the issue with dowon is that kiha's been so used to watching him from afar that now that he's this uncomfortably close, they're not quite sure what to do with themselves. unprepared isn't enough of a word to encapsulate just how flustered they are to be watched by him like this, the corners of his lips turned up like they always are whenever he interacts with others. is he smiling because he's annoyed? they ask themselves, and that thudding of their heart gets that much more louder to their own ears, or is he smiling because he's being nice? the way that he's always smiling with others, even if it doesn't seem to reach his eyes? they can't decide on an answer quick enough to stop the words from spiling out of their mouth, a ramble in their form and content. "no!- i mean -- i'm okay. no to you hitting me hard -- that was my bad, i wasn't looking where i was going. you were just there." kiha bites their tongue, the pink of their skin deepening into a flush that definitely negates the effect of any of the stars that jiwon had stuck onto their face. the alcohol catches up to their mouth far quicker than the embarrassment does, but the combined effort of both is enough for them to run their words together like a motor. "sorry, again. i should've been looking and not rushing around like that. it would've been bad if i ran into someone that wasn't as nice as you, right?"
they break off into an awkward laugh then, their nails digging into the palms of their hand like they're trying to ground themselves back into reality. reality strikes when they realise that, as hard as it is for them to believe that dowon's having a conversation with them, their glasses are still pitifully lost. "ah -- i don't want to, um, take you away from your -- " they glance over at the gaggle of people watching them, and kiha tries to act like their voice doesn't falter when they say the next word, " -- um, friends. i think they're waiting for you."
dowon is listening, his wholehearted attention an undivided mass settling deep inside every inch of their flesh. he’s listening and he’s unwavering, excluding the curious tilt of his head that furthers the more they prattle on about how they don’t want to take him away from something. about how they would hate to do that to him, hate to cause any kind of inconvenience. as though the realization that all of this was some kind of unfortunate happenstance had struck them already but they didn’t want to admit it aloud. even if they didn’t want to admit it aloud, they could show him, in the very least, that they were aware. apologize in their own ways. the dip of their shoulders here, the way their eyes meet his own. dowon likes that. it occurs to him like propitiation does. he has no reason to assuage them, either; if they’re inconvenient, then they’re inconvenient. it’s something they’ve done to themself. his mouth hangs open a bit, dumbfounded around the feigned shape of baffled silence, tongue sweeping his bottom lip like he’s mulling it over. he is, to some extent indeterminable because all of its notable indicators had been swallowed up by the shallows of his eyes, adumbrated as they are by all that contemplation that had swelled up in their midst. it all feels a bit foggy. “my friends?” dowon mutters, his uncertainty earnest and his head on a swivel quick enough to assess his would-be companions. “i wouldn’t really say that they’re my friends. i just met them here at the party.” he laughs once and then twice. shy, somehow apologetic in his own way, somehow tender. like he’s sticking his foot into the figurative pool too, checking the temperature. like he’s hoping it’s not the deep end or anything; like it isn’t too awkward that he’s here too. like does kiha like swimming? if they don’t, then they put up a pretty convincing farce. dowon’s only here because kiha is here.
“does that mean i’m pulling you away from your friends?” he chuckles, wry smile upturning cheeks with a proper, self-righteous plump. “though i don’t really know if you could be calling them ‘friends’ if they’re not even trying to help you find your glasses, you know?” or telling them that they had never misplaced them and the frames sit neatly tucked into the hair on their head. dowon doesn’t do it either. maybe they’re talking about another pair. “do you know anyone here?”
moving fast in a party is easy. slipping between bodies and weaving through crowds comes like a second nature when your safe haven is the shadows, and kiha's one too many drinks into the night to care about the spilled drinks on the sleeve of their shirt. what's difficult is moving slow -- to watch where you're stepping, to move from room to room without having to hold onto the wall or reach out for a stranger's arm and rapidly pull your hand back in embarrassment. unfortunately, they haven't quite learned to master the technique of the latter yet, because they turn on their heel back to the quiet (quiet in comparison to the rest of the party, anyways) kitchen the second they realise their glasses aren't resting on the bridge of their nose -- and turning on their heel means they ram right into the shoulder of a poor stranger. "oh-!" they exclaim, barely catching themselves from falling flat on their face, at the expense of at least half of the other's drink spilling over onto their shirt. they don't care about that as much as the flush on their cheeks that only deepens when they glance up and see who the unfortunate casualty is. it's almost half two in the morning, and the smile on han dowon's mouth still holds in a way that means kiha stammers over their words. "sorry. glasses. i, um, think i lost them here -- and i ran into -- sorry. are you okay?"
there’s something special about it, being here. as though he was like a kind of otherness detained by a sliver of the world and now released unto the rest of it. the coming of something subservient to like-minded unknowables, blooming in the midst of the people. it’s a gushing kind of feeling, a warmth, whose fever incinerates the very pit of his gut with a lustful hell, stretches from end to end of his body in a wholehearted encapsulation. one that leaves the inside of him stretched so thin, he’s impalpable. is that the word? a nonsolid, something too undefined to be adherent to any definitive rubric—he’s in the midst of it all and reaping its greatest parts like a very lucky vulture, like the one who gets there first. he’s thinking about that person in the corner, their rich eyes and their hair even richer. how pretty they are generally and how they intone their laughs depending on the people they’re around. would they laugh like that with him? he’s covered in a drink now, though; not thinking about that person anymore but this person here. they’re saying something like an apology and an explanation and glasses. dowon is watching, wry smile on his lips, vulpinely, felinely—either way, the kind of curiosity that feels somehow ominous at its very tip. he tilts his head, smiles like he’d reached into himself for that piece warmly kindled and tore it out with his bare hand to smother them both in it. feigning pain but not too much pain, nothing physical. the kind where you’ve been inconvenienced and you know that you have but you don’t want the other person to worry. the persevering kind that musters a little bit of sympathy, maybe. makes someone think how nice you are. kind. he’s kind.
“ahh. hmm.” dowon tilts his head, gives his body a dismissive once-over like what really matters is the contents of the other’s drink and whether or not they'll ever find happiness again after this. “are you okay? i hit you really hard—that’s my bad.” the smile on his mouth withstanding. he’s kind. “i don’t think i saw any glasses but i can help you look for them? may be tough ‘cause there’s so many people around but it’s worth a shot.”
he wishes there was a certain word for the emotion that overwhelms you when you realise something, someone, is slipping away, but that you can do nothing to stop it. it's eerie, if anything. like hyun can see the end, the fragments of their relationship and what it used to be. being powerless to stop it is another feeling entirely, when jun's voice is gentle but there's a quiet look in his eyes that says what his words can't and won't. hyun swallows, suddenly overcome with a sense of dread that he's typically learned to detach himself from yet can't hamper down entirely. instead he musters up a boyish smile. there's only inches between them, and hyun can feel the heat from jun's body against his -- yet it feels like miles of distance. "it's fine." he says, a little more clipped than he intends for it to be, eyes fixed on how jun's fiddling with the corner of his textbook page like a lifeline. sometimes, how easily the air in the room can turn down to a chill scares him. not that he would say anything about it, though: addressing the elephant in the room makes it that much more tangible. "i know you're busy, baby. you don't have to feel bad or apologise. i just thought it would be nice." his tone is softer when he talks, and he leans back against the bottom of the sofa. "but you're right. we don't have to go anywhere special for us to have fun. don't worry about it."
there was a time he thought he could be happy here; thought he was happy here. it was only contentment, at first. hand grazing hand, romantic subliminals inside a highschool corridor, or waiting outside the school doors because the ending of the day was better spent together. it blooms into happiness when jun is scouring the empty shelves of the kitchen in his boyfriend’s family home, thinking about all the additions he’d make. the food they’re missing, the snacks hyun knows he likes. when jun feels comfortable enough to even make suggestions like this and needs no invitation to announce as much. when hyun’s home becomes his home and it’s special because jun loves his mother as he has his whole childhood yet somehow it’s still better because he’s sharing a place with the guy who means the world to him. when she doesn’t compare anymore but there was never any parallel really being made. it was just the gradual shift of his life in this forward trajectory, in-bound toward another heart and colliding, intertwining in the lifelong river of forever and then some. he was more than happy here, probably so happy it stopped being an overt happiness and transformed into this commonplace sensation. like the kind of certainty that testifies that the weekend is always going to be great because it’s a break from the rest of the week’s rigmarole. it doesn’t matter what saturday and sunday hold, he’s looking forward to it regardless. bliss with that kind of unquestioning-ness; it was so enmeshed he hadn’t thought about it until now. must be because it was leaving him. them. he hears the way hyun is talking, after all. that quiet acquiescence, how surrender doubles-up with his recline against the couch. jun is half-resolved to join him, with the other half of himself an overwhelmingly forceful pride that claims even an inch more of providence in his heart and dissuades the idea entirely. he won’t be found longing.
“no worries. i don’t feel bad. i know it’s fine.” he rectifies, laughter perfect and disguising nothing because he had strangled whatever needed to be hidden. his eyebrows pinch, countenance another flawless assembly of guiltless curiosity.
there's only so much he can do to dress up the unappealing facts: the facts are that hyun's felt like he's slipping between fingers for the past few months, regardless of whose palm he's in. secondly, that he's been skipping dates to partake in rituals and feeling stuck in a position that leaves him inbetween. he doesn't quite know where his beliefs lie, but he knows that the one stable person in his life is growing alarmingly distant. hyun's first line of defence in a situation like this is always changing the topic. when it doesn't work, his indignation is overwhelming. "jun. i didn't answer the question because i didn't want to. it makes me unccomfortable -- i told you already, didn' i? i just don't like talking about them with you. it's, they're, not important to us, anyways, so it just makes me feel bad when you ask about stuff like that when i'd rather be having fun with you instead." he kisses his teeth, mouth turned down because there's distance between them and he moves to close the gap immediately. he's humming quietly when he bares his neck just a little more, pleased with the butterfly kisses he can feel pressed against the skin there, and his hand stretches so it can slide its way up the front of jun's shirt transparently. "i just don't want you to be worried, sweeetheart, when there isn't a probem to begin with. you believe me, right?"
he grits his teeth through the brunt of it, eyes buried in a shadow cast from the overhead furrow; tension is one way to describe it. i didn’t answer because i didn’t want to. so he shouldn't have asked. jun’s hands are trembling and the breath he takes in does little to assuage him—asphyxiates him more, if anything. it tightens a figurative grip around him, one with jagged teeth and ineluctable claws; it peels him away. that’s the way to react, he thinks. dissever himself into pieces, keep the most valuable intact and exclusively reserved for himself. keep his heart uninvolved. you can do whatever you want sitting a bitter, inconsolable weight on the tip of his tongue. his fingers wrestling with the fabric of hyun’s shirt with a strength that twists tighter than what he knew. you can do whatever you want sticking thick and indivisible between his hands. it’s too adhesive; he can’t touch anything else, anyone else, like this. you’re getting away from me, aren’t you? something is changing and you’re not telling me. you’re going away, aren’t you? “sure,” he says, gentle and frank, head nodding a cuddle deeper into the nook of hyun’s neck. “that makes sense. it’s not that i don’t believe you, either. i just wanted to make sure everything was okay, you know.” his smile is perfect and his chuckle poised its equal mirror. none of it matters. “honestly though, i’m really sorry about the trip. you know i’d go with you if i could but i just can’t justify it right now.” his index finger burying its nail into his thumb. he pulls back into himself, hovers over his spread of textbooks and other disorganized cataclysm. “sorry."
"what? don't be silly. i've used it before." he's impatient at best and waspish at worst, particularly when what he wants is just barely out of reach. to be prevented from running his fingers along the side of jun's waist and tugging at his shirt, to have to put a pause on murmuring sweet praises about the other just so he can discuss some new word that he's used for the first time -- it's a sin in itself for him, for someone who spends the better half of his time chasing after the quickest happiness he can get. hyun pulls away from him somewhat reluctantly, tongue-in-cheek, though his hand remains firmly against jun's waist. evading topics relating to the group, outside of the group, even when it's jun, is something he's gotten unnervingly good at, and the words to change the conversation come like second nature to him. evasion. he's always doing that nowadays, one way or another. like staying too much in one place means he'll burn out as a dimming light does, like staying still with jun means the latter will confront him with the unease that's been surrounding him, them, lately. "mm. you're still sensitive here, right?" he asks even when he can feel the goosebumps under his thumb, now brushing over jun's ribcage. "you're so cute. no wonder i'm always vying to take you on trips with me."
“‘vying to take you on trips with me’?” there isn’t anything wrong with it, which, maybe, is why he can’t let it go. there’s an anomaly adumbrating every would-be horizon, every could-be glistening silver-lining opaque and dull. looking at it one way makes another vantage point. he can’t name it, struggles to do more than laugh the way he does. somehow tremblingly, starting at his shoulders and tasting sour enough to twist up his expression the way it does, everything souring. jun shakes his head, as if to rebuke—hyun, himself, the curiosity, the thought. “are you serious? i’m asking you if you got a new tutor. you didn’t even answer that. we were supposed to go out last week, remember? but you were—” he raises his hands in abrupt forfeit-and-half-victory, a bittersweet tang when he pulls his hands back towards himself. when he detaches. hyun should follow. hyun will follow, won’t he? he’s eying the distance between them like it was the deepest, most hollow gorge. “i don’t know. i just—i worry.” jun says, knowing his concern stretches as far as what he looks like in hyun’s eyes and barely an inch beyond that. shifting, he leans into hyun suddenly, plants his head in the crux of his shoulder, mouth so close each word doubles as featherweight kisses pressing into his skin. “am i making sense?”
"then that just means i have to persuade you that i wouldn't distract you the entire time. and to persuade you, you have to be there. so you should come, right?" his father's a lawyer but hyun's never really picked up on the sort of deductive arguments that the elder seems to make at the drop of the hat, though this is a somewhat pitiful attempt borne from the desperation stemming from wanting to spend a week nestled away with jun. the urgency of his future is a conversation topic he sets aside easily for the delights he wants to chase now, and a huff is the only sign of displeasure he expresses at the topic being raised. hyun shuffles ever so much closer so he can nestle against the sliver of skin between jun's shoulder and neck, his safe haven, mouth pressed against the other's heartbeat. "my priorities currently lie where they should be lying. not with something as otiose as studying, but someone." he imparts a kiss there, another before he carries on talking. "that's you, by the way. who would want to study when they could spend that time kissing you breathless instead? don't rain on my parade."
“otiose.” he murmurs, inquisitive and playful, gaze drifting to its periphery because looking directly at him isn’t possible anymore. his acquiescence is always easy and maybe that’s the way it should be when you’re in love with someone, but. and that’s where it ends. jun has never been able to fully realize the rest of those feelings, this weird apprehension growing inside of him, thickening this kind of blockade. hyun must be able to sense it, too. their last few months together in his apartment feel more like ritualistic, fulfilling procedural standards than whatever it had been. but love changes. is that how it ends? love should always be changing, maybe; people are always changing. to be loved is to be known. nascent love requires metamorphosis—everything should be different. not with me, though. “where’d you learn a word like that? i’ve never heard it before.” he’s half-teasing, the other half so serious it couldn’t be professed. he’s reaching his hands down, fingers interlacing within hyun’s, helping him to his waist like a kind of sly offering, the rest of him thinking of ways to dilute the suspicion, wear it more comfortably. “you’ve got a new tutor or something, right? you’re always so nonchalant about everything. it fucks me up a bit, haha.”
"you're sure you're not annoyed at me?" hyun's always been shameless -- thick skin is an easy layer that he pulls over himself because it's much easier to be brazen than it is to try and fix the mess you've made. like now. his thumb brushes over the back of jun's hand, turns it over so he can trace over the faint lines of his familiar palm. he's writing out an unspoken apology that's cut short when the other pulls his hand away, and his own response is to let out a quiet sigh. "why don't you want to go on the trip with us?" he asks, only half-forlorn because he knows the answer deep down. even he barely wants to go, and he's not quite sure how he's meant to last there without his boyfriend by his side. he takes jun's hand, nestles it into his own again, uses it as a fishing rod to pull the other closer to him. hyun can lean forwards when they're this close, blinking up at him, head tilted with an upturn of his mouth. coquettish like usual, never taking anything seriously, he continues. "you can study there, too, you know. i just want to spend more alone time with you, get away from this city for once. i'd never take you away from your work."
he'd only ever make it more inconvenient, of course.
“i don’t believe you.” he’s against persuasion, anyway, content to slip into the softness of his touch and their togetherness like this, fingers intertwined, slowly and heedlessly. he’s taking some kind of bait, probably, brought in like this and sifting through a sea of academic slop that isn’t availing him any. the unconscionable thing is letting hyun look at him with those eyes, speak like that—and for him to feign some kind of steely impenetrability back at him. it’s nice being disassembled, having those pieces wrapped up in-between warm arms, all of him safe-guarded by the bosom of something unconditional. something. the afterthought makes him wince. he’s slinking through touches now, barely reclaiming all the effort he’d put into making their distance only a figurative, emotional thing but still, reclaiming it. his lips are twisted up in some kind of petty curiosity, felinely bemusement carving out his expression with a wry keenness.
“now that i think about it, shouldn’t you be studying too? i’m surprised you even want to go on this trip. what are your priorities right now?”
“i’m not.” he assuages. one hand combs through the other’s fleetingly, their brisk departure—he hopes it says what he doesn’t have the strength to say directly. i don’t want to talk about it anymore. things have changed. beyond changed, maybe contorted into something so unknowable there was no going back. it was like a feeling inside of him had metamorphosed into this separate, unconscionable entity. like something fundamental had been divvied up from the rest of him and replaced with abnormality, its sole foe: him.
“i’m not annoyed, hyun.” bared teeth feel more real than metaphor when he elaborates. jun breathes inwardly, reminding himself to relax. “and,” his hand wrung about dismissively, “if i sound annoyed, it’s because you keep asking me if i’m annoyed or not. i’m not going on the trip because i just don’t want to. you guys have fun without me.” he lets it linger, glancing toward his boyfriend like it’s a look he had to pull and push for to make happen. his hands wrestling the sleeves of his own jacket just the same, jun forgets the composure he’d indoctrinated.
probably because sunan makes them far and few between -- when he knows hansol's watching, gaze soft because it's on sunan but sharp because he's trying to search for any discomfort in his expression, in his body language. because if sunan responds a second too late or at a pitch too high, the rug's going to be pulled out from under hansol's feet and he'll know sunan's still the fifteen year old boy who entered a far too quiet house that one day.
hansol does know, though.
maybe that's why it hurts more, to see him like this.
nights like this are far and few between, but they're never entirely absent. "baby?" hansol's voice is hushed where the silence in the house is loud, and the consequent lack of response is enough for his stomach to churn just because he knows something's wrong. his fingers rest on the handle of their bedroom door, tentative to push. the realisation that he'd much rather be with sunan than let him be alone is the trigger that nudges him inside, eyes flickering to where he can see sunan pressed up against the corner of the bed. his choked sobs don't go missed, and hansol almost doesn't hear it over the unpleasant thudding of his heart against his chest.
sunan's like this when he's had a nightmare. when he thinks hansol doesn't know the reason why he's so agitated, that the way hansol curls up against him even closer is just a coincidence, every limb of his trying to find some part of sunan's that he can latch onto.
like now. he's purposefully slow when he closes the distance between them, one knee pressing against the bed when he reaches towards sunan. it's like clockwork, fingers intertwining with his wife's when he's pulling him towards him. further away from the corner, closer to the centre when hansol can wrap around him more easily. more gently.
kisses pressed against his temple, other hand brushing through his hair. his voice is lowered to a murmur, repetitive but he means every word. "sunan, baby. you can cry. come here. you don't have to talk."
she lays perfectly still in the center of silk bedding and offers herself to the inevitable darkness of their room. as though this were a sacrifice, her body the facsimile of the first death ever and time — so enraptured by this notion of giving and the cratering impression of loss indenting it — anointed him this death’s host, sensing he was already a craven and useless thing. a fleshy bag of abominable grief, carrying and carrying. more than the memory, he hates himself.
“hansol,” he says. he searches and finds him there immovable, even within their tomb of shadows. her hands take to his because he is why she has hands; their coalescence unlocks purpose. he keeps himself ensconced within the confinement of hansol’s chest, retreating into weary silence. will it always be like this? sunan rubs his eyes until their skin is stretched even thinner and it stings.
it won’t always be like this, everyone dies.
between the two of them, who goes first? and what will it be like? she tilts her head to peer into hansol’s eyes. he doesn’t know, of course. their mortal curse; no one does. nonetheless, her mind is incurable. she hopes that wherever it is, it’s a quiet place. somewhere familiar. she hopes to find him waiting for her like on a school day, hand outstretched with the promise they’ll go together. may it be the last lie hansol ever tells her. he’ll go just as far as the last step and sunan will walk the rest of the way on his own. he will go home and into his room. night will come with the company of three, careful taps against his window.
maybe it won’t be a lie. hansol will really mean what he says because love is metamorphosis and sunan will have to be the one to let him go again. i’ll be right back, sunan will say. just give me a second. he doesn’t want hansol with him yet. not like that. be happy, hansol. by that point, may they have lived and loved together for so long that being happy is easier to do. may that love be his parting gift. may it carry him, as gentle and as attentive as sunan’s own hands. please be happy.
“... puppy,” she warbles, insistent and complain-y. he pushes at hansol’s chest with a weak nudge and breathes out, finally. it’s all oddly comforting, the tangle of his thoughts and their bodies. the solidity of right now. “i really love you.”
i like transitional language. i like to capture the migration, the split-second change, the difference. i like the meaning. i want to be volatile. i want to be always moving. not to be confused with being unstoppable. i don’t want the weight of being impervious. i want to be malleable, receptive; want all of this to matter. i want to talk about blood and water, angel wings. a conjuring of my own evolution. peace for myself, her other selves. want to be perfect, want to be
- name: sunan hiranchai
- playby: ten lee
- gender: amab nonbinary, he / she
- age: 25. march 17th, 1998
his father was a prestigious lawyer killed during a home invasion. sunan saw the corpse. that happened when sunan was 15. sunan is 25 now and still sees the corpse. gets into art forgery as a way to fuse his passion for painting and vent the additional stimulation that comes with microdosing. talented enough to recreate the best renaissance pieces as good as a computer could. not talented enough to escape everything else. still trying to escape everything else. currently aiding his friend with criminal money laundering via his art pieces, so he’s very popular right now but the fame is fabricated
- married to bang hansol. loves him a lot and feels like it’s the one relationship he’s done right by
- style is a combination of everything riveting. tight leathers, straps, heels, short skirts. Y2K extraordinaire. but also, haute couture and baggy streetwear as influenced by his spouse. expertise in painting lends him power as an incredible makeup artist too. very expressive, bold, unashamed. a bajillion tattoos and piercings*
- likes the gratification of people ogling him because he’s kind of empty inside or just perpetually angled toward this need for validation. the type to thread very dangerous lines. would never compromise his relationship with hansol but will answer if somebody confesses that they like her. the conversation won’t go anywhere tangible but it will be a conversation nonetheless. he likes feeling like he matters and there’s a pit left behind after so many years of try to dig deep in there
- trying to do better about the microdosing, gradually at a point where he’s slowly weening himself off of it. nervous about what it means for his art. *overused acid and so his original dosage was upscaled to be more effective. prone to really bad hallucinations. trying to resolve this + father trauma through various types of therapy
- loves being loved cannot emphasize this enough it is the guiding crux of his character and hansol remains the pinnacle of this pursuit. just generally sunan navigates with a kind of coquettish and amicable air in hopes of inspiring people to feel endeared toward him—to whatever extent
- not a good person but not a bad person. just a selfish person with the ability to be ruthless if it’s for his own gain. less tactful, business-savvy ruthless and more back shoved against a wall teeth-bared ruthless. loves money, wealth, significance. wants to be remembered after he dies. either paralyzed by his fear of death or galvanized by it. depends on the day
beauty about transience, the ephemera of being. i am trying to capture a sensitiveness, the efflorescence of life, its perfumed wisp. let me impart a too-pink color, too pale for registry. sunlight through the window. waking up beside somebody. staying quiet so they can sleep. capitalism, capitalism, capitalism.
* name: ikeda kojirō
* gender: cisgender male
* playby: nakamoto yuta
* age: 24. born october 31st 1998
born in mugunghwa to parents that had separated when he was still a child. dad did extraordinarily well for himself in the business of luxury hotels. a real, “picking yourself up by your bootstraps” success story. he did so well, in fact, he excised kojirō and his mother from his life in one fell-swoop. most cheaters do when they’ve gotten their second family. kojirō didn’t know this; doesn’t, for a while. he lives out his adolescence thinking it’s his mother’s fault he’s moved back to the rancid, rural seaside. unable to make a weapon out of that rage beneath the skin, he creates music instead. he’s very good at it. so good it’s the one talent his mother really tries to indulge because she loves him. kojirō won’t be swayed by pandering, though. he makes sure she knows how much he hates her. how much she’s ruined everything for him, stunted all of his growth in those critical years of youth. by the time he’s ready to move out, he does. granted, nobody could ever get far in a place as provincial as mugunghwa so the other side of town will have to be enough. relies on his rich dad for college admission, only to be told the truth about his parents’ separation. unable to look back, he only looks forward. not out of optimism, either; it’s better than looking down his whole life.
* eventually begins a relationship with minhyuk. they leave mugunghwa together.
* kojirō puts his music dreams aside in favor of building a proper life together. has always had a really grueling work ethic, so seeing it materialize meaningfully is really gratifying.
* works as a prep-cook at one restaurant and a part-time server at two others. will pick up any odd job he can. capitalism kind of becomes super addictive when you’re starved of reward for so long.
* would like to get back to music soon, but he seems to be forgetting about that dream the further he goes on. treats (over)working as a kind of penance for the things he won’t address with his mother
“Think of a time you felt abandoned by your parents. Or disappointed.”
Okay, Sunan thinks. I can do that.
“We’re going to reach back into that very moment and when we’re there — when you can see yourself — I want you to grab that version of yourself by the hand,” she says.
“I want you to set him free.” / ♯
DECEMBER 16ᴛʜ, 2014
“Will I be seeing you later?” Sunan asks, reacquainting with the equilibrium of his body after the hassle of rummaging through his bags and his pockets for the familiar crinkle of a candy wrapper. It’s lemon flavored and Sunan thinks its yellow looks as soft as it does because it’s meant to denote how strong it tastes. “Is it sour?”
“At the start.” Hansol provides, teasing and nonchalant, his expression screwed up as if to signify he was enduring that very bitterness right now. “It gets sweet after.” Sunan figures he has plateaued upon that horizon with the way his lips pucker and his mouth smacks a little bit, diffused into a tiny smile that grows bigger as he glances toward Sunan. Hansol sticks his tongue out. “Did you want to try it?”
“Nope. I think it’s more romantic this way. I’ll never know what that candy tastes like because I’ll give all of them to you, for my entire life. It’ll be the one secret we have in this relationship. Two, I guess, if you count me not letting you know how the lime tastes.” Sunan winks.
“I’d count that.” Hansol murmurs, tightening the clasp of their intertwined hands. “That’s a good secret to keep. What if I really want to know, though? Really.”
“Well,” Sunan hums in turn, swinging their bodies’ mesh back and forth. “Maybe I’ll tell you. It won’t be any time soon, though, and I’m definitely not going to tell you anything if we aren’t dating.”
“So, in order to find out, I’ve got to stay with you?” Hansol summarizes.
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
Hansol is still watching Sunan. It’s a palpable sensation. A commanding one. Sunan looks back to him as if he were lulled, as if Hansol were irresistible. As if there was a great, deep and immeasurable expanse swallowing the rest of the world into amenable nothingness and regurgitating a canvas for them to use, together.
“No.” Hansol says. He’s standing amidst the desert unfazed.
“I just wanted to hear you say it. I’ll see you tonight.”
I want you to set him free.
“Wait.” Sunan says. He pushes himself upright and rests his back against the arm of the couch, bringing his legs towards his chest so he could collapse over his knees. “I can’t. I thought I could but I can’t. It’s a lot.” He wrings his hand about, as if the air were an invisible cauldron wherein anything could be conjured from its thin and imperceptible magics. “It’s too much for me right now. It’s a lot.”
“That’s okay.” She tries to console him, rising out of her chair to receive him with open arms. “It’s hard, I know.”
“No.” Sunan raises his hands as if to rebuke her and the attempt she makes to meet him.
Nobody knows. That’s why it’s hard. Nobody knows but they can imagine it. Nobody knows but they wouldn’t stay ignorant. Everyone dies.
Everyone dies.
She means she wanted to see the boy who opens the door be liberated. The one who closes the door shut. The one who takes his shoes off, gets comfortable because he’s finally home, calls for his father.
I want you to set him free.
If he had thought about it anymore, he would’ve run away. He could’ve. Hansol was still there. Maybe not right there by the door but anywhere in the world was close enough. Any place he could reach was close enough. As long as it was a place he could get to, it was close enough. Another world. Another life. Doesn’t matter. If he had thought about it anymore, he would’ve gone to him. He could’ve.
Hansol has that. An openness, not unlike the sundered and peeled away world shedding around them, leaving them with nothing but remnants and inspiration. The fundamentals, like what a house looks like. How a house feels. Leaving them with nothing but enough memories to build their own the way they want. Anything and everything the way they want it. If he had thought about it anymore and did not have to be the one to open the door again after turning around and seeing it shut. If that hadn’t polarized things to two extreme ends opposing one another beside the longest stretch of darkness. If he was strong enough to move. If he could be selfish enough to scream and scream so loud he would be heard. If it was not easier to leave the door closed.
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