everything seems to be so blurry. like someone pressed the play then pause then rewind then forward button and every fucking button ever existed and his mind is in a complete mess. everything seems to move in slow motion yet at the same time it is faster that his eyes and mind couldn’t catch up. blink, blink– what the hell just happened? it’s like his skull is crashing against the cold marble floor, crack open and every emotions and rational thinking flowing out like prayers.
(but he is not religious to begin with. does god even exist? — wait what- where was he again?)
the music goes boom, boom, boom all too loudly almost resulting his ears to ring as if how hyunwoo would wake him up, no wait jae would wake him up. too loudly, too harshly but in a loving way because they are all friends. friends. this place isn’t friend, this place is– he doesn’t know where the fuck he is right now. everything is green and red and everything become an endless light trails of green and red. people chattering, people singing, people screaming (stop, just stop for a hot minute. where the fuck is he? why there are so many people?), people bumping on to each others, bumping to teddy. he is losing control. of his limbs, mostly of himself; both in literal meaning and philosophically because he is a ‘depressed musician’, everything suddenly become a metaphor.
he laughs, he jumps. go stupid, go crazy. because everyone doing so when the sudden change of lights hitting them. it is now blue and white– or is it still red and green? what the fuck is this? that kind of ‘what colour do you see in this shirt: blue and black or white and golden’ shit?
enough of this mambo jambo nonsense and let’s take a step back from all this craziness before his eyes. (he is still mentally debating if its green and red or blue and white– fuck). the air that hit his porcelain skin make him shivers, but a sight of a symphony constantly on diminuendo in the middle of symphony played by five year old child banging on the piano shiver him more. in his stillness figure how come a man before his eyes in this lonesome outdoor pool on the highest floor of fucking wherever this is can easily the very aesthetics of: oozing honey, golden hour, steaming vanilla tea. the man is just–
oozing everything that this place isn’t. unsuitable but pleasing to have.
“h–hey–” right, what a smooth way to flirt your way to a random man by both staggering on your own words and also on your own feet. what the fuck is balance when you have too much alcohol in your system, “—i mean, sup.” he manages to bring himself back up. kinda. at least he is now much closer to the man and holy heck, this man is beautiful up close. “‘sup.” he repeats as if he is making sure that the man heard him and he is not staggering on his words.
(of course he is, teddy you knucklehead, no one is here except you and him!)
in here is the cultivation of subjugated minds, vitriol that runs through the veins becoming kings to rule the trains of thoughts. he sees them in the fleeting lights, strobes of colors that caress the calibrated faces. it reminds him so much of home, where everything is neon-lit, the fuses flamed as the nights grow older, wearier. it feels the same, all these collections of versed inebriation. just one hundred and thirty years of difference — there’s not much altered from this point of view. there is always the shine, illusionary as it may come. there is always the tunes, tonalities that hold bodies captive. they sway, moving the way his so-called friends from the beyond would. but friends, are they? regardless of that, the status quo remains that he doesn’t dance. he can, but he won’t. his “fun” isn’t gauged from how many drinks he can imbibe before his system calls it off for the night. and his “fun” definitely isn’t gauged from how many frames he can allure before his morning comes to view.
2019 tastes like an overload of saccharine on his tongue, mixture of too many silhouettes at once. simultaneous responses to stimuli that don’t matter — these cause his thoughts to shut down the moment he’s compelled to focus on too many things. it’s a singlehanded shut down coming from his so-called mind when he alienates his thoughts, becoming nothing but a projection of peace. it’s particularly useful when it comes down to this kind of place, yet here he is. it almost feels like a force of habit, to just come and stay even when he least relishes in the purpose it tries to proffer. paradoxes that jumble even when he should’ve prided in his logic: all stagnancy, predictable moves that cater to none but rational thinking. but no, there’s always something that he’s learned as a futile concept called instinct, in all its furtive, arbitrary glory. something that he should’ve had in a levelled manner for the sake of faking normalcy. now this, he reckons, this is too much.
he’d justify himself, though. calls this a learning curve. it’s almost risible... until he learns that someone is drawing close. believing it’s just a drunkard searching for the way to the restroom, or better yet, the exit, he naturally sidesteps. familiar — he’d say. he’s seen the person somewhere, but regardless, he wants nothing to do with someone whose feet are already tangled from the substances. then, there’s that. the greeting. he looks down at the man, slightly shorter than him. scanning the man without his inbuilt system to preserve the experience, ensuring it’s as humane as possible, he comes to the conclusion that this man can do not much of a damage towards hansol. with that in mind, perhaps it’s safe to engage with the human. sup— well. hansol quirks an eyebrow at that. but the stranger carries on despite the absence of answer from hansol’s end. another question. now he quirks both eyebrows. “i am,” he replies after letting some beats of the bass fall in between them. “why does that concern you?” asks in return, as if out of courtesy, when the words ended in jagged tones. “are you alone as well, dude?”
