jihoon does not want to calm down, because he simply stopped caring about the outcome of whatever situation they are in right now. yes, his manager will probably scold him for the first time ever, and he has seen him scold other members, but as of now, minjung wanted to know. so he told her.
and he watched, the realization sink in and the pang in his chest doesn’t seem to really subdue. funny. he parts his lips to speak, but gets cut off so he gives up after the first try. the hand on his chest finds its way to the pocket of his dress trousers and his shoulders finally relax. he hears the words, doesn’t exactly register them. jihoon is pretty aware there was no going back or forward with this situation. “i hope knowing makes you at ease now.” he’s sarcastic, but there is nothing else to say.
a small part of him expected some sort of comfort or understanding from minjung’s side, but he gets called fucking stupid back. which, fair enough. he was. hearing it from someone else, doesn’t sit as right with him as he is used to. maybe he was pretty human deep down, despite all the hate he gets from anty’s for breathing on some days. “i wasn’t looking for a happy ending, i never said that. you keep putting words in my mouth and i don’t appreciate that, minjung.” he’s already taking a step back, eyes wondering around the room just in case anyone was giving them looks, but from what he can tell, everyone else was too busy to care.
“i said i was happy i finally liked someone. sorry, it had to be you. sorry i wasn’t able to be a fucking robot for once.” he takes a second one, distancing them from each other, a bit more, making it obvious he was ending the conversation soon. minjung got whatever reason she wanted out of him, there was nothing more he could add. and being belittled wasn’t on his agenda today.
fragility’s a terrifying thing she learns when her mirror shows fragments of what’s been chipped off from years and years of time. yet, fragility adds another layer when it’s shed from an old friend, standing inches away from her as the fissure in their foundation breaks slowly, waiting for her to fall.
he tells her words she doesn’t want to hear, and the ease feels more like a beckoning for a curse. her words falter, and she opens her mouth, quick to close before anything escapes — anything she says now becomes a bandage, far from any salvation from getting swallowed whole. “no, it doesn’t make me feel at ease.” minjung finally says, her teeth pressing hard against her lip. “it makes me uneasy because any situation of a friendship gets lost with the words we’re spitting like rapid fire now.” everything becomes trampled, and everything good comes to an end.
all’s fair in love, friendships, and what this is, is an all out war.
she holds her mouth shut, wrapping one arm into another as she crosses her arms against her chest. “you should’ve been a robot — we were good as friends, no? years of friendship and you decide one day that i look like a girl to you? you should know as well as anyone, you don’t like people like me. i’m stuck in the same cycles with the same people, why would you want to step onto a grenade knowing detonation is looming?”
another event, this time in the haze of too many familiar faces. she stands in the crowd, arms-lengths from strangers she exchanges hellos to in passing. she’s learned by now — she’s a professional, and professionalism guides itself in a thin-lipped smile permanently engrained when she stands still.
because hindsight is 20/20, and the last thing she needs is more whispers and speculations that paint her into different dimensions of grey.
she hides behind the next group of staff passing, only bouncing her gaze to the left to see a familiar face. a reminder from the chatter of the crowds, and they’re in a public space decorated as near-family despite what details get concealed behind the grand spotlight.
“hey.” she greets out, smile peeking through a tone more polite than rendered to anything else. “here’s a question — would you rather run 4k in front of a bunch of people for publicity or would you rather be at isac?” minjung holds still, taking a step closer towards suji with the years-past memories of holding bows and arrows, running through the area. “now that we don’t have to go to isac, i’m beginning to realize that isac was the only opportunity to wear neon colored track suits.”
“you’re causing a scene.” jihoon corrects, because he wasn’t the one who approached. he wasn’t the one who struck a conversation. it was all minjung’s doing, not letting him breathe and exist in peace. all he wanted was peace, but that was never an option. she was persistent and he was tired. to the point where he really couldn’t keep up the front. the disinterested, stoic one he has always been so good.
he’s tired, so fucking tired. minjung doesn’t get the hint. any single time, he’s giving a clue, it’s fallen on deaf ears. he doesn’t want to be bothered, by anyone especially her. but her words hurt, the point where he has to purse his lips and look up to the ceiling, compose himself. “wanna know? i’ll tell you, sure.” jihoon finally speaks, finally cracks mentally before he cracks physically. he doesn’t think it would take long. no one really knows the reason behind his solo debut album, not even his manager or his members, no one. he kept the one main reason he was writing down his thought to himself.
“you know how i never told you, who the tell me album was about?” he pauses, gives her just a second to rewind “you. i wrote it, because of you. happy?” he asks, he feels his voice shake a bit, but not with anger. he hates speaking his thoughts, those that he is worried that once he says them out loud, they are real. as real can get. “i wrote it, because i started liking you. i wrote as a way to get it out of my system. maybe i would have told you, while i was still happy as happy can fucking get that i actually had a fucking crush for once-” he speeds up, but his words don’t seem to be meshing up, no slurring. maybe being a rapper has its privileges. “i saw you leave with juyeon at the base awards, that hurt me, and-” he has to breath, he forces himself to breath, a hand on his chest, just to make sure the breath is as deep as he can muster it. because it hurts, physically it hurts keeping calm. “and i was fucking stupid to even think, after so many years of seeing you two, anything would have changed.” he pats his chest a few times, a bit grounding, a bit too much force maybe ”i was so- fucking- stupid.” a breath, a shaky one “that i thought i had a chance.” he finishes, shoulder finally straightening and his gaze finally focusing on minjung’s own.
“so no, i don’t look happy today.”
it’s always her.
all fingers pointed in the room, and her fingers dipped in red. caught in black, broad day light stares. except, this time — the tides change and there’s only other person in the room, jihoon. a friendship that becomes marred, and the only person to blame — it’s always her.
“calm down.” becomes the only thing her voice can mutter out, guided by the stares she swears this becomes another press replay of their last encounter.
she’s ready to rip a sharpened tongue, words ready to spill straight from the frustration and pang in her gut she feels from losing her friend. yet, it’s the one word, you, that ceases it all. suddenly, everything feels like a cruel joke, and the weight of bearing guilt only becomes heavier with each words that pierces her cloud of ignorance she’s been holding onto for months.
“that can’t be the truth.” first falls denial, when she diverts her gaze to somewhere across the scene, her voice shaky. she can’t look him in the eyes, no. not when the red on her hand becomes engrained, and guilt entraps every biting word she tossed his way. “you know me better than most people — years we’ve been good friends. you’ve seen me fall through the same patterns, fuck things up with people and then repeat the same cycle. yet, why would you be so stupid to let yourself like someone like me?” self-depreciation spits out like instinct, and she learns from years of experience, she’s engrained to love heartbreak — not become the source of cause.
everything fleeting, and the details of their conversation feels like it’s dissipating in the second when she finally looks up to see jihoon. “jihoon — in your own words, you were fucking stupid. you know me too well to think i could find a happy ending, nonetheless, with someone like you.”
“i’d be more offended if you weren’t far from the first person who’s told me that.” it’s not like ash isn’t aware he’s not always the most fun person to be around when he’s sober. hell, even when he’s drunk, it’s about a fifty-fifty chance it magnifies his more lively qualities as opposed to his worst ones. still, the number of times people have suggested they prefer him under the influence since he gave up on his brief sobriety journey was enough to stoke at least a little self-consciousness once the buzz that makes him ignore it is gone.
luckily, the buzz is very much still there, so he lets any worries slide off his back and settle at his feet to be faced when he’s got a hangover to accompany him. “the statue part is new, though. not sure how i feel about being stone even at my best.” okay, so maybe the insecurity peaks through his jesting tone. only a little, though.
“if it’s any consolation, novacane was at the very start of his set, so it would have been awful stranger-kissing timing anyway. no consideration for the lonely souls in the audience.” he makes an overexaggerated show of rolling his eyes, as if it’s the greatest offense imaginable. the guy’s gotten enough shit; ash isn’t about to heap onto it with any legitimate criticism.
there’s no need to embellish anyone here. maybe, dusted around the scene are a few social climbers — but for her sake, everything becomes nothing more than a masked getaway to hide out in the crowd and down cheap glasses. nonetheless, seo minjung feels a tinge better to spot a familiar face in a sea of strangers.
“my ideas are no longer novel, and i’m not the first to give you that complement.” she pouts, a faux sign of disappointment that’s paired with the sarcastic quip of her own tone. no harm, no bite — after all, this is an anti-warzone. “have you ever seen david in florence? last time i saw david, i realized, maybe it’s better to be stone because see, david has so many chips on his shoulders and have the fragility that’s universal. yet, nobody ever gives him shit. he still has millions of people waiting in line to accept him, and understand every crack on the marble.”
minjung muses on, tossing an even wider grin to the bartender motioning for two more rounds of whatever cheap henny he has left. elbow on the table, she props her face with the palm of her hand. “as for frank, well, i’m just sad i don’t get to see a wide-scale work of avant garde art. if it’s any consolation,” her eyes mirror ash’s over-exaggerated eyeroll. “i guess it’s an excuse to go visit your set instead. though, you might have to excuse me when blink starts playing first date.”
four words were four more than needed for get jihoon defensive.
if anything, he has been on edge for plenty of months now and the fact that he did his very best to avoid any and all interaction with minjung was in vain. she cornered him in a public setting and now he had to suffer the consequences. being passive aggressive was pretty much all he could muster now.
“really? want me to call him over right now? i’m sure he will be thrilled to be lectured about my attitude.” jihoon’s even more sarcastic than before as he looks around in actual hopes to find daehyun and call him over, leave him to talk with minjung while he dips somewhere no one can bother him. he isn’t a fan of conflict, but the other seemed to be keen on why he was being the way he is. he is tired, that’s a given, gold star has been absolutely demolishing catalyst with promotions and schedules. at her following words, jihoon thinks if he rolled his eyes ever so slightly harder, they would pop right out of his head. so he has to compse himself, head falling back, almost hitting it into the wall as he stares at the ceiling. his hands are in the pockets of his trousers and they are in fists. his knuckles hurt, but thats fine. a bit grounding even.
he drops his head back down, slightly tilted to the side as he watches minjung and something definitely shifts in his posture. his shoulders relax, so do his hands as he takes them out of his pockets, crosses his arms over his chest. “i’m tired.” he says in the most sincere voice he can pull “i am really fucking tired of you being up my ass.” he says through gritted teeth. there is a change in his voice, but no change in his posture. if minjung wanted to know, he was going to tell her. get her off his back. because being defensive in such a situation, being pestered by the person who broke his heart is really the last thing anyone would want. he wonders if minjung knew, would she back off?
turmoil falls, and like all the things she’s read inside novels written for the past — all good things come to an end.
the friendship she knows slowly becomes dissipated, sanded down by the gritty words tossed to her. but she’s learned better than to put on a show for the cameras and eyes, spotlighting their gazes at the scene. instead, she smiles, looks upward to meet jihoon’s own eyes dead-on. “i didn’t know we were having a scene. if i did, i would’ve spoken louder, maybe had an iced coffee in my hand or even better — a pound of kimchi so i could slap you with it like all the good day time dramas.” her voice is quietly spoken, and words only mask the pang of hurt when she feels like she’s losing a friend in the process.
after all, it’s just another understanding that everything’s transient. and nothing ever forges itself in permanency — least not remotely close to anything she knows.
she pulls herself together, wielding together a faux confidence in straightened shoulders and a huffed out breath. and if she were lucky, maybe, she’d coax herself into believing this was just an awry dream.
but her fingers tug at the extra fabric of her pants, and the pinch reminds her there’s nothing more bitter than the taste of reality sitting pretty. so, she looks back upward, smile softening. “you’ve been tired in the past, but this is the first you’ve said you’re tired of me being up your ass.” latter remarks highlighted with her air quotations, but her voice steadies. “you won’t have coffee with me. you won’t have lunch with me, and you won’t be in the same recording studio as me — i’m losing a friend, and i’m lost in translation. so, are you going to tell me how i’ve lost a friend or are you jumping to the ending and showing me the end result?”
the second weekend of coachella settles in with more familiarity than the first. the palm springs rental bungalow he’s been holed up in for the week, ordering take-out and holing himself up in the makeshift studio he’d crafted, is almost comfortable now despite the entirely unused pool. but it always comes down to one thing in the end: a battle between his cocoon of introversion and the restless pull toward less quiet and, ultimately, of course, less sobriety.
it’s nights like these he’s grateful he knows a few people who always seem to be around events like this. most of them are attention-addicted social climbers who think ash’s group having a number one song and a grammy nomination for the shittiest song they’ve ever put out to their name will get them in the tabloids if they’re caught partying with him, sure, but god knows he’s had worse company. besides, dimensions has anything truly compromising on lockdown pretty well these days. and if something did leak through? well, maybe it could erase his association with dynamite from the public conscience.
so he ends up at some private coachella artist party with someone he’s met a few times in passing at private booths in la clubs and lets her introduce him to people whose names he forgets as quickly as he’s told them until he’s shaken off the weight of sobriety just enough to make and excuse and step out on his own.
“we’ve got to stop meeting like this.” accompanied by a self-humored half-grin, it’s what he dubs an acceptable greeting when he spots minjung amongst the crowd and joins her. the bar might be low, but he figures there’s a good chance she’ll be better company than the person he came with. luckily for the both of them, this time he’s neither shitfaced nor stone cold sober, but something more pleasantly in between. “then again, it’s probably my fault we only ever seem to run into each other when at least one of us has a drink in hand.” he’s hardly the most social without the incentive of mind-altering substances, after all. “i was thinking dropping by to watch your set might be the only time i’d see you this weekend.”
anonymity comes in waves, and here she’s just a fresh-faced first timer. a novel feeling, far incomparable to being fresh faced, barely twenty when she first debuted.
but this is a new stage, and she soaks in the details. letting the intricacies of new hellos in fresh faces void of any judgements guide her movements through the busting bodies inside some cooped up party, smushed in the middle of indio. she hears from mouth, gets dragged by a new friend she meets in passing conversation — she’s merely a new face, and she knows from years of being new: it’s always the novelty of being in new, and up-and-coming that renders her somewhat worthy of any remote conversation. conversations rattle her heavier, and each conversations become nothing more than cheapened versions for proposals of a hookup or even cheaper laughter for future collaborations she knows will become remnants of gold star’s ignorance.
in the end, she succumbs to the thing she knows best — cheap henny, contrasting the money flowing in designer threads. maybe she’s on her third, but by the time she loses count she hears a familiar voice, and she turns her head towards the source. “or we can call it fate, and say we’re never supposed to meet inside the confines of sobriety.” she mirrors his half-grin, tossing whatever’s left of her drink straight down her throat.
by now, it doesn’t burn, and now, her eyes narrow in. “in the end, it’s okay because i like you best when you have a drink in your hand. builds character, makes you seem a bit more rough around the edges, like you’re a sculpture instead of a digital print.” her grin lifts more, and she motions some bartender she’s made friends with in the course of an hour over before turning over to ash, voice light and fleety. “now, i don’t know if you’re lucky or unlucky because i’m kind of sad right now. frank ocean dropped out this weekend. as much as i love blink 182, i wanted to bawl my eyes out to nikes and kiss a stranger during novacane.”
summary / melody + production for @fmdhayi‘s mianhae.
wc / 1012
the melody begins how she meets him.
inside a cruddy bar, surrounded by mutual strangers. she doesn’t know why steps out that day, just know she does at the expense of a cruddy routine of unfortunate circumstances. the rain when she gets her hair done for the next comeback, and the humidity of the heat rising with each step she takes past familiar faces and new ones. the rain that starts to downpour, accompany the round of drinks that line up. the explosion of cheers for new beginnings right as she finds the empty seat next to his.
it starts like repetition, the keys of the piano.
engrained in habits when she doesn’t lend a look over overtly, only to pass peeks in secret. he has dimples, she notes — they dig deep, and when her gaze becomes caught red-handed, the only thing she has at her disposal is the same primed smile her father used to give her when he found her hiding behind the scarlet curtains of a child.
she hides the melody inside the light-hearted touches of the keys that continue to follow the jazzy scheme of wannabe jazz from the 1930’s.
they remind her of him.
a summation of late night talks that fall blue like jazz inside her daze of ex-lovers, and ruined relationships. ruination at her own hands, and she lets her fingers trickle down the keys in erratic beats. because nothing’s been smooth like jazz throughout the course of back and forth years lost in translation.
missed timings, half-chances. hope she rests her heart on, only for the transiency of it all to rush like sanguine tinged cheeks falling from her face into bleak white. it’s murky territories, they tread on — always murky when she lets the rest of the melody fall into some pattern.
patterns are scary things, they fall into habituation. and everything becomes discourse as she waits for the pattern to halt, and shift into a turmoil of unexpected endings.
she hasn’t touched a piano in how long — months of lapsed conversation. nothing’s changed, she’s just become toned down outside the press, and behind the curtains again, this time back stage. she spits it out, just like poetry in motion. except her excerpt doesn’t follow the prose of plath or poe, and it certainly doesn’t sound like anything of sinatra or etta james.
it comes in wayward motion, just as her hands transition into a slow shift from the chords to the pressure her foot places on the pedal. it exudes, blends out into the silence of empty thoughts for things she doesn’t have left.
only memories guide one note after the other, and everything falls into place like it’s nothing short of muscle memory when she colors the melody with melancholy.
because melancholic endings are all she knows, all he knows. and maybe, that’s why she falls back into the habit of empty jazz music that plays through the speakers like she knows more than she’s giving up. context for nothing except the space of silence that takes her back to where she sees him best — empty moonlight in the break of night, like cinderella the clock strikes twelve and everything bursts back to reality.
there’s the whimsy divided into the patterns of the songs. the staccato of the rap that fragments the smooth whimsy of pretty keys. it’s a clash of two differing patterns, yet somehow in the dissonance, comes the cohesion she’s always known him to be.
figures, there’s another song she writes for a boy who doesn’t care.
only, this time she tells her story in-between the lines of notes because in the end, they’ve never found the right words or the right times to say sorry. instead, everything becomes nothing more than the short blend of lost time, wrong words, in-between context, and always lost inside the abyss of silence.
she only tells him the things she couldn’t say, except, she stands alone inside her room, keys in her hand, letting the jazz fill her bones like they used to. but past to present, and her bones feel empty while the chord transitions press on, and the beat never picks up into the recourse she wanted all along.
music becomes cathartic when she wants it to be, and late night blues have her holed up into the bungalow of her apartment. movies don’t feel right when five minutes passes, and she lets the words of empty lost lovers reuniting play in the background as she slides her feet one by one back to the studio. she doesn’t know why she keeps coming back to run the same lines of melodies or the same juxtaposition. all she knows is, she keeps coming back.
still no words, she leaves them to the new owner of the song. instead, all she has is the beginnings of the subtle bass line ticking in tandem with her keys against the table. steady like a metronome, and she realizes: she’s still writing the same stupid song for the same stupid boy.
patterns are terrible, and when she catches herself in the middle of a new form — grace lends itself to her when she lets herself carry on. stability, and the foundation to an unwritten story, he’s always been there keeping the tempest waters at bay in the mirage of a calm sea. the metronome ticks on, nature runs its course.
no lyrics, instead she fills the guide with the hum of a low voice. quiet and somber, she ends up painting herself in the blue notes of murky territory, one by one. the jazz inspired chords, the low level of the bass, and the somber hums — sums up the course they’ve taken thus far. and the song itself mirrors the only footsteps they’ve ever known.
she knows where the ending is, but her heart doesn’t want to swallow reality. instead, she lends the ending to unfinished business because nine times out of ten, she’d let it fade instead of letting the abrupt stop render her a shell of empty memories in the end.
❝ people that soaks into heart
what kind of person am i?
am i a good person?
or a bad person?
@minjungfmd
jihoon feels like he is holding onto every single thread of sanity he has left. he feels like a little kid being scolded, for something he isn’t entirely aware of. he understands where minjung is coming from. he was a dick last time they spoke, but he was honest, as honest as he could be to salvage some of their friendship. if anything, jihoon thinks he did really good, compared to any previous discourses he’s had, he is impressed that minjung had the guts to approach him in a public setting.
let alone to call him out for being as friendly and cheery as ever. maybe if she looked a bit fucking deeper, she would notice that wasn’t the case. maybe he should have bared his teeth more, scared her off and make her leave him to wallow in self pity. just like she did about juyeon, maybe even worse than that.. oh, it was definitely worse than that. they’ve had plenty of friendly interactions through the event, he was being as civil as civil could get. so he doesn’t understand why minjung expect him to tear into her in a public setting with cameras and people lingering at every corner?
he is chewing on his lips as he listens to her, eyes scanning the perimeter every few seconds because he feels the need to get out. he doesn’t care how disrespectful it is, he wants out.
“if you would like to lecture me on being civil in a public setting, pass the feedback onto my manager.” jihoon finally spits out, after noticing the silence between them had gotten ever so slightly suffocating. “or maybe, you should take a hint and act the same, stop harassing me in public about doing my job at keeping our images in tact.” the words come in the same tone and urgency, a bit through gritted teeth because the male thinks he might explode if minjung pushed anymore. asked anymore.
“you look happy today.”
it serves as an understatement to mend any of the fragility — the thin ice they tread on. slowly, it’s a crippling feeling of having the fragments resurface, and the uncertainty of what comes next falling into line. friendships become murky territory, clouded by the bitter aftermath of their last conversations with no resolve.
so, she breaks the ice the only way she can. a cheap evoke of sarcasm in those four words, a contrast to how she’s painted him in her mind last.
but that’s okay, they’re forced to play nice anyways. shrouded in the field of cameras, a field-day for the basic onlooker crafting details to the figments of their imagination in this star-studded event. she pays no attention, uses it as a tool instead. no way out, she quirks her head, pulls her grin a bit higher — irony that she’s choosing to have this conversation here than anywhere else. “too bad, i don’t have your manager’s number. and i don’t think that’d be a very good look to ask for your manager’s number — who knows, the public might paint me in darker shades of red.” it’s a lie because experience has only made that thick skin of hers thicker.
and now, the only thing that rests is the roll of her eyes signaling to cut the rough edges of in-between line reading. “you’re being rude again, and i don’t know if this is a new you or if you’re just deciding to put up a front, but no harm here.” she raises her two hands in the air, a subtle step back as if she’s raising her own hypothetical white flag. “now, are you going to let me know if this is the new you and you’ve finally hit your teenage rebellion phase? or are you actually going to tell me the reason why you’re choosing to be a dick lately.”
“that’s a rather limited view of it. there are reliable combinations of sound and look and presentation, but that doesn’t mean it’s all a rehashing of the same thing. if the industry was so incredibly repetitive and boring, everyone would have stopped listening by now.” people do stop listening. particularly when it comes to idol music, listeners will outgrow the marketing and leave their days of fanatic following behind, but really, the industry is no less inventive than any other. the idol industry may be oversaturated, but that’s a matter of numbers of groups, not creativity.
something in minjung’s words feel off. they’re almost too cynical for her liking, although she knows minjung well enough to know a healthy dosage of cynicism isn’t out of character for her. it’s not that mirae lacks any jaded outlook on the industry she calls home; rather, she’s determined to change what she can and understand the weighty cons of her alternatives.
“secrets? a producer is having an affair with an a&r lead, that fancy restaurant down the street uses frozen fish instead of fresh, a certain actor lost all his earnings gambling overseas and that’s why he’s taking any project he can get now. i doubt those are the sorts of secrets you want.” she looks at minjung for a beat. “are you more focused on acting these days? i didn’t get to watching it myself yet, but i have some friends who really loved our beloved summer. apparently, you did really well for someone still in her rookie actor years.”
she mulls in the conversation, a new light shed. she wonders if mirae’s always been a sort of saint in the industry — one who drinks into the rose-tinted sheen of the lights, letting the clamor of public praise become the soundtrack to each step.
but seo minjung knows her limitations to curiosities, and the extension into seniors like strangers tend to nothing more than the polite arch of her mouth, and a nod that dips. “all the wise insight, and you’re nothing more than living proof that wisdom comes with age, ghandi. i’m curious to see how much wisdom stems with each tick on the clock.” in hindsight, she learns nothing about wisdom — only that time heals all, except when the shallow knock to her stomach feels like it presses pause on all floors.
after all, it’s the pause that leaves her in this predicament, smack-dab in a studio via a wandering daze.
cheap talk does wonders, and she finds her eyes perking wider, her smile stretching higher. “i always knew that fish tasted off.” voice sarcastic, but there’s nothing more than a harmless jab into a fishbowl world. “as much as you can mimic exterior shapes, you can’t copy what on the inside.”
back to career, and she shies away the sentiment with one jut of her chin. “no, i don’t think so — i don’t like acting. i don’t like taking money pretending to be someone else when i already do that as my main source of income.” one more polite hint of her smile, and now it’s digging a bit to personal. “call our beloved summer a one off, i don’t think i’ll act like that ever again.”
it’s a terrible cliche to live by, she knows. writing across the pages one by one into the same shades of blues and greys — bad boys, sad girls. those are the fairytale endings that disney doesn't write about, and the ones she has to carve out from her own experiences.
too bad experience means letting the edges of heartbreak and the taste of lost hope settle into the bitter aftermath of what subsides on her tongue, and what runs through her mind all in slow motion.
she hasn’t picked up a pen in a while. hasn’t sketched, hasn’t written. words don’t come as easily when she’s forced into the rollercoaster emotions of shooting straight up, only to come crashing down. the crash comes into effect in ripple motions, one rough sway. and the rest comes like muscle memory — something familiar, like she knows it a little all too well.
maybe that’s why when she has the pen in front of her hand, and the blank page, the only words that entice themselves across become the same words reverberating through her head the second she decided to play a game with the devil.
if i take one step closer
take a couple of steps back
it’s like this again, sick of love
and maybe, that’s the remedy she’s been searching for all along. sifting through the in-betweens of what-ifs, and lost chances. bad timing an excuse for the abyss of words that lie in the bridge of silence. each step feels like one languid backwards motion, and by the end of it, all she has is where she’s started — the same bitterness that subsides in her stomach when she reminds herself to swallow it whole, even if it gets lodged into choked up sentences in the process.
you act vaguely
bad boy, bad boy, bad boy
i get sentimental for no reason
sad girl, sad girl sad girl
tonight too up alone
it’s a crutch of volatile emotions. she knows, just as the pen digs deeper into the paper and she’s relegated to that of a child scribbling nothings about a boy in a diary. rudimentary processes, and growing up just means transfixing old hobbies into productivities when she’s humming the words with the melody in her mind. and nothing excuses her when she can hear his voice in-between passing conversations, little facets and pieces she weaves together into excuses.
because really, maybe, that’s how she let herself to get stuck here in the first place. mulling over missed text messages and lapses of radio silence — the only thing remaining: her pride when she writes one more song about a stupid bad boy, and a sad sad girl.
jihoon feels something very contradicting, unable to put his own feelings aside he is very aware he should just ask minjung to leave. leave him alone because he feels his last barriers crumbling right about now. they are two very different people, he always knew that, but he was getting a proper taste at it right now.
“i always ask questions, this is just a topic that isn’t pleasant.” he explains, shifting yet again in his seat. he’s already thinking about the cigarettes he will be smoking when minjung leaves, so he has to shake his head ever so softly, bringing him back to the current situation at hand. “people don’t change fully, you need to remember that-” he pauses, despite having a big puff of air in his chest, ready to lecture minjung about how shitty people are no matter what, their own happiness is always top priority, their jobs as idols would never trully allow them to be happy, there was so many things jihoon could and probably should tell her, but instead, he lets out a soft sigh, shoulders dropping. “guanine confessions mean nothing when you have been tip toeing around the elephant in the room for years,” he finally states, because jihoon isn’t blind and he has unfortunately, seen plenty.
he listens to minjung speak, finally making his first big move by leaning over his seat and reaching to his bag, pulling out a few vitamin jellies, placing them on the desk and waving at them. an indication if minjung wants any, because he certainly helps himself to a watermelon one. “this is exactly what i said, you are placing your happiness on him, letting him tell you if you should breathe your breath of fresh air or not. that’s a bit sad, minjung.” jihoon says and he is sure he sounds even more miserable than she looks, a hypocrite at best, because he is doing the exact same thing by dwelling on his own feelings and not just.. moving past them.
one by one, and even friendships start to topple over. the pieces now fall to the ground with the sharpening edge of jihoon’s voice, and she shifts in uncertainty.
there’s a defense mechanism that coaxes herself into keeping a gaze that strays away. far from headiness of being relegated to the wrong — she shakes her head, takes a deep breath. still, nothing shakes out, and she mumbles, “all topics in life can’t be sunshine and rainbows, that’s why nobody is happy 24/7 in the world.” it’s the bite of realism, and maybe, it’s the seventh sense or a knack for trouble looming — she senses change.
yet, at the foundation of anything, she’s stubborn. stubborn in her inability to assuage the latent grit inside their conversation, so she remains still. refuses to stop here.
her fingers press against the crook of her elbow, pressing harder as the lecture drains on with each second on the clock. “i’d like to think it’s a case by case basis. it changes based on the people involved and the environment it blooms in — give a flower no water in sunlight, it dies. give a flower water with shade, it dies. put in the right circumstances, and maybe it grows. everything’s a taste of fate at this point.”
she shoos away the jellies with the dismissive wave of her hand. “i’m not placing my happiness on everyone.” her voice shoots firm, and for the first time, she points her dead-straight stare to meet his. “i can take a breath on my own, i just don’t know if i want to do it on my own anymore. the world’s a lonely enough place as is.”
“oscar first seems so predictable, though,” she draws out her voice like she’s bored by the idea, but it’s all in jest. mirae isn’t so conceited as to think her winning any prize, foreign or domestic, is a given, but if only by relation to parasite, she’s come closest to that prize already, and might, in theory, be able to ride that wave to a win to her name one day. “instead of going against the alphabet, i’d have to go against what’s predictable and start with the t first.” her mind blanks on what award the t is supposed to stand for, but she hopes that slips under minjung’s radar.
she can’t fully read minjung’s body language, whether it’s nervousness or discomfort or something else more subtle, but it’s impossible not to notice the shifting of her weight and the posture she takes on. though she doesn’t comment on it, mirae notes it and files it away in the back of her mind. “fugitives have to be fugitives from something.” it’s a statement in place of a question so minjung isn’t put on the spot.
“you can dance to any music, i suppose.” she shrugs, closing the journal she’d been making notes in and pushing it away. “so, in that sense, i am. did you need this studio to work on something?”
“predictability is what keeps the industry going — you take the same concepts, give them to different groups. people don’t really like to rock the status quo.” it’s a sentiment that’s been brewing inside her chest, enough to render her empty when her notebook strews nothing more than simple doodles and no real words to come out.
an artistic rut, or at least that’s what she seizes the lack of productivity. in the past, she’d bide her time because time’s the salve — it heals all wounds. yet, she stands her standing with her arms across her chest, and too many words that haven’t spilt over the rim of her mind quite yet. “tony or not, i’m excited to see how the media can continue to pet your head.” no malice, nor bite in her words. it’s a musing that recoils out of deflection, and it’s consequential of the fact that she’s neither here nor there. instead, she just floats somewhere in limbo.
her eyes continue to brace strong, no change to her demeanor. (she knows better than to not pay attention inside a conversation.) “maybe, but i’d like to think ballads are reserved for the dancers that think.” she mirror the shrug, jutting her chin out. “i thought i’d get lost. i don’t make much music these days — but i thought if i sat around or maybe wandered, then maybe a shadow might whisper secrets. you hear any secrets lately?”
jihoon has never been great at listening, he has to problem solve. has to think of a way to get everything done and dusted. not very problem solving of him if he was sat there writing a big sad album now, is it? “but it has been going on for years, so its understandable you are hung up.” he speaks up again, straightening up in his chair.
he was really being put between a rock and a hard place right now. minjung was really pushing all the buttons he really didn’t want touched right now and he was on edge. “i am taking your side, i can bitch about juyeon without a reason.” he pauses, sighs softly and rubs his face with both hands. “i am not scolding you, i am just asking questions.” jihoon purses his lips as he listens to minjung speak. time never changed anything especially when things have been going like that for what.. years? so he takes his time to think about what he can tell her, to make the situation feel slightly better and not be a dick.
if there was one thing jihoon had gotten great at since debut, was putting his own feelings aside and just focusing on the issue at hand.
“because time rarely changes anything. especially after that many years, it’s a comfortable awkwardness between you too. you get too close, you distance yourself, you can never get closer than what you both allow, isn’t that the whole thing? confessing changes absolutely nothing if the dynamic has been stale for years?” he wants to bite down his tongue, so hard, he couldn’t speak afterwards, but he has already opened that can of worms, he doesn’t feel that bad if he has to put some thought into it.
like the end of the domino lines ticking down one by one, she finds the answer she’s been searching for all along: the swaddle of comfort with one statement, and the understanding that years of friendship brings forth.
it’s easy going, and like free-fall she slings back onto her chair, taking one big sigh. her spine tenses up, a reverberation of instinct when she hears the name call out into what she deems a safe space. one freeze, and her fingers play with the hem of her shirt, avoiding any trace of eye contact. “you’re asking questions, but they sometimes pinch too deep. the pinch that doesn’t bring rosy red, the kind that brings a pain to your gut.” she mutters out, falling back to the recoil of true safety: mangled words, a flighty tone.
“time changes all, and people get older. they say the only medicine to anything is time passing, and then it gets all better.” she fields jihoon’s words out of her ears, out of sight and out of mind — because hindsight is 20/20, and what he says becomes an acrid taste of reality replaying of years past. “stalemate can turn into a checkmate with one prop of bravado in genuine confessions.” and now she feels like she’s nothing more than fences upon fences of defenses she can’t hold with a strong foundation.
her teeth press hard down upon her bottom lip, jostled in with the heavy sigh she takes. “it’s like i’ve been drowning for years, and i finally decided to take a breath of fresh air. but that air ended up becoming more water i swallowed, and now i’m sinking deep — but you know what the worst part is? i don’t want to let myself sink. i just want to swim up to the top, hoping that maybe, i’ll finally get a gasp of air and just maybe, i’ll be able to float if he’ll let me.”
30 MARCH — Following the release of Equinox’s new mini-album on March 20, member MINJUNG has recently been earning love for one of her lines in their new song “Feel My Rhythm”.
The part in question has the vocalist singing about blowing confetti as she does charming hand movements, which can be seen in both the song’s music video and in Equinox’s live music show stages. Social media has been abuzz about Minjung’s impressive visuals and her perfect fit with the part.
The moment has earned love across various social media, with compilations of the line during Equinox’s stages being uploaded and fans recreating the moment on apps such as TikTok and Instagram.
[e***]: minjung’s visuals are insane… wow. how is it possible to look so pretty?
[j***]: if minjung smiled at me like that, i would fall in love in an instant
[s***]: whenever i’m feeling down lately, i’ve been watching minjung’s ‘blow confetti’ part and i feel instantly healed
[m***]: i can’t imagine anyone else doing that part as well as minjung. it was really made for her
baratheonpilled
dailybridgerton
germansingergirl
prguitarman
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
