lurk

[hrskitaek]

torn.

yeoreum​

“i… what?” she asks, raises an eyebrow. “go on kitaek, say it. i know you want to.” yeoreum smiles, humorless. “do it. you’re being so brave tonight, why not keep it up? call me a bitch, maybe it will make you feel better about yourself.” she chuckles. “i’m sure you already said it behind my back anyway, don’t be a coward and say it to my face.”

yeoreum waits, rage still boiling. she doesn’t know if she wants an excuse to do… something or what. kitaek makes her forget her manners for a while, what an inconvenience.

kitaek doesn’t know yeoreum, not really. the same way she doesn’t know him either. they never matched up, , were never pushed close enough to even find the desire to get to know each other. all he really knows about her is that she had the inclination at some point in time to talk about him, the sort of talk that left people with a bad taste in their mouth.

so it’s really no surprise that on kitaek’s end he built up and harbored some form of resentment, even if it’s a misshapen and unidentified thing. he doesn’t trust her, and he can’t find the motivation to try and change that viewpoint -- and to be fair, yeoreum seems to share a similar opinion on him.

“sure.” a shrug paired with a non-answer, the kind of bland reply that used to make his teacher suck in that sharp breathe of air and hold it for a minute or two before replying, like they might’ve been holding back the desire to smack him upside the head. he doesn’t know her motivations, not the real kind necessarily, just holds the viewpoint he’s constructed after watching her navigate through the bits of life he’s seen, what she’d achieved back in high school. the lies and the mid games.

“fine, you’re a bitch.” the same bland pitch, and he nearly jerks his shoulder up again like some kind of nervous habit. instead, he tucks his hand deep into the pocket of his jeans. he’s not so sure what she wants him to feel, or maybe she just wants to be angry at him. but he can’t find it in himself to circle back on his intentions and say he hadn’t meant it, to whitewash over everything in dulcet intentions. because he always had thought so, since high school.

“it’s not like i’m scared. i was being polite.” the last word is bitten out, shaped into something that sounds caustic. maybe because it is.

“that’s your whole thing though, right -- polite?” and the way he says it makes it sound like polite should be in quotes, but instead of miming it out he just shoves his hand deeper into his pocket.

[hrskitaek]

200%

namshin

“and so what if it is ironic? you’re self-aware enough to know that this town would kiss the ground i walk on if i got rid of you. even kim minseok would be dancing with joy if your clingy, dead weight ass disappeared.” shinwoo’s not much of an artist, but he looks down at the mess he’s made of ahn kitaek. he smiles, face mixed with sadistic childlike wonder and pride. “don’t you know that you’re bringing him down all the time? strange how you have that camera around you all the time but can’t see the real picture.”

there’s an imbalance between them, through both of their perspectives. if kitaek were another person, maybe he would roll his eyes at the concept. hold up the realization that ilmyo isn’t a very big town, that the power shinwoo wants to lord over them all isn’t quite as impressive as he wants to make it out to be. but kitaek isn’t. he’s able to buy into it, this large-scale story he’s spun around himself from middle school. watches rook grow and settle with this self-righteous air around him. and kitaek feels as if there is this span of space between them, a divide in power. and when they both comes together sharing this viewpoint, it makes it true. there’s no other perspective to shatter it, even if kitaek tries to deflect with words, tries to make it seem like he doesn’t.

it’s an impressively small town, and yet, kitaek can’t help but to compare himself. 

but it’s that same divide he sees that makes him grind his heels in the ground, to flare up angry, try to tear at shinwoo’s patience. it’s a certain kind of power, isn’t it? not as concrete as shinwoo’s, but a power. to reshape, to push into something uneasy and trembling. an ability to break apart self control and show him in a light not suited for the political sphere. he doubts anyone left in the bar cares, but it sends a thrill down kitaek’s spine. all satisfactory, even as shinwoo reaches across the bar to grab at him. 

and then pain. there’s always that initial shock of it, the split second before it hits where it’s just this white burst of blurred vision and the tip of something dizzy. and then it drips down through his body, the ache in his jaw and the firework-burst of nerves set off under his skin. kitaek hisses, recoils with a tip of his body. there’s the thick taste of something metallic under his tongue, a well of blood. he wants to spit it out at him, and if he were anywhere else than the bar he might. instead, he swallows it down, levels a glare at shinwoo and ignores the way his head aches. 

and then he wants to hit him back when he keeps talking. salt in the proverbial wound. it isn’t so fair, he thinks, that shinwoo has so many people surrounding him. even seoyul; but kitaek does his best to ignore that relationship. he digs his teeth down into his tongue, it’s a bad idea. it’s where he’d bitten down on it before when shinwoo had hit him. but the pain anchors him. keeps himself from lashing back, making the situation that much worse. and it’s not like kitaek would come out victorious, would just be happy if he managed to get one good swing in at him. 

but it’s not the place, so he stands and listens in the quiet swelter of the bar. a few drunken regulars peering over at them, and maybe they’ll forget it by the time they stumble home and into bed. save kitaek his pride. 

“so what. who cares?” kitaek does, and maybe it’s obvious, but he’d be a fool to let on. “if nobody cares, then why do you and your fucking friends?” his voice is curled out awkward around a swollen tongue, and he shoves himself out of shinwoo’s grip, takes a few steps back. “screw off then. if you don’t care about me either go, because it doesn’t seem like it.” he blinks slow, body tensed. waits to see if shinwoo with seethe and slink from the bar. kitaek needs a drink and a wad of ice from the cooler, but he doesn’t go through the moment of folding in on himself until shinwoo’s gone. no reason to give more than he needs to.

there will always be that strange imbalance kitaek can’t help but buy into.

[hrskitaek]

SIGNS OF LIFE

jungmin​

an awkward pretense takes shape so he snuffs out the rest of his interest and clears his throat. “sorry, the topic’s a bit grim for late-night drinking, huh?” an empty chuckle follows. no one is foreign to the feeling. it pervades their life like joy and sorrow, and takes up a permanent residency that grows harder to explain. it just… is.

“feels like almost everyone is suspicious nowadays.” 

when he says it, it sounds more like wishful thinking. like he wants to take that sentiment of guilt straight from jungmin’s mouth, slap a bow on it, and mail it off to the police station, or the paper. somewhere that can publicize it as truth and steal all that red-hot incriminating heat from kitaek’s shoulders. he doesn’t like the sting of accusations. they clump up and swell, and like it came from a swarm of angry hornets, his skin blots up in hives. even his own body is looking to out him on some seemingly-guilty verdict. 

but he likes this moment, with jungmin sitting across from him and talking like it could be a fifty-fifty split. kitaek appreciates those sort of odds more than the ones he stacks up against himself when he’s alone and in a mood for self pity.

kitaek shrugs when jungmin meanders his way into a questions. it’s the sort that always stays balanced on the mind, just a little out of view. i need to do the laundry, i’m running low on milk, i should develop this film, i wonder if they’ll catch that murderer, that new drama i want to watch is starting tonight - don’t forget. at the start of it all, it was more urgent and ever present. will they catch them, who is it, where are they -- in the town? but like all things that sit and settle and seep, it slowly become normalized. a quiet curiosity, a constant and unnerving churn in the gut.

“it’s fine, most people have grim thoughts when they’re drinking alone.” there’s a pause, the awkward sort, where kitaek contemplates the words he chose. his lips part again, like he might attempt to take them back. point out that jungmin is not, in fact, drinking alone. that they’re stuck in this bar together. but it’s not a purposeful thing, with a date and a time and a promise of budding friendship. it’s kitaek’s job, and jungmin came in alone. so kitaek closes his mouth.

“me too.” he eventually adds on instead, like commiserating might make the whole statement read more casual than it is.

“it’s hard to forget about everything lately anyway. every time i get close enough to it, it seems like there’s always something ready to remind me.”

maybe it’s insensitive, considering chaekyung had been jungmin’s sister. but then, goeun’s seemed to be the hot topic lately anyway. the one on the tip of everyone’s tongue. kitaek wonder if that makes jungmin annoyed or happy, or just something else completely. 

“do you hate talking about it?”

[hrskitaek]

LIFELINE.

seoyul

she lets her head tip back to peer at the sun between the trees, the movement of leaves and the sway of shadows. “what if i hate my unicycle and i want to return it for something else?”

seoyul talks, delicate words that he supposes are supposed to settle soft over his ears, so he can take to them like a comfort. and he does have a habit of doing that for some things. but it’s hard to bring himself there for this situation in particular. hard to reason with it past some strictly logical basis, and he’s never been good with the strictly logical. whatever mental conversations he throws around inside of his own head are doused and dripping in emotion and personal bias. this situation is really no different. it’s hard to unstick his feet from the quagmired trap of his own thoughts.

and he’s always stuck there by himself, an apparent inability to force out that flood of emotions and have someone else make sense of it with him. either through that paranoid need for secrecy, or else a plain inability to do so. his tongue always feels like lead in his mouth when he pushes himself to to think about it. just heavy and useless, distracting his sense with that sticky metallic sort of taste. like he’s about to throw up. he shares more with seoyul than probably anyone else, but there’s only so much that he can drag out of himself without reaching some unseen limit. 

so he deflects instead of harping on the issue, trying to spell out whatever interpretation of events he’s letting himself simmer in -- reaches out to shove seoyul into deeper water as a way to step over it all.

“you’re the one who wanted to go into the pond.” he reminds as he hops across a scatter of rocks with a learned ease.

“high school is always just high school, but it feels like nobody actually believes in it around here.” he smiles, a lopsided quirk to the corner of his mouth. “it’s all been so long, but it’s like...everyone keeps using it as a guideline for how to keep going. does that make sense?” kitaek shrugs, like he might not care if it doesn’t. maybe if he’d gotten out of town, moved away, shocked himself out of the mentality he’s been stuck it, maybe then he’d be thinking differently.

“well, what d’you want? pogo stick?” kitaek smiles wider at the joke, takes a few more steps across rocks, inches his way back in toward the edges of the pond. the sun is starting to sink, and he can see the early rising mosquitoes starting to skim around, can catch their shadows when he glances out from the corners of his eyes.

“we should leave soon, we’re about to get eaten alive.”

[hrskitaek]

LIFELINE.

seoyul

“i have a shift so i’ll be late regardless. but i’ll be there,” she tells him, “so don’t be so glum. who else am i even meant to hang out with, minseok? he’s always liked you best anyway.” she pouts, performatively, “that’s me, always third wheeling.”

has there ever been a time when kitaek couldn’t consider himself a lonely thing? clinging to his mother’s skirts until she whisked herself away to a better life (and even now he can’t blame her for it), a father more stern than personable, too teary-eyed for his cousin to play with. too demanding for the other kids in school. by the time he’s old enough to find maturity, he’s still unsure how to forge bonds by anything other than attempted force. he’s just lucky seoyul doesn’t seem to mind it. follows along after her even now -- from stone to stone. like a game of chase he refuses to acknowledge. it might sting otherwise.

“i’d probably die in a week.” it’s a bet that kitaek figures he might win, but he smiles along at the idea anyway. the sentiment is nice at least, even if it’s peeled too far away from reality. they used to stay out there though, the two of them, in the woods. after they found each other and became friends, mostly because there was nobody else. but that kind of thing pushes people together, he thinks. memories lost in the forest, stick huts and snakes caught between his palms, showing them off like a trophy. seoyul with her hair all tangled up creating the rules to a place that didn’t exist. but kitaek had a way of going along with it if it meant he’d get included.

he supposes they both must’ve changed at some point.

they’re close, they needed to be. that’s what it felt like. “i didn’t say it didn’t, just that yours is the only one.” kitaek repeats himself. lets a questions worry it’s way free and presses nails against the jut of his own knees as he waits for her answer. there shouldn’t be reason for anticipation, and yet -- here he is, tipped forward on his toes. 

“that’s just…” he muffles a groan with teeth buried in against his lip. rests one foot against a submerged stone -- moss turned slick, and he’s careful to balance himself over the grime as water threatens to stain the rolled up cuff of his jeans. “if all that stuff isn’t so bad, then something else must be.” he curls his toes against the rock, swipes at his nose with the back of his hand before he pushes off to follow after her. “i’m not stupid.” he says this more to himself than seoyul.

the conversation is dropped, it seems, by the both of them. lost in the waterlogged grass with the frogs, and so is his question. but he doesn’t point that out, just hums in ascent. plays along with her request, mouth tilting into a smile. 

it’s cracked in half not two minutes later, lost to a swear when she thumps at him again. he pinwheels out a hand in retribution, catches her somewhere near the waist and pushes her deeper, toward the middle of the pond. figures a reckoning might follow, so he turns heel and jumps himself a few stones down, near the shallow reeds that poke up bone-dry and browning near the tops. 

“i think minseok likes you more.” he sounds so sure that it’s nearly startling. between the two of them, kitaek’s never been a liar. 

but then he grins like it might’ve been a joke and ventures a little closer, takes wary steps. leaves behind wet smears of toe prints on stone.

“i think we’re all just riding unicycles.” kitaek decides this with a laugh.

[quotemadness]

There are times when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.

Franz Kafka (via quotemadness)

[hrskitaek]

seoyulhrs​:

LIFELINE.

she feels vulnerable in this moment, so she takes another step away, and he follows. he has a habit of that, of following. of playing along. it’s something she’s wanted (needed?) for most of her life. and similarly, paradoxically, something she has always been mortally afraid of. “well you’re a glutton for punishment, so perhaps you should thank me.” she returns, her voice beginning with smug confidence but sloping down into a quieter lilt as he fits himself (barely) onto the rock with her, lets her gaze dart down to the jut of bony shoulders and the hollow of his collarbone. “well there’s no stopping you, so i might as well.” 

“so what should i do then, seoyul? just hide in my house all day -- live in the woods?” his voice is like a twisted up rag, wrung through with the stained remnants of desperation. a thought that’s clearly been tangled up in his head on more than one occasion. and there was always that idea, lost somewhere in the back of his head. that he could pack up, leave, get out of town...and then, what? a high school graduate with too much paranoia and how can he succeed somewhere else if he’s lost enough in their small town as is? 

and there’s always that fear, too. now and he can pretend that maybe they’re all somehow at fault, ganged up against him like a dog pack. but what if he did? what if he did move somewhere else -- some city, some other town. what if they thought the same? and then he’d have to confront it, wouldn’t he? himself, and the intrinsic wrongness of who he is. 

kitaek doesn’t think he can face it. and so he stays.

lost in the woods, hunched down next to an old pond with seoyul. he wonders if she thinks the same. though frowns when his hand is knocked aside, smooths a finger over the ragged edge of his nail. kitaek wants to mouth off, but after a calculated moment and a few popped knuckles he lets it roll go. 

and then seoyul introduces peace and quiet, and a joke that has him laughing. the kind that isn’t cluttered up in humor. the unnatural kind. “you’re the only one who thinks i do.” deserve is an interesting word, most people use it against him. deserve to be in jail. deserve to be in the river. deserve to be dead instead. it’s nearly transactional, moments piled up like currency and traded in. there’s a quiet pause of contemplation, and then, “what have i done to deserve peace and quiet?” it’s a genuine question, albeit strange. but he’s curious, and on some level, he wants to hear it. something good that he can rationalize with.

“that just sounds boring. i thought france was supposed to be fun. romantic.” kitaek points it out as he skims a foot overtop the water. look close enough and he can see the shadows of fish flickering shy underneath. 

“what kind of thing do you like?” he’s curious, figures there’s a fifty-fifty chance seoyul either tells him the truth or makes up something too outlandish to begin to be plausible. but kitaek offers himself over in similarly small pieces, so it ends up fair. they just have different mechanisms when it comes to keeping themselves hidden.

it’s easier when words aren’t involved, just mud and touch and screechy laughter. when kitaek follows her across the rocks, he feigns a limp. gets in close, and when she talks, he tips his head down -- eyes sincere, and he takes her advice. “thank you.” even for kitaek it’s an oblivious take, evident when a smile splits the doe-eyed expression soon after. 

tips his foot enough to kick up a tiny wave of water that fans over seoyul’s shins.

“you don’t have to go at the same time if you don’t want. you’ll have more fun without me.” less of a self diss and more of a fact. lately it seems like he’s been attracting that bad sort of attention, the kind that ruins nights. 

[hrskitaek]

hrsyeoreum​:

torn.

she doesn’t know if he was ever a stalker or not, but for once she is happy that this is a story that happened, that she can use to remember kitaek of his reputation, make sure that it never stops following him as long as he lives in ilmyo.

he never really knows what to do in her presence, yeoreum’s. he’s not so sure he can relate to people who lean so heavily into the concept of religion. he’s sure he’d be well and fucked by now if he laid himself out wiling for some priest to iron out his sins and instill ideas of righteousness into his head. well, more fucked than he already is. it’s not like believing in god even really seems to do all that much good. he wouldn’t call yeoreum particularly nice. wouldn’t call the people clumped up outside the church sunday mornings nice either, hushed gossip wafting under upturned noses.

annoying.

kitaek wonders if she’d hate him more if she knew. but they’re not close enough that kitaek would willingly offer up his thoughts on theology like that. instead, she watches her lip curl, like he might’ve been some matted and stray thing that didn’t know its place in the world -- which was decidedly not there.

“you wouldn’t? you always seemed like you wanted to make it your number one priority to me.” it’s not like kitaek doesn’t have it, that desire to pull in attention. but he thinks yeoreum’s better than him at it. all that fake do-gooding and it had to have been on purpose. maybe she doesn’t even believe in god either, wears religion like an accessory. 

kitaek doesn’t really know yeoreum from the back of his hand, but deciding the stories of people around him has always been something he’s done. built up these false personas, and assumption that go and lean heavy on them. yeorum’s long since built up her own narrative in her head. manipulative and cold and taking, and shreds of true or not, kitaek buys into it all. 

“i know enough about her to make me think you might be jealous.” head tipped forward, bangs in his eyes. maybe he should’ve denied that. pulled hard and sharp away from that sort-of-accusation. but then, swan had been stuck up in his head too, his own iteration of it. he knows her just as well as he knows yeoreum, after all. 

“even if i’m right, it’s not like you’ll admit it. you-” his lips pop, like he might’ve been about to tack something less than moral to the end of it. bitch rings his ears. 

[inblueroom]

[hrskitaek]

sanha​

playtime is over.

‘we’re clear then? you stop messing with this town, and i’ll leave you be. sounds good?’ 

the hatred in his eyes conflicts with the feigned smile that tugs on his lips. ‘cool. great catching up with you.’ his words are as loud as the (less than) friendly pat on kitaek’s back is rough. without leaving the other any chance of throwing in another comment, sanha turns his back on him and returns to the party. high time for a drink or two.

“sure, but you keep pretending you’re so morally superior. so why are you following my example?” he says it in an attempt to crawl underneath sanha’s skin at this point. despite the fact that in a honest to god fight sanha would very easily drop kitaek, he can never really help himself. a desire that sticks to him parasitic, to rile them all up. to watch them twist into rage or discomfort, or some other ill-fitting emotion they seem to want to squirm out of. like maybe it pulls them down to his level. in the moment it’s worth it, that instant kick of adrenaline. he’ll come to regret it later in all likelihood, but he keeps chasing after that feeling. poking and prodding at the proverbial beast.

kitaek slides a hand out of his pocket to show off the tiny handheld camera he has stowed away, watches sanha’s expression. the hard way he swallows and the doubt in his eyes, like he can’t comprehending the strange hoarding mentality kitaek possesses. in fairness, he supposes it is strange, to want to find out things about people and to want to keep them all to himself.

“yeah, good friend.” emphasis on good, and the word slides on thick, kitaek smiles to match the innuendo. he doesn’t continue past that, it’s obvious enough sanha’s caught on, so kitaek lets it settle as he fits his camera back into his pocket. shoves it down deep, like he’s half expecting sanha to make a grab for it, despite the fact that those photos were taken years and years ago.

he quirks his brows like a come on when sanha decries his class, like he’s any better.

“i’m not doing anything to the town, you know. you’re the one using it as an excuse to come and see me all the time.” it trips out lewd following the heels of his earlier tangent, mostly done on purpose. but kitaek figures there’s no point in being serious, he can say it honest until he’s blue in the face and sanha will still ignore him.

sanha spins, and kitaek lifts a hand to flip of his retreating figure as he goes. 

“what a fucking bitch,” mumbled under his breath, and kitaek fumbles out a cigarette before slinking off near the edges of the woods.

[hrskitaek]

LIFELINE.

seoyul

it’s a weird moment, one that she isn’t sure she enjoys, one that stirs up an uneasy twist in her chest before he shifts, ruins the strange tension between them with the muddied press of his feet and she whines, jamming her knee into his thigh. “you awful brat,” she complains, sneaking out from underfoot to hop to the next rock, kicking ripples in the water in an attempt to dislodge the mud. “well i was standing on the rocks for a reason, you idiot. it’s cleaner.” 

“anywhere. whatever. instead of the vigil, let’s stay here, out in the woods. or catch a bus. no one says we have to go.”

“so what, it’s not like it hasn’t happened before.” that’s all bravado, defensive and tucked into the stiff shrug of kitaek’s shoulders as he hunches them up around his ears. it feels stupid, recalling that collection of memories back in high school, because it had been inevitable he had been on the receiving end of things at least a handful of times. but it’s never ‘so what’, that flashfire of pain and the sticky, dizzying smell of blood smeared under a nose. the roll of nausea in his gut, the same way it hit him when he found those bodies. but he hadn’t explained that to anyone either. the police had been interested in the facts -- where the bodies were, positions, anything else he might’ve recalled. they didn’t care about how kitaek had felt, his reaction. that wasn’t their job; it wasn’t anyone’s job.

kitaek slivers his thumb nail between his teeth to gnaw near the edges of it. the second point she lists shouldn’t really count, it’s part of his job. but kitaek’s the sort willing to pick up scraps, and so he doesn’t correct. just skims up the sort-of-compliments, presses them in near the edges of his mind. sometimes he’s worried he’ll forget, words aren’t like pictures in the same way. it’s not easy to take a quick snapshot of them. a recording is different, isn’t it? kitaek’s never had much luck with them anyway.

“it’s not that i’m thinking about it. it just…” kitaek trails off, and the low-grinding hum of fresh-born mosquitos fill his ears. “buzzes around, like flies. i don’t want them there, but it’s not like…” he digs fingers into moss, shoves himself upright instead of finishing the thought. figures seoyul can piece it together all on her own. 

“i eat fine.”

he doesn’t, but the worry warms him. has a smile curling near the corners of his lips as he stares over at her. she’s familiar in the dappled tree light, the sort of familiarity he grew with. where if he closes his eyes, can picture her clear as day with a gap-toothed smile and hitting a growth spurt ahead of him (annoying). the kind of familiarity that can take a little while to chip away, before you realize you’re both adults and childhood innocence is just a memory. but kitaek had already gone and realized that a few years back, has a collection of photographs with an unknowing subject to show for it. 

“why didn’t you take me to paris?” he asks instead of refuting her, he’s long ago learned it’s far more fun to lean into things than it is to deny. or to watch with the detached amusement of onlookers at the zoo. besides, it’s more fun than reality, and kitaek has his own running stories in his head anyway. so who is he to judge?

he hums at the question, though he takes a moment to catch his balance, grip tight to her hand. “good smell?” he wonders out, might’ve decided to press in closer if he didn’t catch the flicker of her frown. for a beat he wonders if he overstepped without realizing it. he has that way about him, sways slightly until the expression puzzles itself together with words and kitaek relaxes. “yeah, shinwoo did. after the flyer thing.” kitaek says it like it didn’t matter, because things are easier for him to handle that way. the same bland manner that had seemed to slide under shinwoo’s skin.

he deflects with muddy feet and an overdramatic exclamation of pain when her knee hits him. “you’re the one who hit me,” it’s loud enough to sound like an echo through the trees as he calls it after her, stretches out a foot to follow her onto the next too-small rock. to be the very brat seoyul claimed him to be. 

“we could always just go together. there’s something happening after.”

kitaek can never just leave things alone.

[hrskitaek]

SIGNS OF LIFE

jungmin​

jungmin knows the past isn’t forgiving. the visceral contents are the same no matter how they’re dressed. he can only change how the past seems, not how it is, and he imagines many of the people that gathered for goeun and donghyun must’ve shared that same sentiment; wanting to readdress old issues but not knowing how. he knows that’s the case between him and kitaek too, except he’s alive so there’s a chance still — if he wants to take it, that is.

“i guess my reason for being there was more of a moral conundrum than genuine sorrow. i didn’t exactly know them, but, it still sucks, right?”

it’s a small enough spot in a small enough town that kitaek sees enough faces to call familiar, even if they’re not necessarily friendly. if you need a drink and you don’t want to swing by a mart to pick up a few dented cans of beer and empty them alone at home, the bartender isn’t going to be the one holding you back from finding a stool to slide into. it explains jungmin here, the habitual way he finds himself a seat, and the way neither of them look all too surprised by the other. it’s just another night, intentions obvious.

kitaek gets him a drink while that human compulsion to talk kicks in. it’s empty enough not to give him an excuse to wave jungmin off, and so he lifts a shoulder as he hands the bottle over to him. “yeah, i think most everyone did.” he’d caught enough flack for making an appearance that he half expects it from jungmin now. surveys his expression from underneath the curtain of his bangs, tries to figure out if his face holds any amount of judgement.

“you didn’t go to that bonfire after?” not that it was much of anything special -- at least not for kitaek. a string of run-ins he wouldn’t categorize as pleasant, enough cheap drinks to give himself a questionable buzz, and the strange news that sprung up on that talk blog not too long after. he’s adopted an almost compulsive way about checking it, his mind twisting too many comments into unnamed accusations against himself. it hasn’t really helped with the paranoia plaguing him lately.

“i feel like that’s most everyone.” another shrug, a habit he can’t slip. it’s easier than talking. “but everyone’s all...you know.” he waves a hand between himself an the counter, mimics the shape of a circle, like he might be drawing the small boundaries of the town in midair. “so if you don’t show up everyone gets all weird about it.” kitaek can’t help but imagine that if he didn’t show his face it might’ve been interpreted poorly, too. but it’s a mystery that can never really be found out, he’s far too nosy to help himself.

“well, whatever. there’s too many weird things going on lately anyway.”

he wants to asks jungmin if he thinks kitaek might’ve done them too, but kitaek can’t seem to find the courage.

[quotemadness]

I’m not very good at putting my feelings into words. That’s why people misunderstand me.

Haruki Murakami (via quotemadness)

[namshinhrs]

200%

[hrskitaek]

namshin

he reaches forward, and finally grabs onto kitaek’s shirt. he drags him forward, now eye to eye with him; he hates how kitaek’s been shaking his hair from his eyes, and now the guy can finally get a look at him and his anger.

“who the fuck do you think you are to talk to me like that?” even his father doesn’t talk to him like that. “you think you’re some hot shit because kim minseok’s your personal body guard?” shinwoo’s hold on kitaek’s shirt tightens. “well here’s a little reminder for you, friend: i can end you, and unlike sᴡᴀɴ, i can make it permanent.”

the bar feels like a blockade, a physical barrier keeping shinwoo apart from him, and maybe that’s what helps prop up kitaek’s spine when he mouths off at him. but at this point, he also doesn’t have all too much to lose. so where are all those threats supposed to lead off to? it feels like there’s not much left to take from him, just that promise of pain packed in behind an angry fist. sure, it’ll hurt. the same way it hurt last time. maybe kitaek’ll cry about it, but if he really needs it he has connections enough to buy a tiny bag of painkillers. 

“get off on what, you coming in here to yell at me? if you expected me to get off on it, then i guess i have a couple of questions for you.” the kind of territory often warned against with loud-colored caution tape, but kitaek can’t seem to help himself. the disgust is palpable, and he likes to watch when it worms its way into skin and breeds horror. “so like, is this supposed to be foreplay?” 

kitaek tosses the bar rag, and he sort of regrets it. he hates how empty his hands feel. he curls his fingers in against his palms instead, digs in half-moon marks with the blunt edges of his nails.

he did expect it, really. somewhere in the back of his head, shinwoo breaching that barrier to grab at him. no matter that kitaek’s working. no matter that it’s not at all upstanding. but what’s it matter when he can poke and prod at his father to get him off the hook? 

the material of his shirt is tugged taught, and kitaek swallows hard once. he can hear the deep thrum of his pulse in his own ears. the tips of his fingers start to fizz up in pinpricks. adrenaline and anxiety clashing together.

“do you believe you’re a king?”

the question comes out more honest than mocking. a genuine grind of curiosity that sounds nearly wrong, imbalanced in the moment. but kitaek has to wonder. 

“do you think you’re hot shit because your daddy foots the bill whenever you fuck up?”

he reaches up, digs fingers in near the underside shinwoo’s wrist to press nails in against thin skin and thick veins, an attempt to yank himself free. in a fight and it wouldn’t really be a competition of who would come out on top. kitaek would undoubtedly be knocked down flat on his back. but he can’t help the swell of anger -- at the situation, at shinwoo. 

“it’s fucking ironic, right? threatening to murder me and calling me the one most likely to murder all in the same fifteen minutes.” his voice is stilted and dry, some of the words stick like sandpaper to the back of his throat. kitaek doesn’t sound intimidating, but he does manage to force it all out. 

[hrskitaek]

OUTSKIRTS

[hrskitaek]

jooyoung‌

he follows kitaek’s gaze, catching sanha’s stare for a moment. he’s of the mind to give him the finger, but he thinks better of it. too many prying eyes. “Haven’t you heard? I’ve already started to fall in with the wrong crowd,” he snorts. “Like I give a shit what these people think anyway.” he doesn’t ( anymore ). it didn’t get him anywhere in the past. hell, look where it got goeun and donghyun. “And I definitely couldn’t care less about what that prick thinks.”

“you seemed to imply it might’ve been.”  there’s a quirk of his brow before kitaek takes a drag for himself, vision tumbling back across the waiting crowd. tensions are drawn up high, but it’s not organic. it just feels expectant, like everyone’s waiting around to see what the proper reaction should be. should they cry? share stories with a tremble tucked beneath their lip? should they all look on strongly and offer support? 

everyone is out of their element, but they’re all pretending they aren’t. that’s what kitaek guesses at anyway, but maybe he’s just imposing his own emotions onto them. that’s how he feels nearly all the time. unsure of what to do, and then going about everything all wrong. 

“so is it my turn to question why you’re here then?”

his tone is a little unfair, but kitaek’s getting tired of the criticism. everyone seems so eager to jump and accuse, to point out that kitaek wasn’t close to them when he hardly remembers much of anyone else cozying up to the two (chickadee notwithstanding). 

“so why’d you come back if you wanna forget that bad?” halfway to the filter already, and kitaek’s head buzzes from the nicotine. he’d already smoked earlier, but it’s apparently a day of bad decisions. later he might drink enough to get wasted and run face first into a fist. the door’s wide open for him, as long as he doesn’t mind a miserable entrance.

“really?” kitaek doesn’t sound so convinced at jooyoung’s claim as he drifts his eyes from jooyoung to sanha and back again. 

“so what do you care about then?” exhale smoke, inhale pine that stings at the back of his throat. he coughs twice, tucks it into the crook of his arm. 

“well. i don’t want to care, but i do.” kitaek has no real reason to be honest in the moment, and it makes his tongue feel itchy, like he has an allergy that’s acting up. scrapes his teeth along the flat of it as he glances down at his toes. “besides, he has it out for me.”

of that, ktiaek is convinced. 

[seoyulhrs]

LIFELINE.

[hrskitaek]

seoyul

“you’re walking into the lion’s den,” she points out, with a grin that says without saying, “but if you go, i’ll go.” 

of course, she was going anyway. what else is there to do? and she finds herself drawn so morbidly to all of this, to the could have beens and the flurry of secrets that kick up like so many embers. “you’re getting mud all over my feet.” she points out, nudges at him with her toes, grin lilting sideways, sliding over full lips. “come on,” she adds, pulls connected hands taut between them as she steps further into the pond, crossing to another rock, the currents swirling around her ankles. 

“is that worse or something?” kitaek asks the question into the mud shallows. he likes being around people, he likes it when they hear him. but it still feels intimidating, sometimes, to push his own opinion out. to ask questions he’s not sure he wants the answer to. so he hides in the moment, diverted eyes and busy hands. an attempt at nonchalance that doesn’t quite hit the mark. he picks out a rock to distract himself from whatever seoyul’s decided upon truth is, snaps his wrist and watches it hop across the water. disturbs the surface enough to send the minnows scattering. 

“am i good at much of anything?” kitaek winds his arms around his legs and finally pulls his eyes up to stare at her. puppy dog pathetic, and despite it kitaek can’t quite figure out how he manages to raise hackles on the likes of robin or rook. 

“where’d you skip it -- across the han?” fingers to soft soil and kitaek pushes himself upright, finds wobbling balance on a leg as he readies himself to follow her into the shallow pond water. not life or death, but he’d still prefer not to walk home with damp socks and the lingering smell of algae. “anything else you want to criticize me about?” kitaek asks as he tucks socks into beat up converse. he tries for conversational, but it falls into the territory of sarcastic despite himself. it’s just all those rumors, they’ve been getting to him lately. driving him half mad.

he shakes his head, enough to scatter his bangs until they’re obscuring his eyes.

grabs at seoyul’s hand anyway and follows her in across the sun-baked rocks. a sharp pressure underneath the soft-skinned bend of his foot. he hisses low and underneath his breath as their fingers twist together. 

“what’s it matter if i go into their den or not -- they come find me even if i don’t go.” a reference to a recent night working the bar, and he hadn’t exactly invited shinwoo over. not that he’d shared that with her. a secret tucked underneath his tongue, pointlessly so. there are dozens of them, and he sometimes feels an uncomfortable, anxious prickle run across his skin at the thought of sharing them. sharing too much. like something bad might come of it.

“find me there?” he wonders it out in a whisper. they’re too close, enough that anything louder just feels wrong. there’s a desperate drag of his thumb across the inner bend of her wrist, near a vein.

then he swallows, and that rush of nerves seems to leave him. he looks at their feet instead, holds her hand tight enough that she can’t shake him off before he steps in closer and over the tops of her feet. leaves them a muddied mess, dirt socks dripping near the ankle.

“what else did you expect to happen in a pond?”

and then they’re moving. rock to rock like they’re fourteen again, still wondering if maybe there might be something better for them out there.

before they’d realized there wasn’t.

“where am i coming to?” kitaek laughs his way through the question.

[hrskitaek]

torn.

yeoreum

“rich of you showing up.” she tells him, voice soft, venon running under it. there’s still not many people around, she can allow herself to do it. besides, passive aggressive remarks are a cornerstone of every woman who is also a churchgoer. “with the entire city believing you did it.” yes, because yeoreum led them to. “you’re brave, kitaek, i have to give that to you.” and only that.

there isn’t a real reason to be here, something strong and anchored and that he can point to. but then, how many people lost in the crowd can say that for themselves? can stand up and list of a real reason for them to be at the vigil, revisiting the past and pretending to be a wash of emotion. it feels to kitaek like he’s lost on the set of a bad drama. a few crocodile tears squeezed out for effect, that don’t match the expressions painted on faces. a mimicry of sadness. regret. but not real. he knows real. he has enough pictures of real that he can sit alone with and study.

so what’s so different about him? what makes everyone eye him with distrust? what makes everyone point to him as the one that doesn’t belong?

a white goose tottering along, winding an uneven line between the ducks. pretending he might be one still, instead of this ugly and conspicuous thing. but in all of kitaek’s otherness, what does it make him instead? in the eyes of some, a monster. but what’s he really done that’s so monstrous? it’s been something kitaek’s been picking at like a scab. worrying over with the blunt drag of his nails until he bleeds. the sort of pain that might lead to a revelation. but he’s yet to find his answers.

instead, he finds another accusation. this time at the hand of jung yeoreum. he should have expected it, and seoyul did warn him. maybe parts of him wants it. the blame for something he didn’t do.

“everyone else did.”

kitaek says it like a kid who didn’t get invited to a birthday party, forlorn and defensive.

“not everyone believes it." but enough people do that it coils up into tension knots in his head. spark up migraines that tunnel into his thoughts late at night.

he doesn’t like yeoreum, she knows it well enough. and it’s obvious she’s never been all too keen on him, either. but every time he sees her it kicks up something bitter, like dirt under his tongue, an unpleasant grit. she was part of the reason for their fight, after all -- him and minseok. technically unresolved. he can barely picture it, the two of them together.

he doesn’t want to.

“well, why don’t you admire my bravery from over there, then.” he nods off, back toward the fire. “or what, is there a reason you’re over here? something you need to say to me -- or just giving yourself an excuse for everyone to come flock around you again?”

sure, she lost a friend. but kitaek is entirely unsympathetic to near everything that may or may not have actually happened to her.