Do you miss me?

[entigon]

hello ♡, i go by vayne (they / them). here i present ahn yoojung (prince charming): a 25 year old engineering student, fueled by a burning desire to make the world a better place—if only so it’d purge the steps it took him to reach this point. beneath the cut, i’ve divvied up his character information in hopes of keeping it concise and highlighting the parts that i think are integral to him conceptually. if you’d like to interact with me, i’m available here through tumblr ims so just let me know. thanks for your time!

BIOGRAPHICAL:

TRIGGERS: DRUG USE, ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER

hyejung’s twin brother, though he doesn’t remember who was born first

leads the kind of life you’d expect when his parents are who they are and they own what they own. did very well in school so his parents didn’t really mind the wanton partying because his paper trail looked great. they’ve got the mentality that appearances are really the bulk of what matters because nobody’s close enough to their tax bracket to secure any meticulous look

the parental neglect means seeking validation in different places. for yoojung, that’s inviting a troupe of friends for international trips where the only supervision is the flight crew and whatever attendant he’s been assigned. he’d tell them to throw a dart anywhere on the map because he knows endless possibilities and being able to ensure it makes him look cool. he really wants the attention

not shrewd enough to understand that doing this usually ends with somebody being exploited. people get accustomed to going to parties and nice hotels so when they ask yoojung if they can go somewhere on break it’s because they already know the answer will be yes. that’s not surprising. what’s surprising is three lines of cocaine on the glass tray and asking him if he’s ever done it and yoojung saying no but that he’ll try it and opening himself up to doing something he regrets for the rest of his life

it really wasn’t his, the ten grams of coke he’d been found with. he really was holding it for a friend he really did think was his friend. but when the detectives told him that they all had insisted it belong to yoojung, he realized they weren’t his friends at all

crippling feeling of devastation that poignant epiphany is always so good at providing. he’s alone again and he can’t really call it square one because his parents actually condemn him now, hold him accountable for things. what that looks like isn’t a proper prison sentence because they’ve paid off the judge so yoojung’s only got to serve two years of community service. what it looks like is them enforcing his absolute nonexistence thereafter

heartbroken and predominantly alone in all the internal spaces where someone is bound to ruminate over their life, yoojung really does pull a 180° and start pushing himself towards the betterment of others. while he was never really selfish, it’s more that he knows he still has a malleable space he’s left wide-open. one wherein he really wants to be loved and appreciated and seen as a good person. atonement for vindication whose misuse he doesn’t accept because he doesn’t feel like he deserves to accept it

right now he is a prestigious civil engineering student. he picks this degree because his parents’ company failed to install a power generator into a hospital building. its collapse onto the town killed and injured hundreds. as compensation, they offered ₩10,000 to each grieving family alongside therapy sessions from an organization the company has a partnership with so the money circles back come the end of the month anyway

CHARACTER:

soft-spoken, kind, prone to silences. he thinks a lot and probably way more than he should. the type of person where it doesn’t really matter how much time passes because everything that’s gone wrong will always stay with him like skin. he does his best to be as thoughtful as he can despite this, which means not misplacing what feels like a myriad of angst and negativity onto people that don’t really deserve it even if he thinks they’re all thinking the same, derogatory thing about him anyway

sociable though it’s to the end of trying to make acquaintances because he’s apprehensive about making friends, if only because of the lessons he’s learned. not to say he’s jaded because he isn’t. more so that speaking to him elicits a kind of awkward fluster and incredulity because navigating conversations is scary and also ariana what are you doing here why’s this person talking to him omg etc

considerate albeit he’s considerate with people who don’t flaunt the same kind of privileged status he does so how sincere is the thoughtfulness really. the type to make assumptions about everyone and although he’s not the type to voice them he’s certainly the type to act on them but only if the action affects stuff for him personally. ie things like not showing up to an event you’ve invited him to because of something he’s heard you say that he completely misconstrued but won’t ask about because surely it isn’t worth asking yoojung surely

i like to imagine him with a general charm despite everything above lol or rather that he does a great job at communicating with the public and his philanthropic efforts are real and genuine but he holds anyone else with privilege and opportunity accountable. it stems from the perspective that he doesn’t afford himself the excuse of being human so when people have the same luxury he has they should recognize their status always and innately. strips life of its learning process and doesn’t actually trust that people really can become better once they’ve done a bad thing despite everything he’s doing for himself etc

[entigon]

acridcandy·:

“and then i feel like those same friends who actually abandoned you came back in your life and you accepted them, but i supported you through everything and it’s like … i’m being punished instead of them. how is that fair?” aera’s chest rises and falls with the weight of her breathing, senses the stress welling within her eyes and attempts to blink them away, “when you say deserve somebody like you are now, what do you mean? because honestly? i don’t require perfection. i just want you, as you are. but i’m … scared. not of you, but i’m scared that we’ll never recover and be stuck like this,” her free index finger points back and forth between them, meaning their current relationship, “and i don’t know how much more of this i can take, it hurts too bad and i’ve never felt more alone in my life. i’m really, really scared.”

once more, she’s walking him through it, his hand in hers so tightly that, even amidst all of the light she’s shone for them, he still can’t fathom it. where he begins, where she ends, or if love is meant to be this way. a constant lugging of it and then, a point where their two bodies coalesce. so indivisibly enmeshed, everything he thought as his does not actually belong to him: his hurt is in her eyes, his ostracism the same loneliness she’s grieving now. he owes it to her, he knows, to not get caught up in the guilt that’s swimming through his insides, twisting like a maelstrom. aera is talking about years, though—their time together until this point. aera is talking about things yoojung knows. a myriad of unclarified silence and seemingly impassable distance. love as hope that she might reach him somewhere on the other shore. that if he keeps her in one place, he’ll always know where she is. is this your way of saying you don’t love me the way i love you anymore? “—what?” defiant, incredulous. where is she going?

“why even mention them?” he laughs once, breath sharp. “yes,” he says, emphatic and patronizing. “it is different. that doesn’t even make sense, aera. i’ve known you longer than i’ve known raon. seryung and i haven’t even done anything recently. i don’t even have flings with these women. what are you talking about? i’m telling you how much you mean to me and you’re saying shit like this? i don’t care about them, aera. they don’t care about me. that’s my point. i’m telling you how important you are to me as a person and you ask me if what i really mean is that i don’t love you anymore? what? ‘love me the way i love you’, what?” 

he knows he should reciprocate her gentleness, how it even pours into every nicety decorating the way she talks or the way she reaches out toward him with her eyes, like an unopposable truth. “i stopped talking to you because i thought you could do better. i stopped talking to you because i thought you were going to leave me because i hated myself. i hate—the shit that’s been happening. i haven’t let anyone back in. i haven’t had anyone to go out partying with, getting drunk until three in the morning, anyone i could ‘accidentally’ call to come pick me up when i’m too wasted to get myself home safe. you’re scared? you’re scared of being alone? i’m here right now. you called me, on purpose or not; you called me and i came, aera. i’m always going to come. you ask me for anything and i’ll be there. i’m not just saying that. i really mean it. is this not proof?” 

by this, he means everything and the fact that there was even a chronicle between them that he could cite like this, swear by as testimonial. that there are memories between them. nascent, adolescent, catastrophic but still, metamorphic; still leading them to where they were right now. yoojung keeled over the car’s console centered between them, like he means to finally pass the invisible line in the sand, meet aera on her shore. like he means to hold her hand the way he thought he was holding her hand but wasn’t, evidently; not tightly enough. not so suffocatingly that she’d at least hesitate to use words like that. she’s talking about things like loneliness, things like rejection. things yoojung was intent on keeping exclusive to himself lest the narrative he had been perpetuating suddenly be invalidated. to think they’d share any common tomb at all; to think he’d be hurting her, too—hurting her at all. it doesn’t work when he’s being held accountable. 

“what do you want the next step to be?” yoojung asks with the general air of machinery in touchdown, which is to say it feels almost routinely, almost learned. he tries to level with her in a way that feels reasonable, with eyes that forward good and trustworthy intentions. everything he wants with and for her, to say the least. “tell me what you want me to do and i’ll do it. if you don’t believe me right now, then tell me what i can do to fix it. i’ll do it, aera. i want to do it. i want to. tell me how.”

[entigon]

Finished by the touch of a porcelain half-mask accentuated by avian features that sharpen the end of its nose and make feathered wings of its sides. These ends are steeped in red so rich it alleviates its burden into hopeful golds, lightly dusted over the tear ducts of hollowed eye-slots and the trim of would-be lashes and eyebrows. An immolated angel, dormant amidst its own wispy, tender fires.

AHN YOOJUNG at SAINT’S & SINNERS, @rpxoxo​ 

[holyisthenameofmyruthlessaxe]

love is the disillusionment of what you thought was love.

The Complete Stories, ‘The Egg and the Chicken (” O ovo e a galinha”)’ by Clarice Lispector tr. Katrina Dodson (via holyisthenameofmyruthlessaxe)

[entigon]

16lies​:

“yoojung,” she says, voice uncharacteristically meek and hushed. there is no taunting bite, no polar frostiness, just a sense of vulnerability and uncertainty, a razor sharpness dulled to unassuming edges; a privilege that only yoojung is treated to. her hands reach for his, resting gingerly as she gives a barely-perceivable shake of her head. “i don’t know what you’re trying to say and i don’t know what you want me to do. we’re not in high school anymore, and -” she doesn’t know what to say and there’s another intolerable silence that hangs between them. seulki appraises all the potential avenues she could drive down, although it’s futile because ultimately, yoojung has the uncanny ability to unveil her most intimate susceptibilities. “you could’ve said bye, you could’ve given me a reason, you could’ve done this so much more differently.” 

there are tears brimming, and seulki finds it almost shameful how her heart is still in the palm of his hands. “i would’ve helped you, yoojung,” she says, shaky voice barely above a murmur. “why are you even telling me this now? does it really change anything between us?” 

please say yes.

beyond the nascence of her tears, he also accepts their inevitability. seldom ever could he have a conversation without his heart being involved even vaguely. to some extent, it was his own doing. had he done anything in the last seven years that was not mired in a vineyard of love? if love could be multitudinous and omniscient, infinitely transformative and unshackled, not the pure-hearted and well-intended ideation humanity says it is. if love can be avarice, can be too much, self-aware overindulgence that feels too good to deny, can be knowing better but not doing better. if love can solely be the persistence of someone in happiness’ pursuit, doing things sometimes equivocal and sometimes not, doing all of it without testimony because love can be self-preservation. if love can lie and perpetrate, steep itself so deeply within its own intensities it metamorphoses into something diabolical. almost-hatred, though only almost, because love is still the opposite; still only a key component in abhorrence, a thing that was making what is now. 

does it change anything between us?

“i know.” yoojung says, voice teetering on a kind of malleable softness and impressionability. he’s vulnerable like this. though with seulki, he always is. she bears the brunt of it all—his wrongdoings, knowingly and unknowingly. “i know. it’s fucked up, isn’t it?” he’s running his hand over the back of his own head, tousling up his hair with frantic scratches and huffy breaths from scattered, scrambled laughter. he’s trying to assuage things and so he looks away from her, avoids her eyes forever, entwines his fingers within his fingers just to pluck them apart. “i don’t know what i want either.” his eyes widen to substitute the catch of a startled breath, reclaiming his footing with a freshly cleared throat. “i don’t know what i want out of talking here, you know. beyond trying to make things better. but isn’t that— can’t that be enough? seulki,”

i don’t want you to hate me, yoojung thinks to say. that would be a lie. he wants her to have every right to hate him but choose otherwise. he wants her to be on the brink of something calcified, unmistakable and transitional and, in an act of mercy or stupidity or desperation, turn around. that’s love, isn’t it? if love can be the reversals of love that still come so close to love it could not be called by any other name. he’s telling her this now because he wants to be loved, still. loved in some way. it doesn’t have to be that way, despite all his subtleties and tenderness he’s intentionally proffered up to resuscitate their memories, try and reward the way she’s so gentle with him now. he doesn’t know why it’s so hard for him to let go of her and of everything else in the past. raising his gaze so it could be with hers now, yoojung thinks, maybe, it’s just because it feels good. just because some part of it is reaffirming, in a way. if he could be loved then and loved right now. if he could have that proverbial line of thought that he was not a bad person running parallel to him all the while. doesn’t he deserve that?

you could’ve said bye, you could’ve given me a reason, you could’ve done this so much more differently.

“i know you were there for me. the choice i made wasn’t about you. it was about me.” the choice he made with seryung, too. “i was trying to do something for myself. i didn’t mean to just disappear. i was trying to make myself better. i always planned on telling you. talking to you, like this. i did. i never wanted to leave things in silence. you don’t deserve that. you never will.” she would never deserve that. similarly, he would never deserve this, whatever it is. a falsehood, maybe. one he’s deliberated in hopes that her goodness will persist even when his iniquity reveals itself. love can be avarice.

“i’m telling you now because you deserve to hear it. because this was never something i wanted to just let silently fizzle out. i’d never wanna do that to you.” yoojung murmurs, placing his hand on the table like a proverbial olive branch, 

“i’m sorry, seulki.”

[nuabbo]

ONE icons

[entigon]

“sorry about that.” yoojung says, though he isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for.

he is, however, certain that an apology is due. long overdue, even. there’s an aspect of inescapable scrutiny that accompanies the existent torment looming behind every anonymous post. the only time he acknowledges the benefit of social class is when it’s poured out like a protective moat around him. 

the distance between him and the ambiguous, unnamed collective littering the bustling metropolis is, mostly, impassable beyond stolen opportunities bordering on chargeable harassment. what that commenter says about him only matters because he’s recycling their message over in his head as he lays down to sleep. in reality, swathed by riches and privilege, they’d never get to him because they can’t. the incontestable definitiveness of it all bothers him. he feels like he has to expose himself to it, the public lashings, like a kind of penance. the family’s company had catalyzed the destruction of a small province. atonement is more than five hundred won per house, isn’t it? 

he looks at his sister seated across from him. how much she changed to be loved or simply left alone. 

isn’t it?

“i meant to see you sooner. talk about what happened.” he did. where there is an absence of notable penalty for objective wrongdoing, hyejung supplements the haunting confessional. while he may never say it to anyone else, he will say it to her. look her in the eyes while he does it. he’s not sure if it really means anything, though. hyejung would probably love him regardless. probably being crucial. if there’s a chance she would blame him for anything, he’s got to take it. behind that moat is a solitary castle, wherein she is the only one he can effectively reach.

“everything that happened made it hard to talk. not just to you, but to everyone. kind of embarrassing having it be framed like i cheated on my girlfriend to be with someone who wouldn’t even show up in court for me. seulki and i weren’t even dating. i keep saying that, but i guess it doesn’t actually matter. it felt like we were. if it didn’t, i wouldn’t actually care about fooling around with seryung while i was with her, right?” yoojung sighs, puts his head down on the table chin-first as if he was readying himself for the guillotine. the restaurant is nice and, for now, it’s theirs exclusively. when he isn’t thinking about the harrowing implications of having enough money to expunge the public from a public space, it is pretty nice. 

“aera’s birthday is coming up and we had this huge argument because she was drinking—she’s been drinking, a lot—and she called me. i went to go get her and it became this huge fit about how she thinks i’m replacing her, that she feels abandoned. she said she’s seen the posts about me ‘ogling other women’. i told her there aren’t any other women, just for all of this shit to come out on the blog. i haven’t even tried calling her because i don’t want to hear what she’ll say. i really don’t want to lose her, hyejung.”

that’s what the ring he bought is for, keeping her. he ignores the implications behind that specific jewelry piece, too. long enough to open up the black, velvet box and show it to hyejung in all its multitude-of-clustered-diamonds glory. “what do you think? is it too much for a birthday?”

@sourires / two kinds of happiness

[entigon]

14 new notifications

(missed call) (missed call)

(sms) yoojung i’m so sorry can we talk?  (sms) i’m sorry i didn’t call they took my phone i’m so sorry for what i did i know i should have been there for you i’m so sorry i didn’t tell you i was just s (sms) i didn’t k (sms) i didn’t know how to tell you that. i knew what i did was wrong i didn’t think you would talk to me or you would look at me like (sms) yoojung i’m so sorry(sms) do you believe me? (sms) do you hate me? (sms) i wish we could talk (sms)i’m here if you want to talk again. i’m sorry i miss you

(missed call) (missed call)

(missed call)

he was wishing it was all a dream, that marathon of blog posts he had unwillingly championed. though it was all malformed and unbearable, it still wouldn’t be right to call it a nightmare. there was a measure of surrealism about it that he had cherished. a certain aspect of escapism into sanctuaries he had hallowed in places christened with the names of people, made memorable by landmark faces, beautiful and distinct. 

he likes how it read, at least. 

his name next to hers, solidifying that there was something there between them. not that he doesn’t already know that, but now, the city did too. it’s his metropolitan-wide self-affirmation of being wanted by people. the rest of it, he’ll simply excise, or warp until it’s demented enough to fit into whatever ragtag space he’s spared to accommodate an anomaly like that. like him feeling as though he was on the cusp of something tangible with seryung, only to realize whatever it is he realizes when he reads she abandoned him; realizes everyone else reads it too. 

it’s humiliating at first, or, better yet, humiliating all-throughout but the shame recedes into a pulse quiet enough to mistake as a heartbeat or something else he’s been living with all the time. it stings the way anything epiphanous does but then dulls the way anything familiar does. which is to say, it isn’t news to him. it’s not so impossible he couldn’t fathom it, or seryung doing that—discarding him and securing herself. 

he had an inkling since that day, an idea of his own worthlessness. it fills up between the four walls of the desolate courtroom like a shoddy faucet, where the source of the leak is because of something deeper, more undetectable and convoluted. something that requires expertise he doesn’t have and resources he can’t readily employ so he’s, once again, accommodating however he can with whatever he does have. in this instance, the disconnection of a figurative kitchen cabinet’s closed door. what hurts is that it’s opened up against his will and all the murk comes out. everyone can see he hasn’t fixed it yet. 

it’s been running for years and he hasn’t fixed it yet.

to SERYUNG:

SMS: i just don’t get why you talked to me at all SMS: when you came back, i mean SMS: there was no point lmfao SMS: if you felt like i was nothing SMS: not just feel because clearly to you i am SMS: if i’m nothing to you why did you bother doing that SMS: guilty conscience? SMS: did you feel bad for me? SMS: you can carry your own weight can’t you SMS: what more do you want from me

[gorabaa]

A handwritten note, scrawled in Arabic on a torn cigarette pack, was discovered on the ground last week in Pozzallo as migrants filed off a ship. It was from someone initialed “A” to someone else initialed “R.”

“I wanted to be with you,” read the note. “Don’t you dare forget me. I love you very much. My wish is for you not to forget me. Be well my love. A loves R. I love you.”

كلمات عربية مكتوبة بخط اليد على غلاف علبة سجائر ممزقة عُثر عليها بعد إنقاذ مركب لمهاجريين غير شرعيين لإيطاليا من أ لـ ر The New York Times | T.B : Lynsey Addario 

[entigon]

acridcandy​:

“you don’t want me to be miserable? bullshit ⏤ then how come you’ve never seriously asked why i’m doing this instead of just reprimanding me and sending me home?” groomed eyebrows furrow as she inhales his rage and casts it back on him with the force of all that she’s suppressed for god knows how long, “what am i supposed to do, yoojung? i’m fucking sad!” a voice cracks with melancholy as she starts yelling, “what do i do when everyone that was close to me just abandons me? fuck my mom but she’s dead, my dad is as good as dead, i have a sister that wants nothing to do with me now and you, the one person i fucking trusted with my heart and was my everything at one point keeps pushing me away when all i’ve ever done was love you! it’s so unfair!” the crimson flush of her face is enhanced by the end, though it along with the hot tears that glide down the apples of her cheeks are covered by the full length of her hands; nothing but pitiful sniffles and silent sobs while her heartbreak is laid bare within the expanse between them, enveloping her in this moment. this is why she didn’t want to see him.

“don’t question why i feel this way when you hurt me more than anyone, yoojung. and you keep doing it. that’s how you care?” a shaky breath, “alcohol and escapism is the only thing i can count on since you’re too busy making goo goo eyes at other women.”

this is why he prefers his version of what happened between them. aera doesn’t spare him the way he wants her to. aera has to say the whole truth because aera has the right to say it. maybe, all this time, she’s even abstained from saying it, so this moment right now, this trickling over, she needs it. not only is it a necessity, but she deserves it; he has to listen. he still wants to tell her that she isn’t understanding him, though. any narrative where he’s ending up against her is a misunderstanding. 

“i’m not leaving you.” yoojung says. he means it. he’s said it before and meant it. that’s why they are where they are now. yoojung doesn’t leave her but yoojung doesn’t come back to where she is, where she wants to be. he makes sure they’re always moving. some fish die if they stop swimming. this is a bit like that, he thinks. reaching his hand out toward her feels like he’s trying to wedge a way through the too many years that have calcified between them. the too many disappointments, the too much pain. it’s thick, abysmal, impassable, as deep as the sea. yoojung is at the bottom of it. reaching his hand out toward her, he isn’t sure what he intends for, where he’s going—if he’s emerging or submerging. maybe he should do what he always does and just barely come close. graze the edge of her trepidatiously, as if to touch was to defile, his hand laid out on the middle console separating them like an olive branch, or a hook. 

“i don’t want to leave you, aera. that was never—that was never my intention. it never will be. i never want to be without you. i can’t; i could never be without you.” his fingers curling over the edge of that compartment now. his touch is still anathema. “even when we weren’t talking, i was always thinking of you. about you. i am. there are no ‘other women’, aera. i’m not looking at anyone else. not like i look at you.” 

this momentary silence is meant to somehow lull, but there in the middle of the night, it’s a monstrous cacophony, suffocating beneath an opaque sheet. his fingers release the edge of that compartment now. pulling his hand back from her, he’s got an idea of what he intends for, an idea of where he should go, what submergence is. yoojung entrenched somewhere unrecoverable, indiscoverable. that would be a good enough penance, he thinks, because looking at aera now, all he wants to do is hold her. he could be shackled somewhere eighty leagues deep with her image emblazoned in his mind like a burning idol of love and him fighting forever to reach her before the fire consumes her. to be honest, that’s what he felt he was doing all this time, preserving her.

“i have loved you from the day we met.” what is it to dream and, even having plunged so far into the breadth of imagination, wake to find the world still bearable with your eyes open? love. aera is like that. yoojung remembers every subtlety. her head on his shoulder, her hand in his. at some point, he let go. he was always sure of his intentions with her. at least, he thought he was. mulling it over now, though, maybe it doesn’t mean much, his certainty. maybe it’s pitiably quintessential, even obvious. of course he doesn’t want to drown her. who wants to drown someone they love? 

“i thought i was helping you out.” it trembles where he wishes it wouldn’t, his voice. “i don’t know, aera. i thought it was a good thing. i thought that—don’t you think it was better for you? why would i want to put you through that? you act like i’ve had a great time. i’ve been miserable. i didn’t matter to anyone but you. and i love you so much, aera, i do, but don’t you think—do you think i’m wrong for wishing any of my friends cared enough about me to say something? to help me at all? am i not just a fucking loser for that? for letting that happen to me? i didn’t want you to think differently of me, aera. i didn’t want you to see me as somebody stupid. i didn’t want to ruin your reputation. you don’t deserve somebody like that. you deserve somebody like who i am now. somebody who means well and wants to do well and has the ability to actually do it, without just saying it. you have always been perfect to me, aera. i want to be the same for you. i never want to hurt you. i never want to make you miserable. i love you, aera. i love you so much.”

[entigon]

truth: what crimes against women have you done?

he knows what he could say; he envisions the words, even. through this conceptual lens, it's bearable. it even transcends tolerance, this retrospect—it makes everything seem almost childish. like it isn’t that critical, whatever it is that he’s doing with aera, with seulki, with seryung and raon. is he doing something?

“i—” quiet and staggered, uncertainty the unbreathable weight clasping his mouth shut on the shape of something putrid. “i don’t know. i’m just talking to them.” there’s a new weight around his neck, his jaw, tilting his head up as if to forcibly reangle the perspective he’s looking through—or looking for pardon with that amorphous thing in the sky.

“i cheated on seulki with seryung, but i don’t think it counts because seulki and i weren’t dating. i did like her—i do, i do like her; like her still, i mean—but it was different. i know that it’s wrong, though, because she and seryung were friends, but i don’t think i did anything wrong. i don’t think that—it's just, i just think that it would have been different if seulki and i were dating, but we weren’t. and it’s not like i dated seryung, either. that happened and we never spoke again. it didn’t become a thing. or, well, it did become a thing but it wasn’t as if we were dating either. i don’t think seryung even wants to be in a relationship together. i like her, too. a lot. obviously if i felt like it was something she was considering, i’d talk to her about it but seryung has—you know. she does things, too. i feel like if she liked me—i just think things. i don't know.”

he isn’t sure what he's saying, he’s only sure it’s inevitable that she does things. doesn’t everyone? isn’t everyone scattered? “i like aera and raon, too. i didn’t know they were sisters. i haven’t—i haven’t done anything with either of them. i took raon on a date because she helped me out with something. also, i just think she’s intelligent and i’m single. i can spend my time how i want to spend it. it’s not like—i’m not actually dating any of them. i’ve never mentioned dating any of them. i used to date aera, but that was before—” he’s gesturing vaguely as if he could summon the words without incantation.

“everything that happened. i mean, obviously she knows that i like her. aera’s probably the first girl i’ve ever loved. i still love her. it’s just—i don’t know. don’t you think—well, am i actually wrong? i didn’t stop talking to her because i hated her. i stopped talking to her because i was going through stuff myself. i just—i don’t know. i don’t think any of this counts. i’m not dating any of them so i'm not cheating on them. and they don't have to know about it because it doesn't actually concern any of them with each other. it's through me. it’s just talking.”

[rpxoxo-deactivated20240618]

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gossipgirl  sometimes, in an effort to spread the most outrageous rumors, we look over the very thing that’s even more scandalous—the truth. and the only thing more shocking than the truth are the lies people tell to cover it up. but it’s often said that, no matter the truth, people see what they want to see. some people might take a step back and find out they were looking at the same big picture all along. some people might see that their lies have almost caught up to them. some people may see what was there all along. and then there are those other people. the ones that run as far as they can so they don’t have to look at themselves. and as for me, i can see clearly now. xoxo —gossip girl

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@insesong

[entigon]

sevoir​:

as they stand there waiting, she thinks of saying something, but she looks over at him and she’s momentarily taken aback by how deep and bright his eyes are. he has the kind of eyes she’d like to drown in for a little while. and she thinks hard about how she wants him to keep looking at her, then she forgets what she meant to say. and then the elevator comes and then it’s too late and then— she breathes in through her nose and wraps his buttery leather jacket tighter around herself. seryung steps into the elevator and feels like she’s stolen some other girl’s dream.

the doors close. seryung thinks hard about how she needs a drink. it’s silent for only a heartbeat. “hosting is fun,” she says, pausing abruptly. she doesn’t know why she feels so out of breath. seryung runs her tongue over her lips and tucks her hair out of her face, looking up and meeting his eyes. she really needs a drink. “but my mom… she can be a lot when it comes to these things. i mean, she’s just doing her best because she wants everything to be perfect, of course, but it can be…” she shakes her head, laughing. “are you having fun?” she asks, eyebrows pushed together in meek hope that melts into another breathy laugh. “oh—” she reaches for his arm and squeezes affectionately, seamlessly taking a half step closer, “did you do the tour yesterday?”

as always, he’s committed to her. it’s been this way since things had even begun being routinely. which is to say, if he had always been a creature of habit, he hadn’t realized it until his life past that fateful night included her in some way every time. he finds she’s always there, the polyphonic and ubiquitous light dazzling at the edges of his mind. a gold trinket he can’t start his day without. proverbial good-luck charm, or something else equally auspicious, superstitiously contrived; he fears what would happen without her—happen to him without her. if he did not have her like this. if he couldn’t call her whimsically after however long they’ve kept their silence. long enough for yoojung to forget why they were being silent in the first place, at least.

“you okay?” it’s a very tender murmur and he’s doing things he doesn’t need to be doing. brushing his hand down her cheek and pulling her hair back behind her ear because some strands get caught-up when she’s flustered. he doesn’t want her in any more disarray. 

he likes how she can do that for him, too—specify desire. seryung doesn’t have a jacket? he wants her to have his. seryung’s got free-time this evening? he wants it to belong to him. there’s no more thought about it. no decorum he’s worried he’s overlooking. it’s instinctual. intimacy is inevitable between them; he doesn’t have to think too much about it or whether or not it should be anyway else. “you sound a little,” he’s gesturing as if it could conjure the word he’s thinking of, “stressed out. i mean, the situation you’re describing does sound stressful, though.” he nods. he laughs because hers is contagious. “perfect isn’t human, so. i can see why it’d be a lot. especially with—everything.” 

the silence that follows is about eighty leagues deep. there’s a lot in that everything. gossip girl, for one, but seulki, aera and raon, too. he keeps the back of his hand against seryung’s cheek, keeps his eyes with hers. statement: it doesn’t have to come between them. question: does it? it wasn’t anything, he says, but if going out for coffee or answering somebody’s call every time isn’t anything, then what’s he doing with seryung? 

anyway, the elevator dings.

“no tour yet. i was saving it for you, actually. i was gonna ask if you wanted to go on the cable car with me.” yoojung says, and he moves in closer to her when she comes closer to him. what’s he doing with seryung? it’s like their own, little dance, orchestrated by cues only the other recognizes. gentle, water reaching shore type of symmetry. what’s he doing with seryung? he’s letting her leave the building first so he can walk behind her when they’re in the hotel’s garage and he’s opening the passenger door for her. 

“i thought it’d be better later at night, you know.” he looks at her once he’s shouldered into the driver’s seat. “less people, more privacy. i miss you, so.” he looks at the steering wheel, licks over his bottom lip lightly, contemplating. “i wanted to get a chance to talk to you. just us. without it,” he gestures again, “destroying our lives in arial font. i thought maybe we could get dinner and check it out?” he winks. “i need to spend some time with you, at least.”

[entigon]

acridcandy​:

it makes sense that she turns to heavily drinking while her life descends into chaos ⏤ it gives her something that she can still control. or at least it was until she dials yoojung’s number by mistake, a force of habit she’s yet to beat while out too damn late and crossfaded. she doesn’t hang up fast enough because he’s there before she can realize it, shaking her head with soft whines and noooooos as he puts her away with delicacy. and as much as sober aera would have enjoyed this treatment, inebriated aera can’t hide the fact that he tends to represent hurt and pain and how much she does not want to see him in this moment. it’s clearly shown by the way fingers grasp the water bottle given only to roll down the window and toss it out the car, liquid exploding on the sidewalk with an ungraceful splat. she’ll regret that later.

“oh my g⏤ i didn't⏤ i wasn’t calling you. i didn’t want to see you but now you’re here,” words are slurred as she whines again, crown hitting the headrest, “i wanna be happy. i was soooo happy in there,” a finger smudges the glass window as she points outward, “but you make me soooo sad and now you’re ruining the vibes and i didn’t want this, yoojung!” it’s the that hands tug brutally on the seatbelt, stretching it back and forth for a bit as if that was a way to get out before stopping, voice small, “i wanna be happy again. you hate me.”

“aera.” 

he doesn’t like the way he says her name, like he’s chiding her. it leaves a very bitter aftertaste in his mouth. like his tongue’s working around something palpable and indigestible, bile-tinged—disappointment doubling because it used to be a flavor he was fond of. 

not to say he isn’t, now. maybe it’s just an indulgence he’d be grateful for if it happened more rarely. if it happened outside of unintended phone calls in the middle of night so late it’s early and him coming to her because he doesn’t trust anyone else to. he also doesn’t want anyone else to. she’s precious. pleading for happiness in the midst of her inebriated blur, asking to go back to drinking because it’s easier than being around him. 

is he a terrible person? he knows what his own answer would be. what he’s really asking himself is whether or not aera thinks so. oddly enough, though, her answer to that question is one he doesn’t want to hear. you hate me, she says. he’s not really sure how he’s spent the last seven years in this self-imposed penance, reliving every footstep down the same, dilapidated corridor like a sentient haunting or a walking morgue. how he’s spent the last seven years exalting this idea of crucifixion, integrating it everywhere. trying to minimize himself because he thinks he deserves less, because he thinks he deserves exactly what she’s giving to him but he can’t take it when it’s her delivering. 

he prefers his version, the diluted one. the one that has her waiting, maybe—picturesquely abiding and as graceful as ever. the one that reaches him across the distance he’s made and keeps on reaching when he steps back even farther. he doesn’t like the tincture of consideration on the edge of her voice, the suggestion. like maybe it means something, the way he’s acting; the way he’s been acting. like maybe he doesn’t actually want her around anymore. like maybe this is all burdensome to him. why else would he sound so annoyed? why else would he go out of his way to render himself a stranger? 

at some point subconsciously, yoojung must’ve pulled over because he catches himself staring at her. he catches the anger in his hands, how it tightens his grip on the steering wheel. “i do not— hate you.” a pause. another nauseating taste. yoojung breathes out. “why—why the hell would you even say that? you’d rather be drunk and fuck yourself up than let me drive you home so you can rest? so there isn’t a post about you spiraling down a wild bender? so you can be safe? you think i hate you because i want you to be safe? do you think everyone else loves you, then? letting you do whatever you want?” he’s reaching for her hands, so gently it’s as if the rage had never touched him, handling her like glass. he tries to situate them, get her to leave the seatbelt alone, look at her in some way that’s pleading. 

“it’s dangerous, aera. it’s dangerous to be drinking this late. i don’t want anything to happen to you. i keep saying this every time and it always becomes an argument. i don’t want you to be miserable, aera. i want you to be safe. it matters to me. does how i feel not matter anymore?”

[entigon]

16lies​:

for brief moment, when he speaks, she does regain her senses. even feels a surge of anger. seryung, yoojung, all the fucking same. unresolved finales, silence for how ever long it benefits them, coming back in her life as though nothing changed and they hadn’t been the catalyst for the worst fucking year of her life. seulki can only stare incredulously at him, wills herself not to throw the glass of water into his fucking face. “yoojung,” she starts, voice neutral. eyes void of any feelings. “first off, i’m in law school. i’m not qualified to give you advice, and i won’t because there’s a likelihood that you could sue me. and i don’t think i would like to take that risk.” 

smiles blithely. “secondly, is this the only reason why you called me? because i’m pretty sure your family has their own lawyer to speak to.”

“well.” he says, the eventual silence and the way his eyes meet her eyes, how it supplements the rest of what he could say; what he wanted to. 

that he’s been thinking about her—not in that way, though not completely in the other way, either. he loves her, of course. he loves everyone he has ever loved. maybe he’s too flippant about it, too sentimental—it feels like there’s a part of him that’s fleshy-raw and impressionable. 

like she’s left a mark somewhere inviolable, somewhere time—its inevitable erosion, more specifically—couldn’t reach. he remembers her as he knew her; first met her. maybe it isn’t fair to her to be this prevalent, timeless entity in his mind. it’d be easier for both of them if she wasn’t; seulki persists with the omnipresence and omniscience of blood like this. 

they’re in their twenties now—yoojung looks at her and remembers everything. little murmurs of sweet somethings because nothing between them was ever nothing. her hand in his hand; her hair through his fingers. i think you’re perfect. he meant that. i like you just the way you are. he just liked seryung as she was, too. 

the silence has amalgamated into something nauseating. his eyes are with her eyes, still. he makes some incomplete, pointless motion—a twitch of his finger or a single bounce of his knee. something to communicate he was, at least, still alive, or maybe, had phased out for a moment there but was all here now. “um.” he gives a tiny smile but even meek it’s enough to fatten up his cheeks. he huffs. “i didn’t mean it like that. not like, certified legal advisor. just someone who—i trust, that,” putting more cream into the cup of coffee he hasn’t even touched yet, “knows the law really well. i wasn’t trying to employ you, or anything. you wouldn’t be responsible. it was just a conversation—between friends.” 

between friends. 

“i saw you around. see you around. obviously. i just wanted to talk to you. you know, and hang out. things got really awkward for a bit, so.” if there was a time to apologize outright, he thinks it would be right now. he’s doing it again, conceding to that massive silence, keeping his eyes on her with the portent of somebody who has something to say but won’t say it; can’t say it. 

“—i know that’s my fault,” he tries instead, like it’s close enough to saying sorry. like, at least she won’t think i’m unaware, right? “i was just trying to make some personal changes after everything that happened. i really needed to change.” he’s purposely obtuse, smears timelines because it benefits him, omits how everything that happened between them happened before that. 

“i didn’t wanna hurt you or have you see me like that, you know. you mean—you mean a lot to me, seulki. it scared me to think that you’d see me differently forever, you know? i didn’t want to fuck anything up for you if reports got out. i’d never forgive myself for that.”

[entigon]

apologizing for my tiresome pace in attending to everything once again lol i plan on replying to all plotting related messages and as many threads as i can throughout the weekend. thank you guys a lot (for bearing with me)