HE finally finds him in the crowd, though it's not really in the crowd, and is instead in a corner of the club. that should maybe be the first sign that his friend is not doing the best in this environment, but jaeyong is too excited to notice, and instead, grins. "hey! i'm glad you could come!" he's about to ask him if he had fun when he catches sight of the expression on seonjae's face, which he can only describe as...overwhelmed? jaeyong's smile fades quickly. "are you okay?" he asks instead.
it’s been awhile since seonjae’s been to a live show. it’s entirely different than listening to music with the volume cranked up in his headphones, feeling that music pulse through his chest, rumble the ground at his feet, something about watching bodies sway and course together live with the music, raw vocals and instruments that rip right through any sort of professional and prerecorded sound. he’d been to places like this to do trades and leave, and in the past, he’d lingered only for a few moments before he found a new, quieter place to chase away all of that noise stuck in his head. but he sticks around, tonight.
visiting the record store was for his ever growing collection in his new room, whatever he could manage on the rest of his paycheck from nite rite that wasn’t reserved for the essentials, not only gained him new music, but it also gained him meeting someone else that enjoyed listening just as much as he did. recorded, in a band, that seonjae had spent his fair time listening to, as well. that stuff’s always kind of surreal, like whenever he meets someone who’s listened to his stuff, too, mostly that he can’t imagine they sat down and heard it all the way through, whatever he heard in his head and felt in his heart bled through the audio like watercolor bleeding out on paper.
they all keep telling him he should get out more. so he does. he’s not entirely sober, but that’s not anything new for him. there’s too many people, too many things that could go wrong, even dressed as he was, all of his skin covered, fingers flexing in his gloves.
the show’s great. he sticks to the wall but it’s still all too much, like the amount of people just increase the amount of decisions he could make, potentially, too many options and so too many visions, split second ideations that he doesn’t act on. there’s one or two he can’t place, but they’re not here, and so like all of the other ones that aren’t taking place in his immediate surroundings, he does his best to forget he ever even saw.
so he sees jaeyong in a vision before he really sees him, which means he’s blinking back to see jaeyong actually in front of him a moment later, a little dazed. “hey— yeah, thanks for inviting me.”
seonjae clears his throat, looks around him. he’s not entirely sure which version of the future this is, if it’s one he’d seen or not, but he still catches the way jaeyong’s smile fades and tries for a better expression. “i’m fine! you guys were fucking sick, that was a hell of a show. i knew you guys were going to be even better in person.” this is genuine, even if his eyes still seem a little too far away, if his hands shake a little bit. he shoves them in his pockets, tilts his head towards a nearby bar.
“thirsty? we can go and get something, i think it’s about time for a drink.”
“DO you need a towel? i can get one from the storeroom,” haein offers quickly before the customer takes too much offense to his words. his eyes drop to the growing lake on top of his bar. “so you don’t get cold.”
“sure. anything you feel up to making.” seonjae says, reaching over for a few napkins with a grimace and soaking up the small pool he’d made on the counter. probably not good manners, which leads him to stop leaning against it in favor of just dripping against the ground. he laughs a little, despite himself, a low chuckle as he shakes his head, reaches up, pushing dripping silver hair back instead of it sticking to his forehead.
“i feel a bit damp.” he mutters, and sets the napkins back down.
he thinks about the towel. it’s probably better than nothing, as long as he doesn’t touch it to his skin. he wonders just how protected he is with his clothes soaking wet, but it’s a new something he’d never tried with his abilities before, so he guesses he can check this off of the invisible list of what causes his visions and what blocks them. seonjae shrugs.
“if it’s not too much, a towel would be nice. and then the drink, please. is a long island your favorite, or something?”
the walkman's old. seonjae picked it up in some thrift shop where he found the thing languishing away in one of the plastic bins of older technology, in which he'd taken it back home, and carefully refurbished it as well as he could to shiny and new. it's a little banged up, but it works, and somehow the audio sounds.. different, better, in a way, and so seonjae gets a little attached to listening to any of his new tracks on it before he releases them. it's a bit of a routine for him, but he starts making other little tapes, too, importing playlists onto the ones he finds, and soon it goes with him everywhere in his pocket.
it's nice, to have something that he attaches his own memory to. he still only touches it with gloved fingers— it was one of the few times he considered actually touching it without, after carrying it around so long, still wondering if it carried any memory of those who had loved it before him. but at the end of the day, it was seonjae's now. seonjae who had refurbished the thing, and carried it around with him, and listened to his music on it. so he made it his.
over the years, it's accumulated quite a few stickers. seonjae collects them out of coin machines and magazines and sticker sheets he finds and buys, even less remnants of memories before, just seonjae, now.
so when he gets seonyul to listen to it, it hadn't really been anything but his since he got it. he came around often, to nite rite, and seonjae had tentatively found friendship in the way he recognized the music seonjae played on the speakers, to dull out the long, empty hours. regular convenience store music got grating after awhile, and he got to the point that he was personally going to march into the back and ruin the speakers if he had to listen to the same five songs over and over again— so, he'd figured out a way to hook up to the audio system, and play his favorite stuff.
he didn't expect anyone to recognize it, though. or to enjoy whatever he played. music had always been something he'd fled to in the moments where he felt lost for anything else, so to have someone else that understood that in a way, well. how could he not have him listen to what it sounded like on his walkman?
it's slid over the table, earphones in a tangled mess around the myriad of stickers and worn buttons. seonjae's on break, technically, a bottle of coffee sweating condensation and a discarded bag of chips he'd finished as they'd caught up.
"i added a new track on it. it's after this other song i found i thought maybe you'd like. i'm not sure about posting it, though.. it's like. i dunno. i haven't posted anything in a couple of months." he hadn't since he'd moved in, actually, because between it all, returning to music felt like a habit he did when he was running from things, and it's the first time he actually hadn't wanted to run at all. eunjae's with him, and he's never really cared for anything much past that, getting back to his sister and trying to move on.
his gloved fingers leave the walkman, and he sees a flash of pink. a bunny, he thinks, dangling off a backpack, led through the aisles. he's going to have to get up and ring the person up, since he's the only one here, even if he is on break. a glimpse of red, from inbetween the rows of chips, half paying attention to them in case they needed help.
a moment. a flash, and the walkman is gone off the table, a blur beside him when he doesn't look in time and the bells of the door are ringing, frame banging shut, figure gone just as quickly as seonjae had realized the table's empty.
he sees her a few moments before he actually sees her, taking a moment to step inside the building, gloved thumb fiddling with skipping forward to the next song on his phone. it's a bit of a blur, sidestepping a group of people walking out of the building and stepping around, a wide berth, to let them have room for it before he catches the door right before it closes, ducks inside before the next person comes in. he's multitasking, which he really shouldn't be, because he's not really looking in front of him, head down, boots dragging on the floor.
it's the first few notes of the next song that he misses— drawn into a vision that only gives him a moment to react, which means that he's still in the way when he bumps into her. to be fair, he'd been in a quite obvious space right around this corner, and the apology's flying out of his mouth as soon as the vision stops and he feels their shoulders collide.
"shit, sorry." he's tugging out one earphone, dangling down from the other as the music blares in one ear, tinny sound spilling out into the space between them as he looks around them. he'd gone out for his second time that week that he was supposed to, in which he only walked around the grocery store for a little bit before he deemed it enough, purchasing a pack of gum that he'd been chewing on the whole way home. wondered if eunjae still liked this flavor, in which he was on his way to asking her when he—
"are you okay?" seonjae mumbles, pulling his hood a little further down, glasses up his nose. he forgets, sometimes, right after his visions, how to work his limbs and his body right, like the vision knocks him a few inches to the left and it's hard to come back to himself lined up quite right when he just saw something else, losing a few moments to gain a few of the future.
it always leaves him surprised when it happens to be immediately coming. as the future always is, in one way or another, but it didn't stop him from wanting to see it any less.
KIYEON bites back a grimace. "a full moon rises before nightfall," he mutters to the client's shoes, which is bomin's stupid passphrase. a good night to enjoy the fruits of the land, is the second half of it, though kiyeon can't imagine that any real buyer would actually say these things.
seonjae waits in the usual spot he meets the serpents in. out of the people he buys from pretty frequently, they usually deliver and they’re not too bad on their prices— sometimes, actually, he feels like he’s paying less than he’s seen some of this stuff go for, but with the amount of money he has in his pocket, he’s not really one to say something about it. he’s been buying from them long enough that he feels a little more comfortable than with a new dealer, just because they haven’t really ever started any shit with him, and he usually anticipates the same few people to walk up, exchange the stuff and the money, and be on his way in enough time it’s not even suspicious when he gets back home to eunjae.
there’s someone new tonight, though. he can’t see the stranger’s face, because the stranger is looking right at the ground, but he recognizes the one next to him. maybe a new hire? it still rises something in him though— an uneasiness, because he hadn’t seen it coming and he doesn’t like what it may mean. or he’s just paranoid, but he’s had enough happen to him to allow paranoid.
but the voice is.. familiar? why is it familiar? seonjae’s eyebrows furrow, just a moment late on the delivery of the line back. clears his throat as he tries to remember— memory, vision, where it all blurs together, had he seen him in a vision? in a dream? is that why he’s familiar— seonjae just didn’t know it yet, when he saw him, heard him, the first time?
“a good night to enjoy the fruits of the land.” he murmurs, but it feels distant to him. he digs in his pocket for the money, which he’s counted out in a concerning amount of bills and coins and shoved into a little plastic baggy, reaching out between them with his hand covered in leather gloves, just short of the sleeve of his hoodie pulled up over his hair, which, rising as he reaches, unveils the littered amount of things he wears around his wrist.
a digital watch, blinking blue time. a charm bracelet of things that he’d found and strung onto the string, twinkling against each other as they move. a stretchy band of woven rocks, a pale, turquoise blue that he'd gotten back in high school, a neon pink paper bracelet for a movie he’d gone and seen with eunjae and he hadn’t cut off. a woven bracelet, one that he’d kept on since before he left his house, and hasn’t taken off since. it’s worn and tattered but still strong, from all of the nights he had held onto it and hoped one day he could get a new one from who had made it from him in the first place, if only it meant he could see him again.
“sorry about the coins again. it’s all i could get before our usual meet up.”
"OH, no, it's ---- i should have paid more attention." a subpar excuse that comes with a shrug; he offers somewhat of a half-reassuring smile. "do i look like the type who's easily scared? wow, i'm almost offended."
with the power out, seonjae hadn’t been too keen on sticking around. the darkness only reminded him of things that he could make out of that inky, shadowed peripheral he didn’t want to look into, and the fact that his phone light didn’t even reach that far to warn him of what was coming— if he had a vision, no way to discern himself in that darkness away from wandering eyes— it’s enough to send him on a journey for the exit of the building. he’s snuck out the back this way a few times, when he needed to be discreet with what he was doing, but he doesn’t expect the doors to open up to a figure leaning against them on the other side.
seonjae blinks as he watches the person stumble, a cigarette falling to the ground. he steps forward just to let the doors shut with a thud behind him, clutching his phone in gloved hands, his fingers waving out a hurried expression of ‘no!’ as he apologizes. lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t really paid attention to much else than getting out of that darkness, the doors the only way through, out of those memories and those hallways, sending him back to those times as a child, lost and aimless and trying to find his way, always, back to his sister.
it’s not now. he’s outside, and he’s glad he hadn’t caused worse. wished he could have seen him in the first place. “ah, not really. i don’t take you for the type.” he did seem quite unbothered by the whole power going out, if he was smoking out here. seonjae digs in his pocket, fishing out a box of half used up cigarettes, steps out of the way of the doors as he fishes a new one out.
“here? to make up for the one you dropped?” the black leather covering his fingers stay resolutely halfway down the cigarette, arm reaching out the majority of the distance between them to offer it with a small smile.
“WHAT are you talking about? did you hear something out there?”
here’s the thing, seonjae hates doing laundry. he’s gotten quite a routine with it, now, and while he’s grateful for consistently clean clothes, he hates the monotony of the process and trying to find an empty laundry room. and since he’s up at odd hours, he tries to take advantage of the fact that not everyone is out doing their laundry when he wants to— and made a habit of trying laundry machines not even on the floor of his apartment in the hopes that it’ll be empty.
he puts his headphones in. he listens to music, and pretends to read whatever magazine he finds in their throwaway pile of mail back at the apartment, and the time goes faster, sometimes, then he anticipates it will. and he doesn’t usually pay attention to people, but he does notice that there’s a familiar face quite a few times, right when he’s doing his laundry, too.
the thing about the familiarity is that seonjae wonders if it’s from when he’s actually seen him before or if he’s seen him in a vision, like when he’s leaning against the machine holding his t-shirts, a blur of colors that bleed away when he sees, hears, something, distantly, a moment before it happens. he sees the color of the stranger’s shirt in his peripheral, until he’s seeing his t-shirts again, unmoving. cotton fresh laundry detergent, a heavy, damp scent. his leather gloved hand pressed to the machine.
it comes out of his mouth as soon as he’s pulled back, because he doesn’t know how distant the vision was, but he is right here. did he miss it while he was seeing?
“not.. yet?” he mumbles, turning around now to look at him. same shirt color, same shitty lighting, green blue fluorescent spilling shadows around them. “i saw— heard—,” the lights flicker. a distant boom! and then they’re plunged into darkness.
“that. did the power go out?” he wonders aloud, even if it’s obvious, he doesn’t know if it’s just a flicker or something more serious. the shadows are inky, like he’s closed his eyes tightly shut, trying to feel around for wherever he’s left his phone.
SILENTLY slipping the card back into her pocket, she takes a moment to let reality sink in ; resigned, she turns away from the scanner. there's no point in trying again, and truthfully she doesn't think there are many people inside anyway. "i don't know if you're feeling cold, but i saw someone handing out blankets at the bonfire earlier! it's a bit late now, but hopefully they still have extras..."
really, all seonjae wanted was to get into the building and go to sleep. he’d worked an earlier shift besides his better judgement, and he had already interacted with more people than he wanted to today, not even to put a power outage on top of it. another time his visions failed him, because he thinks if he had seen that the building was out of power, he wouldn’t have walked the whole way back here in the first place, maybe have just gotten something to eat first.
he thinks he’s seen her around before, but he already anticipates the buzz of red before he sees it. seonjae’s already tucked away his card, staring at the people flitting around them on the street and shrinking back more towards the scanner. “we can check out the bonfire? if they’re giving out stuff.” he offers, because he’s not one to turn down free things when they’re given to him so easily, and they both kind of deserve it, anyways, since they’d been locked out of the building in the first place.
“i don’t quite know where it is, if you do?” maybe he’s passed it before, but places get mixed up in his brain easily, especially when he half pays attention to where he’s going when he’s walking, anyways. his headphones sit paused around his neck, and he fully shuts off the ipod tucked into his pocket when he pushes both of his hands into his jacket and hunches his shoulders, stepping out of the way.
“i’m seonjae, by the way. thanks for checking with your card too, i was half convinced for a moment they’d kicked me out finally, or something.” he offers, a half, sheepish smile.
"MAYBE when people are panicking less, we can go out. i want food," she says with a yawn, smacking the side of his mattress to make sure he heard her and, by extension, himself; when she's hungry, that means seonjae's hungry, and when seonjae's hungry then she's hungry. "besides, aren't you supposed to go out at least two times this week."
he remembers. he remembers how dark it was in that house, and how loud the wind wailed, and how all of the shadows seemed long and sticky, like they were reaching out for him down the halls. seonjae remembers, too, losing her for those ten minutes, when he had been so clingy when he was younger, there really wasn’t a moment he wasn’t by her side— but the long shadows, and the storm, now, when he looks back, he wonders if somehow his powers, inherently, tucked away a sense of danger into him before he even had the visions for it.
“i do. scared the shit out of me when i couldn’t find you.” he still couldn’t really remember where he went when it happened, because the house seemed bigger, longer, more rooms he didn’t remember, half didn’t recall the way out because eunjae wasn’t at his side to remind him that the way he was walking was right. somehow eunjae’s fear, when he found her again, stuck with him deeper than even his mother’s, where they huddled together until the storm passed, that lingering fear of something happening one he remembered, one he kept with him throughout his life. still has it, now, constantly feeling like there’s always a storm coming where he’s afraid he’s going to lose eunjae in the dark.
he’s laid back on his bed, because the heat’s starting to grow without the ac, and laying down seems to be the only thing that quells it, for now. his arms are stretched out, staring at the ceiling, gloved hands reaching for something that isn’t there. seonjae groans at the reminder of going outside, even if they’d probably be cooler for it. feels her smack the side of the bed and reaches out to pat her hand back. of the time they spent apart, he missed just having her with him like this, close enough to talk, still felt some sort of fear to make sure that she was really there with him, that this wasn’t just a dream, or a vision he had created for himself.
she reminds him he’s hungry, feels his stomach grumble in response right in time. “yeah. i guess i should probably go out at least once.” seonjae says, begrudgingly, and drags himself vertical. “hi-dine?” he asks, feeling around for his jacket, another hand through his messy hair. “i want fries.”
seonjae just wants a drink. maybe two, actually, for the day he’s had, inbetween attempting to go outside (the park was too loud too many people too much light and he just couldn’t keep turning the volume of his music up in his headphones to drown out the noise without practically making them speakers), and usually he’d just go back to his room to make something, but he was out of his secret under the bed vodka he kept having visions of breaking. so against normal judgement, he was at the pool, because the bar here should give him what he wants, and then he’d be out of there.
this is one of the (very few) times that seonjae would admit his second sight would actually be handy, but then ultimately fails to even save him from this, which is skirting around the pool to make his way there, someone running past him, which, why, are they running right now on the slick floor, but it bumps him and he jolts and he slips and then— he’s directly splashing right into the pool.
maybe it would be nice, to be in the pool, in theory. it had been a hot day, but seonjae’s in jeans and a long sleeve and his gloves and his boots and it feels decidedly terrible to be soaked from head to toe fully dressed. not only that, but he had made such a big splash and alerted everyone in the vicinity, and now he has to paddle his way out of the pool knowing that everyone knows he fucking fell in.
three drinks? little umbrella? striped, twisty straw to drink it through, one of those little lemon slices? maybe a little too fancy, but seonjae’s just about had it, as he steps out, silver hair dripping into his eyes, cursing his visions up and down because the one time he would’ve loved to not fall in the pool fully clothed, he just had to because he didn’t see it. at least he wasn’t wearing one of his headphones.
so he walks up to the bar, shoes sloshing with pool water and creating little puddled footsteps all the way up to the counter, which he leans, drips, against, and tries to get the attention of the nearest bartender. “can anyone make me a really strong drink? with one of those little umbrellas?” desperation is coloring his words, but he’s not even motivated to cover it over, since the pool deck’s playing some alarmingly cheerful music for his downfall, and he’s starting to get something like a headache, not even bothering to wring out his clothes as he tries to wrestle his wallet out of his back pocket, sticking to the heavy, damp jeans he’s got on now.
“preferably kind of sweet. i need something sweet.” seonjae grumbles, leaning against the counter and already making great work on making a small pool of his own on the counter.
it’s 4am and the light’s flickering. buzzing, really, a grating sound on seonjae’s ears as his leather gloves slide over another page of the magazine he’s not really reading. he’s got one earbud in, playing something mindless to try and drown out the noise— he’d told his boss, over a hastily scrawled note stuck to the cash register earlier that week, to please fucking fix it! but it’s still there, flickering sometimes and turning the chips aisle into two steps away from a horror movie while picking out your favorite. he hopes customers just know whatever one they want when they come in, he’d rather they grab and go anyways.
it’s late, and it’s hot, because not only is the light fucked, the ac’s not working, and even with the door half propped open with an umbrella stand, it’s still vile in the store, actually. it’s enough that he slides the magazine shut, decides enough’s enough, and looks for the half ladder they have thrown in the back, dragging it to the aisle to climb up and just unscrew the lightbulb. it’s late, so he takes his jacket off, throwing it over the handle as he starts to climb up, and if someone comes in, then, well— he’ll be on this ladder. it won’t matter. he’s climbing up the stairs when he’s hit with a vision. he sees the back, his hand reaching for a switch, the fuse box, comes back to himself with a curse, still halfway down the ladder and stepping down, back, when he stumbles into someone.
he can’t even say anything when he’s taken into another one. it’s dizzying, to get two back to back, because now he’s not himself, anymore, he’s looking through the eyes of someone— there’s a crowd, a whole audience, stage lights, buzzing, bright, blinding, wavering heels and jittery hands, and it’s not just, it’s not just nerves, it’s the feeling of being on something, seonjae would know, it’s enough to make someone unsteady on their shoes, stairs coming into view, no rail, no help, a hand on the dress, pulling it up but it’s not enough, it’s not enough when the shoe slips and she can’t even take a breath before she comes into contact with the floor, sliding down the rest of the stairs and landing, to a chorus of shocked gasps, staring at a broken heel, burning eyes, quick breath, a bloom of pain—
seonjae gasps in air when he comes back. blinks, and blinks again, because the world’s a little dizzy when he has to leave it for a few moments, coming back to see a customer he recognizes. she comes in, they don’t talk. it’s easy, he rings up whatever she picks, they keep quiet, it’s a transaction he looks forward to, because it’s over quick and he doesn’t have to think about small talk, just has to think about the exchange, and then it’s over. seonjae’s trying.
“sorry.” he gasps out, and that silence is broken, that promise is broken, that unspoken one that he’d been so grateful to have. hastily pulls on his jacket, closes up the ladder, scurrying back to the back to put it away, all because he forgot to turn off the lights, should probably do it when he’s leaving— scrambled thoughts, because should he— if he tells her, it’s all over, isn’t it? he’d broken it already, the kind of feeling he got that she didn’t want to be spoken to, either, but.
he knows what it’s like. sometimes he couldn’t even remember things when he was on something, can’t speak on that but can speak on this, that he can’t let that happen if it means she’ll be in pain, later. seonjae returns to the counter hoping she’s still there, chewing on his bottom lip, nerves getting the best of him, remembering that fall, the eyes, really, is what he remembers— all of the eyes, watching.
tell me 3 truths and 1 lie, without naming which one is which.
“i forgot to tell my sister i work late tonight. so she’ll probably be texting me soon, because i didn’t come home with food like i normally do.” his gloved fingers tap a beat against nite rite’s counter, where he’s propped up in a chair and waiting for another customer. the lights buzz, it’s probably been a few hours since he’d seen someone, and that melody stuck in his head keeps getting beat out against the countertop, only thing he can do while he waits out the rest of his shift. keeps picking up more hours, as long as it means more money in his pocket at the end of the week.
“so i’m tired.” it wears on him, the long hours and the whole night out, but at least it’s somewhere where he has a place to sit, and snacks to eat. he can scroll around on his phone while he waits, thinking about how many long hours he’d gotten through before and he’d do again. tries not to think about what he really needs all of the money for, shame sitting right there in his back pocket, a shadow every time he turns around.
he jolts, suddenly, hands placed firmly against the counter as a vision overtakes him, eyes blanked out white, unseeing. his lips are parted almost as if in answer, like he was in the middle of something, and slowly, slowly, his fingers curl into small fists, like a reaction that takes awhile for it to get out. when his eyes come back, it’s like all of the energy gets sucked out of him, marionette on a string no longer pulled taut, crumpling forward against the counter. “i’m going to slip off this chair when i fall asleep.”
his hands reach, then, for a bottle of iced coffee that has condensation dripping down the sides. he downs it in a few sips, puts it down, closes his eyes. they blink open white again, still holding onto the coffee while the taste lingers on his tongue. the bell at the door rings and he sits quiet, finally pulled forward, with a few blinks, as he gazes around. someone’s looking at all of their drinks, reaches forward, fingers bringing one out. considers the ingredients. clears her throat. puts it back.
“someone’s going to get married. they like this kind of coffee, i guess, but they’re going to get married. sunset, the sky orange and purple and blue. covered in lace and flower petals.. like roses? lilies? they line the paths like embroidery. its a beautiful wedding. they’re late and she was worried, but now the sun’s just right and she loves him. his outline is haloed by the orange of the sun and she loves him.” he throws away the empty coffee bottle, just in time for the customer to come up, place another fresh one on the counter, left hand sparkling with an engagement ring. seonjae just smiles, says nothing, and rings it up.
if your life paused for a day and you could go anywhere you want and do anything you want, where would you go?
“home?” he says, and then thinks about it for a moment, silent, unwavering disposition as he looks off at some blank part of the wall, half expecting a crack to form, to split right down the middle, all of his wants and fears to come spilling right out of that darkness, shaped right there and ready to find him. he thinks of his mother’s eyes, and he thinks of the silence of his father, and he thinks about how eunjae’s hand in his own was the only thing that kept him strong in that house, kept any part of his spirit leftover, even after he had to leave her.
he thinks maybe home isn’t the right word. home in his memory, home when his powers hadn’t manifested yet, and he can barely remember it now, a time where he didn’t have the haze of the future looming over him with every moment, every decision, every touch— but here he is, now, still yearning for that memory, that time where everything was warm and soft and easy, and he didn’t feel that clawing notion of darkness climbing up his throat every time he perceived the world his abilities wanted him to. “i’d go back. i wish i could go back to how i remember it, home where everyone was there and nothing else mattered. home with a family. one that wanted us all there.”
the inside of his room wasn’t where he wanted, maybe the living room, where they’d spent hours watching tv and playing games on the carpet. he thinks he’d go right home and lay down on the floor, watching the spin of the ceiling fan, feel the wind float down to him, back when he wasn’t afraid of touching things, carpet, rug, floor, home, everything in it. “i’d go home, and i’d stay there for awhile, and pretend it was still all the same. that nothing changed.” everything did, which is why it seemed an impossible task.
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all event-related posts should be tagged #rj:event001. remember to tag any triggers accordingly!
while the starter prompts were created specifically to foster new threads, feel free to convert any responses to the question prompt list into threads as well.
the starter prompts were written with mostly the event-related locations in mind, but feel free to place them in different settings!.
responses can be posted until the end of the event, sunday, july 7th.
QUESTION PROMPTS
tell me 3 truths and 1 lie, without naming which one is which.
do you wish you had a different ability?
what's your most vivid childhood memory?
when was the last time you lost your temper?
what's the worst thing you've ever done to someone?
if the building were about to burn down, what are the first three things you would grab?
do you think you're redeemable?
what was the moment you realized your life wouldn't go the way you thought it would?
do you think you'll ever make it out of here?
what is the biggest lie you've told?
when was the last time you cried and why?
what's something you used to love but now hate?
if your life paused for a day and you could go anywhere you want and do anything you want, where would you go?
what are three things you like about yourself?
how do you define "home"?
is it easier to make people love you or hate you?
if you could have any other ability, possible or impossible, what would you want?
how do you ask others for help?
in another life, where do you think you would be? what would you be doing?
what (or who) is your silver lining?
describe how your room looks.
what's something no one else knows about you?
do you believe in heroism? in heroes?
how do you escape your reality?
when was the last time you told someone honestly how you felt about them?
STARTER PROMPTS
"it can't get worse than this... right?"
"don't panic, but i think there's something behind you."
"what were you thinking?!"
"did you hear that?"
"i managed to get a candle before they ran out. you want to share?"
"forget this, i'm going to the pool. you want to come?"
"forget this, i'm going out. you want to come?"
"no, you don't get it, you have to help me find [object]."
"my [apartment]/[room] was getting too hot, can i stay here for a while?"
"the scanner won't read my card and i can't get back in, so..."
"do you think they keep the breaker box in the sublevel? i bet i can fix it."
"no way. i'm not going there in the dark."
"come on, we have to see it. when are we ever going to get another chance?"
"i think we're stuck here."
"i didn't know where else to go."
"okay, okay. just stay calm, stay calm, stay calm."
"i'm going out to get food. who knows how long this will last."
"is this a bad time to mention i'm not good with the dark?"
"i heard there's a bonfire at the drive-in."
"it's like these people have never seen the power go out before."
hey there ! leon here (26, he/him, est) with moon seonjae, (26, he/they) with the ability of second sight (precognition), settled in unit #301 to be closer to his (less cool) twin (eunjae !). he works at nite rite convenience and is just Trying His Best while overcome with the Visions and the weight of the future but hey, he's Trying ! i have a discord if you'd prefer that for plotting, so let me know, and i'm also over with bo gyuri (@contoursilver) but i'll be messaging/following from here for plots ! im super excited to meet/plot with you all !
tw substance abuse, addiction, anxiety/depression, brief period of being homeless below the cut !
THE BASICS . . . !
26 years old, born in '97, he/him, they/them, either/both is fine !
twin to moon eunjae, finally back together in #301
works at nite right convenience, usually the really late/morning hours
find him online @ FLASHDRAGON for his music, usually angsty/emo/rock guitar vibes if you're into that..
ability of second sight (precognition), he receives visions of his own future (at any interval of his life), but also whenever he touches people/objects with his skin he receives visions of Their future (also at any time period, he has no clue When!)
his eyes go completely white when he's overcome with a vision, and he usually just. Stops wherever he is until it's over, he usually can't hear/see anything But the vision so. only talk to him when it's over or he will Not hear you!
he also has the ability of clairvoyance, which allows him to locate people/places/objects through Intense Concentration that are not close to him and/or just to See their immediate environment. usually better if he's seen it himself in person, he can Try if he's given a photo, he's just usually pretty off or just plain wrong !
he is Always wearing gloves and usually is all covered up, and physical contact is just a big No ! for him out of his fear of getting triggered for a vision
usually pretty quiet/keeps to himself/is always listening to music because it is one of his Comfort Things and if you do see him, he's either using suppressants/substances to numb himself in order to avoid the Visions but it doesn't always completely get rid of them, anyways, but his distance/general spaciness is probably because he is just Out of It !
THE BACKSTORY . . . !
as soon as he develops his powers it's very much Not Okay. the weight of seeing things happen in intervals where he either doesn't know 1) when it will happen or 2) seconds before it does renders him completely frozen in his decisions. he witnesses them change three, four, ten times in different forms of visions and gets so swept up in it all he often confuses visions for memory, memory for visions, as he always sees them in first person
he doesn't tell anyone at first, but it starts small, he doesn't want to go to school, doesn't want to go outside. he starts shying away from physical touch and affection, and limits conversations. starts wearing clothes that cover all of his skin, and gloves, and it isn't long before it starts causing Issues because he can't just completely Stop Everything to hide in his room
the only thing that really brings him solace is listening to music, and so he starts writing/making his own to kind of explore his thoughts/experiences, because the noise fills up his mind in a way that feels better than empty/just full of visions. it's the only thing that doesn't cause it to happen for him, most of the time! he starts posting his music online under the alias FLASHDRAGON, but he's really in and out about it, doesn't really pay attention to if anything kicks off (though some of it does!)
since they develop around middle school, it becomes evident really quickly that seonjae is convinced this is more of a nightmare than the blessing his parents think it is, and by the time he graduates high school his mother is Done with having to accommodate him/the fact that he can barely do anything or talk to anyone and sends him to be with his aunt, farther out from the city and away from everything he's known
he's felt like a burden for years, and figures it's probably better even though leaving his twin eunjae behind is one of the hardest things he's ever done, even though he's convinced its the better thing to do
things with his aunt go well for awhile until they don't, and his aunt really wants nothing to do with him, either. he doesn't help around the house, doesn't make money, and doesn't go out, either, and fed up from years of just Being a Burden and Knowing It, he ends up leaving in the middle of the night
up until then, he's been pretty adamant on finding something to take to suppress his ability to try and function, but it doesn't always completely take his visions away, maybe lessens the frequency of them at best, but he still can't touch objects/people without usually at least getting one
they're expensive, and usually if he can't get his hands on something to nullify his ability, he usually turns to absolutely anything else to try and handle it, and doesn't care about the effects as long as it makes it easier to deal with the Visions
sometimes he pays for it using his clairvoyance to find something/somebody for those he's getting it from, but it's all he has to go off of as he kind of works his way around/surfs couches/sleeps on park benches. he can't keep jobs and he can't keep a place without any money and he needs it for the suppressants, so he does what he can to get by
he's like this for awhile until eunjae finds him one day and brings him back to the second chance collective, and he's so happy to be reunited with her after being away for the several years it's been that he convinces himself he's going to not mess This up too, and agrees to letting his information get shared to lessen the amount of money for the apartment so he can be close to her again
so he's in therapy! and he gets a job at nite rite convenience because of the late hours/limited human contact to try and make some money for his continued habits because he isn't too convinced he can handle his visions completely sober and hasn't done so in years, anyways and he's Scared !
and he's back to making music, now that he's got his own room again! its the only two resident complaints he's gotten in the three months he's been here, was that he was playing his music too loud to drown out the Horrors :/
THE PLOTS . . . !
you've heard/listened to his music and he's literally never met anyone before that's heard it and he's like . surprised that you relate/like it, and he's never shared it before with someone so it's just Personal, but he shares like, music he's never posted b/c he didn't like it, etc, it becomes an Activity that he shows you new stuff of his !
you just like listening to music in general and you'll listen to music with him in Silence and you both share music back and forth and it's very Nice, and he appreciates just the simplicity of communicating through music because it's the easiest way he knows how to connect with others !
you come into nite rite convenience so often he knows your name and what you usually like to get. you make small talk, it's easy, maybe you both figure out you live at the collective but you just hadn't run into each other before and it goes from there !
if you are looking for .. substances ,, he is willing to share . anything to avoid the horrors he Gets it .
if YOU have substances or you know of someone who does then . he is saving contacts !!
he accidentally brushes up against you/touches an object of importance to you and gets a vision of your future and so he feels like he Has to tell you, and maybe he's afraid of what he sees/has never spoken to you before/is nervous about your reaction but he can't not tell you, and so he tries to figure out how to do that without looking Crazy that he knows this about you / you even believing him in the first place .
you are looking for someone/something and you come to him to see if he can find out where they are/see how they are but you only have a photo/object of theirs and he keeps getting it incredibly wrong but he's sticking it out with you to keep trying until you do
anything!! enemies, friends, they keep bumping into each other wtf, he crashed on your couch once, you have beef with him because once he didn't pay for something/has a debt with you and he owes you and he remembers he Promises, he's going to get the money soon !!
anyways long ass intro but like this and we'll be in your dm's soon (seonjae sees it in your future ooo), let me know if you'd rather discord and we can move there, thanks for reading <3 !
pixelskylines
dailybridgerton
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