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@lostw0n / DEAD ENDS
"if the goal was to waste my fucking time, then congrats you won, but if you were hoping i'd get stuck down there," he scoffs, "then you're gonna have to try harder than that. "
won walks in, looking mostly like a drowned rat, and ilwoo doesn't bother hiding his smile. he even lifts his hand in a wave. it's not like he wasn't expecting this, he sent him nowhere and after nothing, and in the most inconvenient place he could think up on the spot.
it wasn't like it was a secret, how won was poking around with things that didn't concern him. things about the woods and all that it was channeling through them. him and yunseol anyway. it wasn't like ilwoo was going to open his mouth and spill everything going on with seongmin too, or the time he'd seen yurim in the woods. he could find that out on his own. or find it out never. ilwoo doesn't have a lot of sympathy to spare nowadays when it comes to won.
and that was entirely of his own fucking doing.
"i mean, it looks pretty funny to me." ilwoo goes to grab at the glass on the bar, but there's won instead. making a mess of things like it's a legacy. "you're paying for that. i know you have a tab here, too." ilwoo finally takes the time to push himself angled on the stool, looks won in the face properly. there's streaks of some kind of grime in his hair, ilwoo assumes it's whatever grows along the cave walls. "you got something, just..." he trails off, gesturing vaguely to his own temple in a mirror of where it's smeared.
"well, you never know. there could've been a mine shaft or something for you to fall down. maybe next time." ilwoo grabs at the next glass before won can get it, even if the bartender's busy pouring the second drink right in front of them. "and i mean, there probably will be a next time with how deep you like shove your fucking nose into things. at this point we might as well call it a kink."
he really only says it because he thinks it'll piss won off, and that's all he wants to do. piss him off bad enough that he leaves again, just like last time. only less of a ghost, the kind that comes back to haunt them, rattling around all his horrible baggage like chains that yunseol can't seem to ignore.
"but hey, maybe you used the opportunity to make some scary noises in the cave and call it a haunting. that's the kind of shit you post online, right?"
RECONNECT / at the crow's nest with @fatedandbound
it's been a while since they've sat like this. but then, it's hard to get together when one half of you has turned into a ghost and is displaced somewhere new. ilwoo doesn't resent jinri for that, or at least, that's what he keeps telling himself when they run into each other around town. a place folded up so small it feels like a box that someone's always rattling between their hands like an unknown birthday present. no matter how much he tries to help it, he'll get knocked into everyone eventually.
but this time it's on purpose. making nice, trying to put all those feelings to rest. he shouldn't be having them, anyway. he has a life here in onyang, one with roots. one that's hard to rip from the foundation of the town, something he can't replant back down in the cement streets of seoul. ilwoo sometimes wonders how jinri managed. but then he refocuses back on the now, to her sitting in front of him, and realizes that even if could get himself to leave, that he'd likely end up just like her. right back in onyang, sitting in this decrepit old bar, pretending that was what he wanted in the first place.
and still, despite knowing that, ilwoo can't figure out how to properly digest all those feelings. every so often and they rise back up his throat like bile.
"what's been up with you, anyway?" ilwoo asks as he trades out one empty glass for another. he wants to chase at that point in tipsy where it feels like his brain slackens along with all his muscles and he remembers what it feels like to be relaxed. he's been drinking more and more lately. he should put a stop to it, probably. but it's hard to when his mind keeps revisiting the sound of his own voice as it forced its way out of his mouth unbidden. the way that coffin looked standing upright and too big, enough room for at least two people inside.
he takes another long drink, glances up at jinri over the rim of his glass. "can't be all bad, can it?" he means it as a joke, it just doesn't manage to sound like one.
BLUE DAYS / walking in the woods with @saintsons
the sky above them is painted thick in the shade cornflower blue, all mixed up with the clouds. but all ilwoo keeps looking are are his own two feet as he snaps twigs in half and spots beetles trying to outrun their own small deaths. ilwoo does his best to accommodate, though he's not so sure uiseong is paying them any mind to his left.
the farther they walk in past the trees, the less sun there is to keep them company. ilwoo can't find it in himself to mind it, though. he's always liked hiding out in the woods, ever since he was a child. ever since he was branded with the sorts of labels that people didn't look kindly on. to ilwoo, setting himself down in the shadows of the trees was always a reprieve. to a boy who always felt compelled to fill the silence around him, the trees never had the capacity to listen. so he could talk or not and it didn't matter. he could lie or tell the truth and nothing about them cared. the woods have always felt more like of a real home to him than the house he was raised in.
"how've things been with you, anyway?" ilwoo asks him, though all the words are rounded out odd and clumsy around the lollipop he's got jammed up against one cheek. it's green apple, and that's no secret with the way his lips have been dyed an unnatural acidic green.
ilwoo pulls his eyes up from the ground to glance uiseong's way instead, like he might find the answer to his question written lopsided across his profile. not good, but pretending like it anyway. or, trapped, but we're both trapped here together so i guess that makes it alright. well, maybe not the second. that's just what would be written across ilwoo's face if everything was reversed.
@adoeration / UNWANTED
gaeul faces away from the mirror and the dainty visage who was staring back. not even that layer of makeup could conceal her visible disdain, "you know.. the least you could do is pretend for me."
"yeah, i'm not. because i'd have the foresight to be like...wow. i don't want to be married to the human equivalent of a wet paper bag." he drums his fingers against the edges of the wooden chair he's sitting on. it does nothing to help the mood, the frenetic hummingbird thump of his fingers filling whatever thoughtful silence there could've been between them.
all ilwoo can summon is a shrug when she turns to face him. the wedding just feels like a mistake, and gaeul doesn't seem to be able to understand it. and the thing is, ilwoo's been around for a lot of mistakes. ilwoo's been the mistake. he knows what mistakes look like by now, clear as day. and here this wedding is, sitting there and all but blinking out in a neon sos of mistake! mistake! mistake! all gaeul seems to be doing about it is looking in the other direction.
"i'm trying to be a friend by not supporting it. would you support me fucking something all up?" maybe if this scenario was set five years from now, ilwoo would choose better words. but it's not, he's just twenty-three and has only one severely skewed relationship by which he judges everything else by. ilwoo's opinion shouldn't matter, but here he is, sharing it.
"do you think this is gonna fix everything in your life?" ilwoo asks her, a continuous wrong approach that he won't give up on, all the likeness of a dog willing to dislocate its own jaw pulling at a bone that won't give.
@sacrosaenct / INTO THE
“He wants to protect us. If we cut the vines off, He can.”
ilwoo tips his head back to look up toward the tree tops as she talks, almost expecting something to be perched there among the birds and tangled up branches. all he can find is too much green, an overwhelming amount. he finds himself nodding along to what yunseol says though, because he agrees. because he can feel the pull of his jaw, like he's about to urge himself forward every time he stops for too long. the only other time it's felt so overpowering was when he was a child. when they both were compelled, when they urged themselves into the forest the same as they are now.
and he'd felt changed after that, too. after he found that chunk of antler. he's not so sure he's ready to be changed again. but it doesn't matter if he's ready, does it? because here he is, in the forest again. here he is, walking into it willingly, with the sun eating away at the layers of skin on his nape and only the buzz of too many mosquitos urging him on.
until they find it.
ilwoo drops yunseol's hand just to get a little closer. there's so much dirt left in heaps all around them, clay-red and sticking to his shoes. and the coffin. he looks back at yunseol, half-expecting for her to know something about it. because she has a knack for that, half the time. the same way ilwoo talks through topics without meaning to. "his as in something relating to god? you know i don't believe in all that." ilwoo's not being loud, but his voice takes up too much room around them. echoing when there's no walls or hollow spaces for it to be rebounding off from.
he slides down the edge of the hole, more dirt crumbling out from underneath his heels as gravity propels him into what must be a grave. the coffin is too big, it towers over him. there's a line of nails beaten crooked into the old wood, and he gestures at it for long enough that yunseol will notice above him. "protect us from what?" ilwoo asks aloud, even as he does lift the knife to a vine, sneaks it under the stem of it and leverages enough pressure to feel it snap.
he unwinds one end of it enough to half-run it up the length of the grave and into yunseol's hand so she can work on unwinding pieces of it from above while he saws through the lower layers of all those plants, his hands sticky with the sap of it buy the time he's worked his way through the majority of them.
@willowhour / HYPNOSIS
“…you’re loud,” she finally mutters. distant, unsure if she’s directing it to ilwoo himself or some other entity shrouding in the grass. the hand on her side twitches, lets her shoulder graze his once more before shifting her eyes forward. “go home.”
there’s a strangeness to the moment, this thick blanket of it that wraps around them in the same muggy layers as humidity. just as cloying, as unavoidable. it’s not a new feeling to ilwoo though, and the way he’s learned to carry it around with him means that it doesn’t fully register now, how strange everything is. with enough exposure, even the horrifying can become habitual. they’re headed, he thinks, toward the woods. a place that’s no longer alarming to him, even if near everyone still tells him they should be. to him, nothing bad has happened there. the sort of survivorship bias that ilwoo willingly doesn’t think about for all that long.
the sleepwalking, though, ilwoo hasn’t been around for that more than once. there’s something like worry churning around in his gut, but something else too. a selfish kind of curiosity, wondering if the woods mean something to yurim too. really means something, more than it has any right too. not that he can ask now with the way she’s practically looking through him like his body might be made up of the same consistency as sheet glass.
“yeah well, that’s practically always. shouldn’t be a big surprise.” they’re not best friends, but she hangs around in his proximity enough for him to know yurim fairly well. enough for her to realize ilwoo and the idea of quiet don’t often meet.
"well, i mean, i would. if you weren't wandering around in my yard...are you barefoot?" ilwoo knocks the toe of his sneaker against her ankle like that might answer his question, preoccupies his attention with squinting down into the dark. it doesn't help much, and he gives up when a mosquito starts crawling its way up the length of his arm.
"where are you off to in a such a hurry, anyway?" he asks as he swats at bugs. "it's a longer walk to the forest from here than it seems, if that's where you're headed." ilwoo lifts his head toward where he knows that wall of trees is in the distance. by now and he can't see farther than his arm in the dark without a flashlight, but he knows they're there. he can feel them. he can always feel them.
@apatouria / PERCHED UPON THE CROSSROADS
"hey," at least the smallness of their town means sikyung doesn't have to raise his voice too much to be heard. he smiles as though he slept well. "what brings you here tonight? is there something on your mind?"
off his shift, and it’s one of those nights where seongmin’s working late so ilwoo keeps himself entertained. tonight the entertainment is visiting the crow’s nest, which to be completely honest isn’t all that exciting. but then, not much in onyang really is. at least everything on the menu is mostly cheap enough to make up for it, and there’s usually at least one person there willing to let ilwoo talk himself quiet.
he’d showered before he'd gone out out, but there’s still grease caught underneath his nails. ilwoo slivers one nail underneath the other and tries to carve it out as he waits for the bartender to see him so he can order a drink. company finds him faster than usual, and sikyung ends up at his side before ilwoo’s beer does. he nods his head toward him in an idea of a greeting and waits to see if sikyung will sit.
“me? not particularly.” there is, but he’s still too sober to talk about. it’s the kind of truth that most people wouldn’t believe, so for the moment he keeps it to himself. “what about you?” ilwoo figures the answer is yes considering sikyung is standing right next to him and asking about it. it’s the kind of question most people hope gets traded back to them. “you can sit down if you want.” he picks up the glass bottle when it’s finally set down near his hand and takes a sip, at this point the bitter edge of it is habitually comforting.
ilwoo eyes sikyung, tries to figure out if something’s up. if something happened to him, too. if it wasn’t just him and yunseol who saw something…strange.
@shuteyed / ESCAPE
everyone just knows too much about each other, maybe, and seongmin's even more of an unwilling voyeur in-between. or maybe that's his own problem, something he's imagining as some sort of fucked-up excuse for the weird way it makes him feel to be home.
the music settles over him nostalgic, and he feels himself start to relax. the rubber-band pull of the forest around him cut by distractions. ilwoo nods when seongmin reiterates the errand, tries to catalogue it away in his head so he won’t ask him again. it might work. sometimes it feels like he’s hardwired himself into a faulty memory. too many lies and mixed up details, and now it’s shot. an amalgamated mashup of things misremembered or lost.
“yeah, true. might as well stock up.” easier to afford judgement for one, more options for another. the downside of having one small grocery store in town. even the run-down convenience mart that looks like it was dropped down straight from the 90’s doesn’t have a whole lot of options compared to the neighboring towns.
“i know you came back on like, purpose.” ilwoo starts, mostly because he’s never been the type to sit in silence for long without opening his mouth and filling it with something, even if it’s inane, a dead topic, or something nobody wants to hear. “but you have to miss it sometimes, right? living in a city.” ilwoo taps his fingers against the steering wheel as he talks, attention divided up between the road and seongmin.
“top three things you miss, go.” ilwoo shoots out like seongmin’s on a game show. he angles his head just enough for seongmin to catch his grin. it’s not like he’s trying to test him, to catch him up and blame him for leaving to begin with. ilwoo gets it, once he’d been jealous. maybe he’s still a little jealous. but that was never really how they worked. now and ilwoo just wants to talk for long enough that he stops thinking. to fill up everything between them with predictable words. words that don’t hurt on the way out.
@4ntemortem / BROKEN
She gives in with a sigh, ready to sit in blissful air conditioning on her way anywhere but here. "The AC's busted. My brother thinks it might be the compressor. So, he asked me to ask you if you could take a look at it ..." Maybe this is divine retribution. "Please."
he hadn’t minded jiyeon once. she was another face he saw around, at school maybe., or someone’s house. it’s the kind of town that makes it hard to have boundaries, not enough space to draw them between. so you’re stuck together anyway. that’s how it worked once he had started minding her.
and to ilwoo it hadn’t really mattered if he had started it. he’d started it with too many people on a technicality. without his own agency. and that settled like a fire under him, the kind that smoldered, left all his frustration to rise up in a thick layer he breathed in and believed. she didn’t want to make amends, and so neither did he. call it a stalemate or inconsequential. but that didn’t make it easy to ignore her, so he didn’t bother trying.
“is it now?” it doesn’t exactly sound judgemental, but whatever it sounds like, it’s nothing nice. he’s spent enough time around religion, to see how it's affected the people he cares about to find the whole concept overblown. religion isn't just tenacity rooted in faith. it's a concept that's rooted into a person, that grows. or more than that, consumes. replaces pieces of personality with something called faith, and ilwoo has stopped seeing the good in it a while back.
“i guess you’re not one to do much of anything, are you?” ilwoo smiles as he says it, like it might be a joke. it’s likely a little meaner than he has any real right to be. he knows jiyeon doesn’t work, but past that and he doesn’t know the intricacies of her life or how she finds meaning in it. what he does understand is that it can’t be all that aspirational if she’s still stuck in this dead end town. he should know, he’s stuck here too.
ilwoo rocks himself forward when everything starts cycling back toward work. slides himself upright off the stool and ignores the way his back aches from too many hours hunched up over the hoods of cars and farming equipment. “alright, i’ll take a look.” he holds his hand out, an unspoken request for the keys. only, when she doesn’t budge out of place he shoots her a glance that’s caught between confusion and annoyance. “if you want it done tonight i’m charged extra, i’m supposed to be off soon.” ilwoo nods toward the sun as he says it, like that might count as a time clock.
@sacrosaenct / INTO THE
still, her hand tightens to the point of pain around his, even as she guides him in, the murmur in her ear, at her side, prompting them both further up and further in.
yunseol’s hand fits against his own in something familiar, and the humidity sticks them together like a coat of glue. inseparable, but they’ve always been. of course, the last time they entered the forest just like this, they were convinced off and into different directions. this time they stay stuck together though, too many voices guiding them forward, some that come out from ilwoo’s mouth, and some that he can’t hear but that he knows are real by the way yunseol cocks her head in imitation of the songbirds in the trees above them.
the shade doesn’t keep them from the heat, but ilwoo ignores it. the deeper into the forest they go, the darker it gets. too many trees with their twisting branches and leaves fighting for the sun. it leaves them in darkness. “do you think it’s different? from last time, i mean.” ilwoo says as soon as he can trust that his mouth is moving only of his own volition. his jaw feels heavy, though. overworked. like he’s been chewing gum all day and now his joints are stiff with it.
he almost expects to backtrack to where he was lost in the woods that first time around. or the marsh, where yunseol had told him she’d ended up. but they climb higher instead. the trees thin out with the elevation, and the sun rakes at the back of ilwoo’s neck. he ignores it, because at the top of the mountain there’s too much else to focus on. heaps of dirt and a wooden box jammed down deep in a hole. flowers overflowing and wrapped tight around it.
“what the fuck is that?” ilwoo asks out loud, and this time it’s entirely himself. he drops his hold on yunseol’s hand and inches in a little closer. “is that a fucking coffin?” he asks, twists his head back to look from her to the hole and back again.
HYPNOSIS / at ilwoo's place, late enough and outside with @willowhour
it’s hotter outside than it is inside, that’s all ilwoo can keep thinking about as he crouches in the overgrown grass in the side lot right next to where he lives. far enough outside of that one condensed point of town that nobody really cares how many people are rotating their way in and back out again, bottles of beer clenched tight in fists, the kind of grip that makes it seem like they’re scared someone’s going to take it from them. ilwoo doesn’t really care what’s going on, seongmin’s a good enough chaperone. better than ilwoo, anyway. he’s out here hiding instead, lighting the end of a cigarette and taking a drag that he shouldn’t be. he’ll regret it, and maybe soon. he’s at least had enough foresight to bring his inhaler with him, a misshapen plastic bulk he’s shoved int the pocket of a sweatshirt he doesn’t really want to be wearing. not with the way the heat lays over him, sticky-thick and stifling. he’s about halfway though it and muffling a deep-chested cough into his sleeve when he spots yurim. this alone isn’t worth a mention, and he almost turns to spit, to see if chunks of his lungs might come up with the saliva, when he notices the ungainly way she's walking, out of tempo from the murmur of whatever song is playing inside. she might be drunk. might be, but it reminds him of that time he came across her in the woods, half asleep and with bramble scratches raked down her arms. and as he watches her, ilwoo realizes that might just be where she’s headed again. that uneven treeline in the distance. he mutters out a quick “fuck” and drags the half-smoked cigarette out on the bend of his knee, smears a wad of ash against the denim. he pockets the remains of it as he climbs up to his feet and jogs after her. bad idea after that smoke, and he hacks out another cough as he settles at her side, stride shortening to keep pace. he starts to talk, tries to talk, but everything feels strangled on the way up. hands on the inside of his throat winding up his trachea like an old dish rag that needs to be wrung out. ilwoo doesn’t want to keep all that used up oxygen in him, so he fishes out his inhaler one handed and shakes it, tries to make out yurim’s expression as he breathes in a pump. “hey, yurim.” this time the words come out. “you in there?” he nudges her shoulder with his, just hard enough to veer her slightly off her strange path.
BROKEN / at the garage with @4ntemortem
ilwoo’s got the fan cranked up past high, in that way where it starts making this grinding whir-click of a noise, protesting the idea of living. it’s unavoidable though, because once summer hits the garage starts feeling a little closer to hell than anything else. the heat seems to pool on the concrete floor, steam spilling out from the engines and sticking to his skin. he’s got a good month left until it becomes unbearable, but he still has himself sat down right in front of the fan anyway. it’s basically a break, so it doesn’t matter much. he’s the only one on shift at the moment, and the only thing left for him to do is finish the repairs on some old farm equipment dragged down from the ginseng farms. he’ll get to it before the sun sets. or that was the plan, but now there's a car rolling its way up slow to the garage, groaning and wheezing the way most of the cars do that pull up a couple of hours before it closes. he lifts his hand to shield his eyes from the sun still lingering above the treetops, watches as jiyeon pops the door open and climbs out. it’s not all that surprising, by now and ilwoo could match every car in onyang with the person who drives it. it’s not like there’s an abundance of garages around for people to be picky about. he bets jiyeon would’ve preferred to be picky about where she brought her car to. but it’s onyang, so she’s stuck here bringing it to him. ilwoo smiles when she gets close enough that he can drop his hand. it lacks in kindness, and so it reads as something unsettling instead. like it should be crooked, sliding into a frown. but it doesn’t change, it just stays as that not-smile on his face as ilwoo leans back enough to balance his elbow on a cart behind him. “now, you know i can’t drop all my work at a moment’s notice just because you want to come see me.” the only reason that ilwoo says it is because he thinks it might get a rise out of her. that’s how he’s learned to deal with most everything in his life, good or bad, talk at it until something happens. enough times and it starts to become a pattern, one that can all but be used as a blueprint for their relationships now. ilwoo says something that makes jiyeon annoyed, and so she gets annoyed. maybe she takes a jab at him right back. like a game, only without any of the fun. “oil changes aren’t that hard, i bet you can manage.” ilwoo finally drops the smile as he says it, doesn’t bother asking the real reason she brought it in, either. with no other options around, she’ll be liable to tell him. the same way he’ll be liable to fix it for her, because he’s not above taking the money.
UNWANTED / past, around seven years ago with @adoeration “i just don’t get what you see in the guy.” this isn’t something new. ilwoo has reiterated this point more than a handful of times by now. it nearly sounds like one of those chants he can’t stop, the words unfolding out from his tongue like a paper-chain trick from a hack magician without meaning to. except this one’s done with purpose. he really doesn't get it. him. them, as a concept. gaeul and her husband-to-be. she’s in some state of getting ready, juxtaposed by ilwoo decidedly not. his jeans have a hole through the knee, and he thrifted his t-shirt a good couple years ago. it nearly feels like paper at this point, a sheet of it that was run through the washer. “there’s still time, you know, to not…” he trails off, emphasizes his point instead by waving a hand in the air ambiguously. a choose your own adventure presented to gaeul, only without any of the options. the only stipulation being: not this one. it’s not that he’s terrible, really. it all just feels too soon. off. like jamming together puzzle pieces that don't fit just because they’re all sort of the same color. “what do you even see in him?” this isn’t the first time ilwoo’s asked this question, either. it’s just, he’s never gotten a response he finds satisfactory. there’s a whole slew of words you can use to describe someone as bland, and gaeul’s never used any of them. so he keeps setting up the question, like eventually she’ll find the right word, the word that matches the picture ilwoo’s constructed of him in his head. he leans back in the chair he’s on, far enough that his head thumps against the wall. he aims his eyes up at the ceiling instead of gaeul’s face. he’s sure she’s not happy with him. lately and she’s not really been much aside from annoyed. it’s his own fault, but his opinion keeps leaking out of him like a crack in the bottom of a broken vase. unwanted.
EP 1 SUBMIT / INTO THE with @sacrosaenct
THE ANTLER GOD USES YOUR MOUTH AND SPEAKS—
“you need to pick up that knife.” you’re standing in your kitchen, and you stare at the block of knives sitting on the counter. you’re the one who controls your own hands, but the longer you stand there waiting, the more it wears out your jaw. “you need to pick up that knife.” frustrated by yourself, you turn and dig through a drawer instead to fish out a folding knife. you already seem strange enough to the people in town without walking around with a cleaver. you shove it in your pocket and resume making breakfast when you interrupt yourself again. “you need to go to the forest.” you tell yourself in a voice that isn’t quite your own. you keep telling yourself through bites of cereal until you get fed up enough that you do as you’re told. that’s when you see bat. that’s when you both go in together, in the same way as before. when you were kids. at the crosspath where you once separated, you watch bat cock their head. you almost ask before you interrupt yourself, “this way, up higher.” so you both do just that. until you find a hole. standing upright in the middle of it is a coffin, once buried vertically. wrapped in long lengths around the coffin are vines, sprouting thick bushels of purple flowers that you’ve never seen before. bat tells you that you need to free it. you hear your mouth agreeing as you draw out your knife.
“you need to go to the forest.” ilwoo keeps whispering it to himself as he drags his heels through the dirt. at this point, he’s not sure whether or not he means to be. if the words managed to work their way into his jaw permanently, a perpetual grind of “you need to go into the forest.” and there’s that knife clenched in his hand. metal indents at his skin, folded up in the casing. there’s something like worry churning around in his gut. like worry, because ilwoo doesn’t think that’s what it actually is. more likely someone might call it anticipation, except he shouldn’t be feeling that while he’s carrying around a knife and dragging himself off to the forest. so he doesn’t admit that to himself, keeps pretending it’s worry.
technically he could turn back. technically he could keep muttering to himself all day. it’s not like he’s leashed around the neck and being led there. he wants to know, that’s the crux of it. he wants to know about the woods. they’ve been such an overwhelming presence in his life. he wants to be in them. maybe he wants to get lost inside of them again, too. like he doesn’t feel home when he’s not being swallowed up by the trees. like he left some piece of himself there when he got lost in them all those years ago. like he needs to find it again. like he needs to lose more of himself. but they’re just the woods. that’s what everyone says. that’s what ilwoo tells himself, sometimes. he’s always been a liar.
close enough to the edge of the trees and the mosquitos sit as dense as fog. behind them, like an apparition, is yunseol. he cracks a grin between his “you need to go into the forest” that catches on his teeth, a clipped grind of an incisor. yunseol, just like before. it’s deja vu, or some iteration of it that tastes like nausea, salt-sticky spit underneath his tongue. he reaches a hand out to her, like a reassurance that everything is real. just like before. a small pile of mosquitos gnaws at the bone-jut of his wrist as he moves through them. he’s too caught up in his speaking, in telling yunseol now, “you need to go to the forest” to brush them away, to notice them at all.
he tugs, and she follows. they fall in step. just like before.
ESCAPE / two days ago, driving outside of town with @shuteyed ilwoo has one hand curled loose around the steering wheel. his other arm is hanging long outside the window in the way that driving instructors tell you never to do, because that’s a good way to lose it in an accident. but ilwoo doesn’t care, and he was never taught under a driving instructor anyway. just his uncle in a rusted up beater that ilwoo later ran into a tree.
he always has mixed feelings about driving out of town. it should just be enjoyable, it’s not a great town. sometimes it feels like living inside of a something gutted and dying, just waiting for it to rot away into nothing. to rot him along with it. what pulls him back is always the forest, which shouldn’t even factor in. there are plenty of forests in plenty of places. better forests even, in better places. but they don’t feel the same. ilwoo knows because he’s driven out to them white-knuckling the steering wheel and stubborn about it. but they feel wrong. whatever the opposite of home is. so that’s what he feels like as he eases his foot down a little too heavy on the gas pedal, enough that the engine lets out its guttural whine. if it were any other car, he’d be questioning it. but it’s his, and so he knows what kinds of broken he can ignore. “what’d you need to get, anyway?” ilwoo’s entirely sure seongmin’s already told him, but sometimes it’s hard to make the words stick when it’s not stressed that they’re the important sort he needs to hang his attention on. he’d picked up on the key details anyway; they needed to drive a town over, seongmin had something to do. an excuse to leave and that had been about the time ilwoo had stopped processing everything he was listening to, apparently. underneath his voice, the music cracks and pops with static. there’s an aux chord, one end of it plugged into a phone old enough that it still has something to plug into. the phone’s cracked, and ilwoo keeps it in the car like a backup album reel. it’s not too far of a drive, not with the way ilwoo keeps leaning his weight down against that pedal. but he feels it at his back, onyang. like something meat-hooked through a shoulder, trying to pull him home. he does his best to ignore it.