you ever feel like the best girls fall for the biggest fucking weirdos?
“saeri!” the bellow leaves as a rebuke, but a look of warmth fixes quickly on his features before anyone can call his bluff. his stride over to her is armed with a toothy grin, mischief ever-present in his eyes. see, jaehyun understands the depth in which misery adores company. today, he tries to convince himself he’s the latter.
“party’s gettin’ stale—” here is his tease, paired with a smile that holds a secret and a nose that twitches playfully in faux contempt. tonight, jaehyun wants to get drunk. so the champagne doesn’t work— fine. he’s always known himself to be resourceful, knows the ways in which intoxication can overcome you without the vulgarities of liquid courage. here, he leans into her ear, perhaps an inch closer than is required for her to catch his whisper amidst the bustle of the crowd, “wanna go on an adventure?”
saeri stands in lesage chiffon white, looks across her to the man dressed in black tie formal. sharp, crisp vicuna suit runs along his shoulders and dips down, dyed a navy as dark as the skies come devil’s hour. the stained glass windows stretch from floor to ceiling, light scattered into fragments of refracted rainbows. inlaid marble overhead, wind chimes sing with the breeze. he smiles at her. unconsciously, she smiles back.
insoo doesn’t see it, of course. he isn’t looking at her. he never is, but this time it’s different—he’s looking at her friend.
her face doesn’t break in its composure. her heart does, in its place. she’s well familiar with the feeling. after all, grief is not an emotion reserved for death.
saeri dips her head down and focuses on the wine glass in front of her. sips at it, dainty and poised. laughter bleeds slow from across the room; it’s familiar in new and equally hurtful ways. does she grieve for insoo, or for sera? she doesn’t know. saeri looks into her own eyes, grief filled into a glass flute, and can almost pretend their reflection swims with just bittersweet ice wine. somehow, it feels worse to be looking at all the ways she falls short at the bottom of her drink. so she looks up, and wishes it were her in sera’s place.
not that she would ever be. sera is whipsmart, magnetic. why else had she been drawn to the other, herself? their names sit so close together in the roster of characters. insoo remembers one and not the other. she doesn’t have the sharp edges she knows her love’s drawn to, barbed tongue and diamond cut teeth that sera wields so deftly. saeri fumbles with it when she tries, words snagging against her tongue that’s swallowed down far too many for the crime of being less than kind. they slice her insides to ribbons on the way down, and she can only stare—helpless, hopeless, heartbroken.
the shout of her name startles the tears out. saeri blinks them away, and puts on a smile. beatific, not broken. her glass heart has turned opaque with a white spiderweb of fractures running through.
saeri lifts her flute up to tip to him, finds a sort of camaraderie in his eyes. he leans in too close, words curling around her ear, promising mischief and misadventure. warm breath drifts past her, saeri shifting away maintain to a more proper distance. wishes insoo would see this, would care, would have appreciated the gesture. but he doesn’t turn around, as always, no orpheus to her longing eurydice.
“we can’t just leave,” she says, uncertainty muddying her graceful features. “can we? we weren’t told...” but jaehyun is an initiate, and one of her lineage—he wouldn’t lead her astray. she glances back at the familiar silhouette, when she hears his offer. wonders if she’s turned into a shade even with an unseeing orpheus. a pillar of salt, scattered in the wind. would he even notice, basking in the light of the living?
the truth slips behind her smile. “somewhere else would be nice,” saeri admits, voice lowered, almost afraid the society will hear her admission and strike her from the record. jaehyun offers her a poplar branch, dipped in the lethe, and she grasps it with both hands. but— “only if it’s okay to.”
