasp at in hollowed handfuls. Like the fissures of golden ocean breaking through the canopy of summer’s labor, green flourish, there were only so many details his knowledge could touch. Time doled out an elegance in the shadow, one he had not yet acquired but longed to if only it meant he would not be the one left behind. There’s a faint dream; to stand at a flank, to be part of something on a level more than species and treaty. Sometimes, more specifically now, as he refocused attention on the backs of those who took him in, it begins to feel as if that is all he equates to. A favor, pity on the abandoned, the unwanted.
His feet pause purely out of experimentation and what members of his pack that stood before him keep on much like he had expected them to, which is unfortunate perhaps, but the irritation subsides quick enough to not harbor anything more than a subtle disappointment in the affirmation. Of course he would shake it off sooner or later, much like he does all of the little things that could fester. In silence he stands where the firs begin to clear, watching as the bodies assimilate into the flora, breath held as if exhaling would not only expel the contents of his lungs but what thoughts he’s been withholding and then comes the subsequent guilt. He thinks of Ira and then thinks about instincts, how his gut is not leaden by the influence of his conscience, but instead a primal, inherited subservience that he indulged in to extents that would end here. He turns away from them then, eyes flitting over nature’s meticulous work, thinking that he is allowed this simple freedom at least. Titles did not stain his tongue from birth and so they were easy to swallow in this case. That is, if he were capable of swallowing around what manifests upon the sight of something moving between sparse foliage, parallel trunks only providing momentary coverage to an object he acknowledges with a nearly uncontrollable rumble; a warning; an elicited declaration of inexperienced nerves.
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