KANG HANEUL . staying up night after night to become friends with the night sky- how long has it been since you slept? do you remember the last time you did before you left?
━ ❖ (choi san, cismale, he/him) hey thank you for coming to town hall to update your information kang haneul! you’re a visitor correct? good to know! are you enjoying yourself around yunhwa? you’ve been staying here for four months right? i’m glad! remind me, are you born on 09/01/1997? we’re so lucky to have someone so thoughtful around as a bartender at mokjawon tavern even if sometimes you can be impulsive. hope to see you around room #8, yeyun inn!
hi! you can call me ven. i'm 23! i go by he/they pronouns. gmt -5, EST. this is actually my first try of rping on tumblr— i've been rping for years, but i haven't ever tried on this platform yet, so please excuse me as i figure everything out. i have a discord if you'd like to talk there, just ask me for it if you'd prefer. i'm excited to write with all of you— feel free to message me here or like this post and i'll come find you!
YOU'VE GOT THE SUN SINKING BELOW THE HORIZON, EVERYTHING SET IN A WARM GLOW.
— born in seoul. born as an only child. raised in a loving home, smiled at all of the pretenses and tried to ignore how empty he felt on the inside.
— fast forward, fast forward still, he's got all of these happy memories but nothing he could pin onto a board, nothing he could point out in a magazine and say that's me! there i am!
— it is quiet but he sees, he remembers. he tucks them into pockets and saves them for a rainy day. a coffee order, a favorite flower. pineapple on pizza and mint chocolate ice cream, it'll be waiting if it's someone's favorite. a job interview coming up, someone to carry something heavy, he is made of bone and muscle and hollow echoes of a soul aching to find it's way home but it will still extend its reach to see a smile. the one he returns is present but missing the curves that lead into dimples at the corners, it is missing his heart.
— people take advantage of this. take advantage of the fact that he is reliable, that he will go along with things, his mouth is full of butterfly wings and there are no words there to replace them.
— so he gets reckless. so he gets impulsive. how does he find control when he feels like he has none of it? there are piercings that line his ears, that hide on his body. there are tattoos nestled on his thighs and his ribcage, a secret, and they are stories of the sea, of flowers taking root and growing and growing still.
— he gets tired of pretending. so he leaves. he never got too close anyways. this was a surprise. of course it was a surprise. he still texts his mother that he's doing alright, that he ate his apple in the morning, that he had a good nights sleep (he stared at the ceiling and listened to the clock tick.. tick.. tick.. the sun came up. he began his day once more.)
— a degree in photography. he has always never been able to stop moving. he has always wanted to take pictures of things that he feels like he is the only one who can see. he has always liked to use his hands. fiddles with things. likes to sing when he thinks that no one can hear him. quiet, under his breath. he's always listening to music, always has a song playing in his mind, nonstop, feet tapping against the floor as hums, one, two, three, four..
— from seoul to busan, to see the ocean. trying to make ends meet enough to find a place to stay, gets on a bus and ends up in yunhwa. he can't remember when he fell asleep.
— figures.. why not try to linger for awhile? he's had so many odd jobs, like making coffee (it is in his blood, it is in his heart), stumbles upon the mokjawon tavern and somewhere between the second and third whiskey and coke sees that they need a bartender and decides maybe he should get better at mixing alcohol too (he's spent enough drunk nights alone, spent in the quiet between the stars and the sunrise, that it feels fitting.)
— the tiny place he finds at yeyun inn is small and creaky and made of worn wood, but he fills it with his small amount of things, places a tiny bunch of flowers he had collected from the outside on a rickety table and sticks photographs of dogs he had met along his journey around on the walls and knows that it is more then good enough.
— there's something about somewhere quiet, sleepy, far away from everything he's ever known. anything is slower to him if it is not seoul. he wants quiet, he wants to be invisible. no one knows him here and he likes it. he settles but it still feels like in a few seconds he'll take off again. a bouncing knee, nervous hand through his hair. he sits in darkness and tells himself maybe one day he'll find a reason to stay.
THE OCEAN MEETS THE SHORE AND THERE IS ANOTHER DAY THAT BREAKS THROUGH THE CLOUDS. THE STARS SHINE QUIETLY IN THE DARK. THEY ACHE.
hey everyone. i’m really sorry that i was unable to properly reply because of life things recently, and i’m sorry to those that i didn’t get to plot and interact with. if any of you would like my discord then please just send me a message and ill add you there! i hope everyone is well and i send lots of happiness for the future.
hi everyone. i'm sorry for being quiet around here— i'm going through stressful times at the moment but i will get to replies before the end of this week hopefully as things clear up. i'll definitely be around more frequently after next week is over. i just wanted to check in and let you all know i'll be replying soon! i'm sorry for the delay and i hope everyone is having a good week so far.
it’s reaching the point in the night that the room is spinning, like haneul’s world has become tilted on an axis, twirling like a top. the tavern was a little bit more full tonight, and it was fun to experience it not as a bartender, but as a customer. in result, he had enough that everything felt warm and light, like butterflies were fluttering around in his stomach, and he was starting to laugh more freely, like there wasn’t something keeping it under lock and key anymore.
the song made a flurry of giggles fly past his lips, the way that someone sloshed their beer over a rim of their glass, the way his hand looked in front of him, vision swimming to find a place to stop at something that wasn’t moving to anchor himself.
he feels like he’s been here for hours, surely the tavern closes soon— he looks over to the exit to see people moving out in couples and groups, the music getting turned down, and figures that maybe he’s had enough, it’s time for him to somehow find his way back to the inn. he thinks he’s gotten good at it, for the amount of times he had gotten drunk here and found his way back on his own.
though, there was that one time he woke up to an early morning rain in a patch of flowers. truly, he doesn’t know how he stopped there for the night, but he assumes he had been quite tired... maybe he still had to work on his abilities a bit before he considered himself in the clear for being able to take himself to where he was staying efficiently.
he’s thankful that somehow he still has his jacket on, patting his phone in his pocket to make sure that it’s still there. looking around, he sees that someone is still sitting next to him— he wonders if somehow, the man also has a difficult time getting home as well. the alcohol in his system is evident in his willingness to lean in a bit to him so that he could maybe get his attention as he speaks.
“excuse me— sorry, do you live close to here? um— i just wanted to know because last time i tried to walk back to the uh,” he takes a moment as he has to think about it, his brain like swimming through mud.
“oh!— i live at the inn. the last time i tried to walk to the inn, i slept in some grass. and flowers. they smelled really nice, but i don’t want to be rained on again, like i was the last time. i was wondering if you could maybe.. lead me there? or at least in the right direction— i always seem to get distracted on my way there,”
“i’m almost done, i’ve hardly been able to put it down.” nari opened up the book to her page to show him where she was, holding it out to him. “it’s alright, i have a new book every other day, anyways.” she laughed easily again, tucking some hair behind her ear with her free hand. “nari. nice to meet you properly, bartender-man.” she joked a little, shifting in her seat to face him a little better, leaning against the bar. it wouldn’t hurt to get to know more people, let alone someone she was seeing so often. “so what brings you here after hours, a workaholic?”
when she offers the book to him, he peers over to see the part that she’s in, humming. he’s read the book cover to cover enough times to know well enough where she is in the story.
“he’s quite a fantastic author. there’s one part he writes.. ‘and in the morning.. it was as quiet as the secrets lingering in his mouth. as the sun waned high in the sky, they felt as bright as the pinpricks of light through the windowpane, fading, like the afternoon, like a cooling cup of tea, like the sea in his heart contained by glass and chains.’ for some reason, i couldn’t stop thinking about it. i read it over and over so much that i memorized it. whenever i see the sun in the afternoon.. or it’s quiet, in the morning, i think about that book,” haneul speaks, but his voice is softer, barely discernible over the noise of the tavern.
“if you finish this one quickly, i’d recommend his other work to you. though i still believe that this one is one of my favorites,” he continues, thinking about his loss of a drink and considering purchasing another to make up for it. as she introduces herself, he hums, and takes a seat on the barstool next to her instead of standing.
“it’s nice to meet you, nari. are you still going to call me bartender-man even though you know my name now?” he says with a soft laugh, and he checks behind himself to move his camera and his jacket over, just to free up the seat for anyone else instead of holding it for no reason. he sets down the collection of pictures he had printed from earlier to make sure that they’re all still intact.
“i.. like how it is here. the atmosphere. even though i work here, i don’t really get tired of it. plus—i haven’t really been as many places around town, actually, even though i’ve been around for a few months. i tend to stick to the same places, when i find something that i like.” he says as he moves some of the pictures so that she can see a few more of them. they are almost entirely photographs of the surrounding nature—the sky, flowers, a cat he had seen lingering around outside the tavern.
“these are some pictures i took earlier today, so i was having a drink while i looked over them. what about you? were you here to just read?”
the morning was as lazy and warm as haneul felt when he opened his eyes—the sunlight streaming in with a quiet glow that filled up his room. he laid in his sheets, lamenting the fact that he would have to leave their warmth to brave the outside cold, but thoughts of being able to wander through the surrounding nature with his camera gives him enough courage to slip out.
he dresses, as he usually does, jeans and his leather jacket, phone slipped into his back pocket as he puts on his boots. hair in a disarray, not too much done to it from waking up—as it was usually a mess anyways with how much he ran his hands through it.
while he’d only been here several months, he had found a few places but not branched out as much as he’d liked. he had gone into the trees surrounding yeyun inn, in awe of how the trees were clumped together almost like the buildings were in seoul, but it was all so much more intimate, the moss and ivy crawling up and around, the plants springing up from the ground, the way the sun would fall in patterns due to the canopy of leaves and foliage.
he told himself one day he would take the boowan hiking trail further into the forest, but in his lack of experience taking hikes through nature, it has caused him to take pause and consider it for another day. and another day, and another day. he still wonders what beautiful things lay beyond the small area around the inn.
camera in his hands, fingers adorned by rings, bracelets glittering on his wrists, haneul locks the room behind him and sets off on his adventure—lip between his teeth as he takes a moment to check over his camera. still a little sticky from the bar at the tavern, a few granules of sand from moonjaedo beach that he brushes away carefully.
he usually expects to be the only one around, though he surely should be paying more attention as he runs into someone. it’s not quite a collision, though haneul’s first reaction is to make a bit of a surprised oh! as he quickly brings his camera to his chest in the hopes that it isn’t jostled out of his hands, eyes wide as he looks into the person that he had ran into. considering that he was from seoul, he figures that his track record with his clumsiness around other people had somehow increased since he had come to yunhwa.
“i’m so sorry—i really didn’t mean to run into you, i..” haneul gets out, looking at the man to see that he recognizes him from passing at the inn, and is flustered enough to become sheepish that he hadn’t been paying enough attention.
“can i—are you alright? i didn’t bump into you too hard, did i?” he continues, wishing that his first interaction with him had been a whole lot nicer than charging into him like a bull because he had his head in the clouds.
haneul’s not sure how long he had spent on the beach today, but he hadn’t missed the sunset this time, as he wandered without his shoes on, taking pictures of pretty shells that had washed up and dried among the shore, the water when the light reflected off of it just so. he felt warm from being underneath the sun for so long even after it went down and disappeared, dressed in a oversized shirt that was falling off of him, the legs of his jeans rolled up to try and avoid getting damp with water as he wandered through the shallow waters.
he feels most at peace when he’s this close to the waves, the reassuring crash of them against the sand almost in tandem with his heart. even though he always tends to think so much, he tries in these moments to clear his mind and just enjoy it, the salt that lingers on his tongue, when he can see tiny little fishes shimmering as they get carried with the tide just to get swept away again.
there is something tumultuous and peaceful about the ocean, the way that it sways, like the moon in the sky that returns every night, the stars that are closer to him then anyone else, it seems, for almost his entire life. they have seemed to give him more advice and solace then anyone else has, even for the short times that he had allowed people to get close.
as he walks, he tries to clear the thoughts once more, though he sees someone sitting on the sand, staring out at the waves. it’s not entirely dark yet even though the sun has melted into the ocean, so he can see her clearly as he approaches, a bit slowly, camera resting against his chest with a strap around his neck.
he thinks maybe he has seen her around town a few times, though they hadn’t gotten a chance to speak.
“good evening,” he calls out, and he has to raise his voice a bit over the waves, offering a bit of a half wave as he comes close enough to stop, squinting a bit down at her with a small smile curving the edges of his mouth. his hair is a bit of a mess, fingers going up to run against the lines of his camera to have something to do.
“the sunset was really beautiful tonight, wasn’t it? are you.. here to watch it? it gets so dark out here after it’s over, but i think it’s still just as pretty with the moon out.”
as the night slows to a close, haneul lets himself lean a bit against the bar to take a breath. it’s not difficult work, but at the end of his several hour shift, he finally feels like he’s able to allow some of his own thoughts into his mind. he’s been doing pretty well at remembering all of the drinks and how they are made, and it’s coming easier to him, now, that he had been there for several weeks. working with sejun is easy, too, and haneul is glad for the fact that they’re able to maneuver around each other smoothly in-between all of the orders, especially with how hectic it can get on the busier nights.
usually, he would think that he would be tired of alcohol after being around it all night, but it’s really just a testament to his will that he doesn’t down a couple of shots as he works. when his shift is over, he just wants to drink more, to calm himself down to relax more than anything else after such a long night.
his ears are still ringing a little from the music — he goes over everything he’s meant to finish, mentally, and calls it quits when the lights lower even further, only illuminating the bar to the exit. he reaches out for his jacket, his leather one that he usually wears everywhere, and slips it on, hand running through his hair just to set it in more disarray then it was previously.
staring down at his nails, he notices chipped polish, thinks about how he really needs to redo them. there’s something about a night at work that really destroys the nice, pristine coat of polish he had put on them earlier in the week. sighing a bit, he lights up the phone to check the time, the electronic glow sharp on the edges of his features. there’s no notifications — though he expected none. it’s a little past midnight.
sometimes he thinks about how during work what he had really missed was the sunset, and it makes him more sad than the loss of free time, even if he bolsters himself with the idea of gaining money from it. every time he misses the sun sink beneath the horizon, it feels like he has lost something. a memory, or a feeling, it causes him to ache.
he really needs a drink.
“sejun — where are you?” he calls out, not sure where he’d gotten off to. he fiddles with his phone in his hands, leaning against the bar and staring hard at a stray clean glass that hadn’t been stored away on the counter. he moves to put it away, humming quietly under his breath. “are you finished?” he calls out a moment later — he always tended to stay just to make sure that he could help with anything that was needed so everyone working could leave and go home. there were stars to see, after all.
“it’s alright, i’m not gonna get mad at the guy who pours my drinks half the time.” nari spoke with an easy laugh, waving his apologies with her hand holding her book, finger nestled between the pages to keep her place.
he looks a little relieved when he learns that he didn’t spill the drink on her, letting out a bit of a soft laugh at her returning comment. he swaps out the soaked cloth with a fresh one to try to at least make the bar less sticky — it’s a bit of a lost cause, as he leans his side against it to deposit the second one back on the other side. he’d go into the back to take care of it before he left.
“certainly you’d prefer me to pour your drinks into the glass, not all over the bar,” haneul says, and he looks a bit sheepish about it, reaching back to ruffle his hand through the hair at his nape — eyes downcast as he says it. he drops his hand, regretting it just a little because, sticky, and his eyes happen to catch on the book that she has in her hands.
perking up a little a bit, he looks over the cover and he recognizes it immediately. there’s a bit more of a light in his eyes now, as he looks down at it as if remembering something fond — and he is. he remembers reading the book when he was still in college, in-between essays and group projects and stress that made him feel weighed down to the ground, he had found a place of refuge in the library to read in-between his classes. a small little cubby tucked in a quiet corner — it smelled like old paper and dust, the kind of building that had been around for awhile and accumulated its own personality, its own recognizable atmosphere, that haneul became incredibly fond of it.
he hadn’t thought about it in awhile. it’s one of the reason he loves books, for the fact that they allow him to take a couple of moments to breathe. to fade out of reality to go somewhere else, where he didn’t always feel so —
he offers the slightest quirk on his lips, letting the thought go. “i really loved that book back in college. the writer was so.. poetic. for a mystery. there’s this one part i think about all of the time — it hasn’t really left me since i finished it. are you almost done? i don’t want to spoil it for you.”
leaning against the bar, he props his elbow on the freshly cleaned surface, genuinely casual considering how flustered he had been a moment ago.
“i’ve seen you reading here quite a bit, but i never have time to ask you what book you’re reading,” he admits to her, thinking, and then realizes he hadn’t even —
“i’m haneul. by the way. it’s nice to meet you. sorry for the,” he pauses to gesture with his free hand at the bar in some kind of untraceable pattern.
haneul flexes his fingers and wipes off the excess condensation from holding onto his glass for too long on his jeans- the bar was sticky but he didn’t mind too much, knee bouncing as the low rumbles of mokjawon tavern whirred quietly in the back of his brain. he’s not sure how long he’s been sitting here but it’s probably been hours, unsure if he’s missed the way that the sun sinks below the line of trees to dip the world into darkness. lip between his teeth, whiskey is still sweet on his tongue, fingers flipping over a stack of pictures that he had printed from earlier- his camera sitting nestled atop his leather jacket he had placed beside him to keep it safe.
there were times he preferred things to be completely silent or overwhelmingly loud- this was one of those times in-between, where he wished to have a quiet chattering, to hear voices, the scrape of barstools on worn ground, the clinks of glasses, music thumping through speakers to fill in the space even fuller, ice clinking against new drinks as they were being made. he works here but he still hasn’t gotten tired of the atmosphere, the worn wood, the dim lighting, the tightness in his chest from the music and the people and just the ability to witness other existence. it helps him feel less hollow.
it’s one of his off days but he’s still here, looking through his pictures, careful to not get his fingerprints smudged on the shiny surface reflecting the image. there are pictures of flowers sprouting up from the dirt, of their petals dipped in morning dew, of a curved tree leaning towards another in the forest that he had noticed (when he tilted his head just so) — that looked like it was curving in for an embrace from a lover, crawling ivy engulfing the tree like frost over a body of water, like water spilling over rocks and moss of a river. it was these moments, these small, quiet scenes that he wished to keep with him forever.
he’s humming under his breath, maybe to match the melody of the song crackling through the speakers, as someone moves to sit nearby in another barstool. haneul reaches out to move his jacket to make more room, there’s a quiet excuse me under his breath as he reaches for it to keep his camera out of the way but as he reaches his fingers brush against the remaining contents of his mixed drink to spill it against the bar. there wasn’t much left but it still makes a river of liquid that makes him jump up — a muttered shit! under his breath, an exhale — he thinks of his camera, first, relocating the jacket and camera to nestle on his seat as he reaches over the bar for a cloth laying cast aside.
he notices, as he hurriedly cleans up the mess, chipped blue polish on his fingers stark against the white fabric sopping up the whiskey and coke, that it’s spilled out towards a girl sitting down the bar from him, hidden mostly by a curtain of dark hair in the glances he had gotten of her as he had occasionally looked around the bar in-between his musings.
“oh — shit, i’m sorry, did it spill onto you at all? i wasn’t fucking looking at all, that’s entirely my fault — ”
