eternal / sunshine

don't you get lonely? kim seoyul, li(e)brarian

[seoyulhrs]

LIMERANCE.

“not even i knew i’d be here tonight,” he replies with a smile that feels more like a tear. there she stands, small and beautiful under the moonlight, eyes wide and shining. striking. she always strikes him. “and what are you doing here too? felt nostalgic as well?” he places a hand on his side in an invitation for her to sit. or maybe she’ll take the place in front of his, by the window, the way they always sat when they were younger. the way they used to be.  

she’s a bit tired of the world these days. all these people who pretend to care about her, who come out of the woodwork to warn her away from the few true friends she actually has, based on pure speculation and nothing of substance. she’s angry - annoyed, that everyone seems to be ignoring all the pieces that mysterious people keep uploading, the clues that throw chickadee or lark or crane into the mix instead of the boys who have done nothing but stand by her in the face of constant rejection. where was sanha, to treat her like a person, when he was either fucking her or ignoring her for five years? who was shinwoo to pretend to care so very much, so earnestly, when he’d never treated her as more than a novelty toy. 

so she strikes out on her own tonight, to find a sliver of quiet moonlight to bathe in, a hint of something more wholesome, or at least more peaceful, than the sustained negativity that dogs her in the town, the shadow that hangs over ilmyo. a city of disparity and hypocrisy. a city where lark maintains a place in the status quo despite being as much a liar as she is, with the added sin of motive, manipulation, and malice to coat her words. at least seoyul’s only ever hurt herself - immensely and immeasurably and constantly. 

the woods are peaceful. the moonlight dapples between the canopy stretching overhead, speckles at her skin. the solitude is alluring, enchanting. she can imagine herself a witch of the woods, half tempted to set a fire and dance around it - naked, even, if she’d had a bottle of soju on her. it helps, a little. to alleviate the resentful ire that twists in her gut. the frustration and turmoil that bubble there, like brew in a cauldron. distracted, she allows herself to forget some of that anxiety. offers it up to the moon, an unburdening as she turns her face upward sin the night air, breathes slow and deep to fill herself with the freshness of pine and light. 

then she sees him. his presence is a physical thing, the elephant in the room that cannot be ignored. he’s present in front of her- almost frightening in his solidity. how often has she revisited this tree house, that night, in her dreams? unwanted, a specter of her  own shortcomings and the failures of youth? she’d never expected him to return, but at the same time, she had always anticipated it. seeing him again. knowing him again. meeting him again. of course, all people needed to be smacked down by karma once in awhile. now it was her turn. 

she doesn’t feel as brave now as she had before. as she had that night. she’d felt everything, that night. maybe that had been what had robbed her bravery in the first place. 

“something like that.” she sits, across from him, the way she had before. as if some miniscule barrier of a few inches of empty plywood will keep his eyes from bearing down on her, will alleviate the weight of guilt. what a way to talk to him, again. “it’s been awhile.” she says. it could be many things - since they were both here. since she’d spoken to him. but not since she’d thought about him. she’d done that every day since he’d left- voluntarily or not, the thoughts had bubbled up into her head, fizzing and popping behind her consciousness. 

“is it strange to be back?” 

[seoyulhrs]

hrskitaek​:

LIFELINE.

“i think minseok likes you more.” he sounds so sure that it’s nearly startling. between the two of them, kitaek’s never been a liar. 

but then he grins like it might’ve been a joke and ventures a little closer, takes wary steps. leaves behind wet smears of toe prints on stone.

“i think we’re all just riding unicycles.” kitaek decides this with a laugh.

fundamentally seoyul has always know,  with alarming clarity, that she has come up lacking. there are reasons for her to know this. the lack of love from her parents, the relative abandonment of attention or affection from her siblings. for a child - and a pretty one at that, and smart enough,  and sweet enough - to be met with such placid disinterest must mean only one thing; that there was by nature some deficit, some innate facet of herself that rendered her fundamentally unworthy of the love so easily given to others. 

that was when the lies started. 

little things to build herself up, to absolve herself of guilt, to beg for the affection that seemed so easily provided to her peers. other children had notes from their mother in school lunches. seoyul sometimes didn’t have a lunch at all -  not on the count of poverty or neglect, but the sheer, crippling indifference of someone who has simply forgotten the fundamental need of a child under their care.  

perhaps that is why seoyul had always lashed out fantastically and dramatically, in growing lies and flights of fancy that somehow made up for the alarmingly dull and underwhelmingly, cuttingly mundane truth of her life - that simply, no one cared all that much.  fancifully, she imagines this to sting worse than hate. at least hate is an elicited emotion.to hate someone you must know them, after all, or  at least imagine yourself to do so. 

“of course you’re not stupid.” she replies solemnly, uncharacteristically so. she wants to tell him something that will fix it all, but what are the words that could do that? what kind of company or affection could she offer that would compete with absolution from half the town? she has little to give and less awareness of anything that might be there, too far buried under hatred. “minseok doesn’t think you’re shitty either,” is what she offers up instead, because at least there is that much, the certainty that quantity must at least absolve her of her lacking quality. “they’re just...fearmongers. herd mentality. that doesn’t have anything to do with you at all.”

in no time she ends up tangled in the deeper parts of the pool, denim shorts suddenly waterlogged, still half submerged when she rights herself from her slip-shod posture, pouting enthusiastically at him.  “that feels like an unfair retaliation,” she tells him, watches him scamper across the rocks in retreat as she laughs despite herself, at least for the quiet warmth of the afternoon,  appreciation of a friend and the water and the weather. “of course he does.” she scolds,  as she squeezes at the end of the rolled up hem of her shorts, water trickling down her legs. “high school was high school. you’ve got to forget it.” she tells him, an oblique reference to the broken hearts of teenage boys and the casual cruelty of young women. not that she holds anay fondness for the parties involved, but time has to absolve some sins right? otherwise, what hope does she have? you cannot untell a lie, right? 

she lets her head tip back to peer at the sun between the trees, the movement of leaves and the sway of shadows. “what if i hate my unicycle and i want to return it for something else?”

[seoyulhrs]

PINK WALK.

namshinhrs​:

“of course i’m sad at this vigil,” his words do not follow his tone, all mocking and full of spirit. “that’s why i found you.” he finally frees himself from the tangles of her hair. “don’t we always find each other when we’re down in the dumps?”

he tilts his head. “you know i’m always interested in anything you have to say,” his hand is now on her face, tracing the softness of her skin with the pad of his thumb. “for you, precious girl, i’m all ears.” he finishes off by giving her a light pinch on her cheek, and a smile grows wider at the pleasant plumpness of it.

there are pockets of the past that shade and cloud the judgement of the town. she knows this - they all do. but she thinks, perhaps, due to her circumstances she can see it a little better than some. some like shinwoo, for instance. in a town this small with a social pool this limited, it’s easy to have a history with people, one that allows you to overlook the wrongdoings that pop up over the years. it’s easy for her to ignore kitaek’s dubious ethics regarding picture taking when she can remember the way he’d welcomed her with open arms when so few would even give her the time of day. 

the first few weeks after the girls had outed her had been the loneliest of her life. already neglected at home, she had found herself suddenly robbed of the friends she did have, left with silence and the pages of her books to be haunted by stares and snickers at her expense, the taunting cruelty of her peers. it had happened so suddenly, overnight. it wasn’t like she’d been all that popular, but she’d at least had friends. she’d had people to talk too - she hadn’t had the lingering permanence of a mortified blush or an air of anxiety to bear down upon her shoulders, pressing at her chest. 

the way he continues it feels like that pressure returns, a frustration. there’s still a part of her that wants shinwoo to be the boy she’d thought him to be, back then, when she’d projected youthful fantasies of love on him unreturned, when she’d imagined he’d be the sort to understand her, when she’d thought him her truest friend, simply for continuing to speak to her in the aftermath. but kitaek, minseok, taeil - that had been the introduction of a truer friendship, one that had gradually illuminated what she knew now in hindsight: that shinwoo, like many others, viewed her more as a curiosity than as a person. it had been a bitter pill to swallow, and reminders of it were largely unwelcome.  “alright, shinwoo. i’ll be real careful.” she doesn’t mention he’d do as well to be wary around the people he paid attention to, yeoreum included. but who could trust a simple talk blog, anyway? it had only been one comment. “cute of you to care,” she adds, a casual drawl.

he brightens up again which is nice enough, but there is a lingering gnaw in the back of her head,  a whisper of malcontent that lingers in the twist of her heart. still, some of the lingering frustration dissipates with the brush of warm fingertips and the flicker of a grin that creases amber eyes. there’s a softness to his expression that she appreciates, that reminds her of better facets of his personality, allows her to overlook his bizarre hatred so often directed at her friend. she remembers kitaek’s half-told story, though, of shinwoo cornering him, and her desire to spin stories for his amusement falters. 

“is that true, or would you prefer i spin up some stories for you?” she queries, just drunk enough to grin as she says it, leans her head against his shoulder for a moment, before she straightens herself up again, sighs. “maybe i need another drink to be fascinating.” it’s out of character for her; or at least, for her with him. she half expects him to wander away, disappointed. 

[the-original-clock-spider]

Saiba, 1858

[fy-wondergirls]

[seoyulhrs]

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

[seoyulhrs]

LIMERANCE.

the night is warm. summer is on the doorstep and heat encroaches on the town like a slow moving storm, heavy with the weight of humidity and the pressure of the sun. even in the dead of the night, like now, seoyul finds herself twisting awake, shimmying from the uncomfortable warmth of a blanket. she jams sockless feet into her sneakers, an oversized tshirt and a pair of athletic shorts dually purposed as house clothes and pajamas. stepping out, the air is warm around her and she draws her hair up into a ponytail, wispy strands escaping into a frizzing half-cloud around her features, curling at her temples into a humidity-laden disarray. in the dim light of the moon, her features give the impression of being mostly eyes, wide and dark and a little bit unsettling, like an owl or a cat. something knowing and ever so slightly threatening. 

there is a hush over the woods as she paces through them, the rustle of night creatures scavenging in the underbrush and the distant hoot of an owl. she’d like to imagine the sound of wolves, but even ilmyo is too urban to house that in the forests that smatter the outside of the city limits, the woos interrupted by access roads and hiking trails, more than would allow a pack to flourish. perhaps over the mountain, down the other side, but not one that would stray this close to the town. 

if you know where to look (and few do) and which trails to follow (which less know) there is an old white birch tree with three sets of initials carved carefully into it’s side, marking the west facing side of the trunk, and bearing with it the intention of a new path. it begins treacherously as one must clamber over gnarling roots and uneven rocks, but evens out further from the main thoroughfair, lapsing into something straighter and more level, even enough to support the shadowy reminder of three young teenagers, feet stamping and laughter echoing as they took the winding patch down the side of a hill toward a nestled clearing, a bubbling stream and a large, aged tree, with thick and lowhanging branches. 

nestled in that space is an old tree house, haphazardly constructed and revised over the years with pathwork repairs and a flaking coat of paint - seoyul’s attempt to help the process when her easily distracted nature proved to be detrimental to the construction itself. there’s no ladder nor stairs, merely the expectation that anyone who is meant to find the little getaway must be willing to bear a few bark-scrapes and scratches as penance, a tithe for entry.  but even now, seoyul is able to shimmy her way up the tree with little difficulty, nimble and swift, finding familiar footholds as she swings herself up onto the edge and scoots inside. 

for a moment, the world is silent and serene, nostalgic and familiar. but in the next, surprise jolts through her like a lightening bolt, like a bucket of cold water, scattering her senses awake. the sight of him presses down on her like a boulder and she feels small, insignificant, foolish in an instant. like the oxygen is sucked out of the room. 

“oh - taeil. i didn’t know you’d be here.” 

[seoyulhrs]

LIFELINE.

hrskitaek​:

“you don’t have to go at the same time if you don’t want. you’ll have more fun without me.” less of a self diss and more of a fact. lately it seems like he’s been attracting that bad sort of attention, the kind that ruins nights. 

seoyul is at war. with herself, with this town, with her compulsions and her predilections. all she wants is to find some way to live at peace with the world around her. she wants a chance to be who she is- who she thinks she could have been, under better circumstances. if she had been loved, if she had been born honest, if her tongue didn’t tangle in the face of the truth and drip honey lies instead. she thinks she could have been alright, really. nice enough, funny enough, probably still a bit flighty, a bit of a dreamer.  but she thinks it’s too late to get back to that, to be that girl. to be more than what she is now - performative, foolish, farcical. 

his words hurt. the inevitability of them,  the painful reality, the weight of it. neither of them can escape- maybe no one can,  stuck in this town like the mire that it is, a bog grabbing at their ankles. even starling hadn’t made her escape, despite her best attempts to take flight. she worries at her bottom lip, the taste of honey lip balm invading in the process, half sweet and half waxy.  “we can build a house in the woods together,” she decides, a retreat into fantasy when the real world is too cruel. “we’ll build a log cabin and have a garden and live off the land.” she raises a hand, “don’t worry, i’ll learn how to hunt. i know you don’t have the stomach for real violence.” she grins, as if she might be feral, sharp teeth and rounded cheeks. 

he laughs, but there’s no mirth in it, and the sound grates against her bones. there’s a furrow between her brows, a discomfort as she purses her lips, a pout arranging. whimsical creature, loyal and empathetic, his disparaging ways often grate at something inside her, thorns burrowing into a soft heart. how ironic, when she directs doubly such terrible things inward already. “even so, doesn’t my opinion count for something?” she questions, and despite the fact she tries to tamp it down, there’s an edge of something desperate there, equal parts needy and rough, as if she knows the answer must invariably be no, not really. no one’s ideal is to have the town lunatic on their side. if he had better options he’d seek them out. if he wasn’t hated, he wouldn’t be here with you in the first place. maybe it’s better for her, if the town hates him for such paper thin reasons.  “what have you done that doesn’t? start a few fights? make a poor decision out of anger at a misdeed? stumble into a terrible situation? it’s not any of it all that sinful.” this is her stubborn determination, arm crossing over her torso, curling against the slope of her waist. 

she doesn’t like to talk about lark. about how such a liar, so manipulative and cruel, can still bear the social graces of the town when she - who really hadn’t done harm to anyone in the end but herself - had been brought down so thoroughly. there’s a fire that sparks in her chest at that. a desire to out all of them for the frauds they are, the little monsters wrapped up in pretty packages. at least kitaek wears his faults on his sleeve. so she turns the topic away, in the moment, with a lie. a story, spun up pretty like a snow globe to shake up and enjoy, despite the undercurrent of guilt and disgust that fill her when she speaks., even with kitaek, even in a safe enough place as this. but safe becomes vulnerable very quickly, safe becomes a little too close, a little too warm, right in front of her, thin, rough fingers around hers and toes brushing and the beat of her heart in her ears. reign it in, she wants to tell herself. for once in your life be realistic. “i’m not adventurous, i wear the same scent all the time. daisies,” she tells him, tilts her head. “it’s my favorite perfume. do you like it?” it’s a purposeful misunderstanding of his statement and she helpfully offsets it further, when he looks up at her with those big pretty eyes and thanks her obediently, as if ahn kitaek has ever had an obedient bone in his body (but what a funny thought, kind of a pretty one, kind of a nice one),  by kneeing him in the shin, retreating a little farther into the cold water. if it weren’t so shallow and so pond scummy she’d be a heartbeat away from diving in. 

“i have a shift so i’ll be late regardless. but i’ll be there,” she tells him, “so don’t be so glum. who else am i even meant to hang out with, minseok? he’s always liked you best anyway.” she pouts, performatively, “that’s me, always third wheeling.”

[seoyulhrs]

DALLIANCE.

“besides, i prefer to do my day-drinking alone.” it’s kind of proud the way he says it, a little tongue-in-cheek considering he used to hate being alone and spent a good chunk of high school between rooks parties. denying his habits is pointless too. seoyul’s persistence is worth reverence. she’s stubbornly latched onto him since he encountered her that night, so there’s no way he can attempt to shake off her assumptions when he hasn’t even been able to shake off her.

his lips purse for a moment in thought, “you picked a good spot though.”

seoyul beams at him, expression cheerful and her disposition as sunny as the sky outside. perhaps she belongs up there among clouds and secrets, promises of something intangible and mystical. she’d read as a child, of castles in the sky and worlds beyond the clouds, of bridges of light that soared up behind that distant canopy. she fancied once that she belonged there. at nine she’d heard whispers; her head is stuck in the clouds, that seoyul. it had sounded like a good thing. 

it hadn’t been. 

at least, not in perception. but seoyul has learned, over the years, that there is so very little she can change about herself- seemingly at the whim of her own mercurial moods and erratic sensibilities, and has thus stopped attempting to fight the tide. with that in mind, she peacefully whisks his protests to t he side with a hand that moves back, flips her hair back over her shoulder in a cascade of frizzing curls. 

“i can, and i have, so it’s too late to protest at this point,” she points this out unbothered, as if blackmailing someone for their time were the most normal idea in the world, as if she doesn’t have a sense of pride to be bruised at the fact that it’s the most reliable way to bring a connection to life. 

it’s this stupid town, she thinks, were strangeness has been branded onto her like some indelible mark of sin, a berth left wide around her. a strange creature to be admired like a sideshow figure and little else. “and i’d prefer to be in marrakech, but we’ve all got crosses to bear.”  she settles down against the blanket to glance over at the other, grinning lightly. “of course i did. and i brought snacks.” she adds, patting the slight cooler next to her. “mostly cheese and crackers,” she admits, shrugging slightly. “but we’ll make do.” the sun is warm, cascades down against her cheeks and flickers to life from behind the clouds. like a sunflower she turns her face towards the warmth of it, humming slightly. “it’s going to be damn hot next week.”

[seoyulhrs]

OLD HABITS DIE HARD. 

hrssanha​:

he nudges her, gently. grants her a sugary sweet smile and honey laced words. ‘it’s dangerous to walk around here by yourself at this time. you are very lucky i am now here to protect you. even if i am slightly intoxicated.’ 

if all else fails, he could always become an actor.

seoyul feels, pleasantly, that the hypnotic quality of a bonfire pairs nicely with the floating softness of a few too many cups of mysteriously mixed alcohol. she remembers reading an article once about the trance-like state a fire can place a person in, about how it has a meditative quality. she’s not sure if it’s entirely the alcohol or not, but she sways in a quiet lull in front of the fire, like a single swaying reed stubbornly peaceful in the midst of the rapids of a stream. she often has that quality to her, disconnected and set apart. she feels sometimes as if she observes the world around her as often as not. it comes in waves, depersonalization like a mood as she lets her self, her thoughts, get carried away with the smoke, up into a distant sky. 

she shrugs it off like a shawl when the voice breaks through her reverie, a surprised hum on her lips as her gaze focuses on him, pupils dilating wide and dark as she redirects to dim light rather than the roaring fire. a familiar face, though older now than she remembers him once, still mischief in his features, but without that same youthful invincibility. perhaps that has been stolen from all of them, that childish and willful ignorance of death. she wonders what brings him back here  - the strange nostalgia of a vigil? the congregated reminder of their high school days? the entire yearbook is here after all.  even the few who have escaped the town seem to be back, these days. she smiles, a placid expression that edges on dreamy, eyes spark flecked in reflection of the fire. it lends an eerie look. 

“busy i’m sure,” she agrees fondly with him, somewhat amused, in a sort of chagrined way, to wonder what’s brought him back over here, pretending as if he hasn’t been turning and running from her like a six year old fleeing cooties on the playground for a handful of years now.  “i don’t invite myself places. i’m a lady you know,” she points out cheerfully, as if she were not a well known hedonist who has spent her fair share of time in dubious situations, as if she doesn’t have a reputation for being both bizarre and pathological. “you could have invited me,” she returns with a grin, knows he wouldn’t have. 

he nudges her lightly and she tilts her head to the side to examine him with glittering eyes,  a strangely unreadable expression despite the grin on her lips. “worried i’m going to get struck down next?” she teases, “word on the street is it was kitaek or minseok anyway, so shouldn’t i be plenty safe?” she can’t help the sardonic bitterness that laces the words, displeased with the use of childish cliques to paint her friends suspects. “you seem like you’re having a lot of fun tonight.” she adds, lends a stabilizing touch to his elbow as he claims partial sobriety, a notion that amuses. 

[seoyulhrs]

LIFELINE.

hrskitaek​:

“we could always just go together. there’s something happening after.”

kitaek can never just leave things alone.

“boys are so dumb,” she tells him with a lopsided grin, fingers feathering back through the wild mess of her hair to glance sidelong at the other. “just because you’ve been stupid enough to get your face beaten in once before doesn’t mean you should let it happen again.” she sighs out, knowing already she’s fighting an uphill fight. if kitaek hasn’t learned by now to dull the sharpened edge of his tongue at least selectively, he’s never going too. besides, she’d love him less for a dampening of his vitriol, that scathing and stupid urge to be unflinchingly himself, even when it near guarantees a beating. there’s a lot to be said for someone who keeps fighting after so many years of being beaten down, picks himself up and squares up time and again. how can someone like robin or rook, with so few true losses to their name,  stand up against that and claim superior strength based solely on musculature or a temper. it’s a stupid thought, to claim grandeur based on the genetic lottery. it says nothing of the heart. 

she thinks that the town underestimates kitaek in the same way they underestimate her. how easily they write them off based on some surface assumption. kitaek is a stalker, seoyul is a liar. both unhinged, perhaps deranged, but only one perceived to be dangerous. at least no one has tried pinning murder on her. she reaches out, smacks his wrist to prompt his thumb away from his teeth. “you’re going to hurt yourself.” she tells him,  the scolding tone of an older sister. 

the words hang in between them and she worries about him. how can she help it, in a town so cruel and so unfair? “buy bug spray,” she tells him with a small and wry smile, a dimpling at her cheek as she returns the rather foolish suggestion to his metaphor. “you deserve a little peace and quiet.” her hand slides through her hair again and she wishes she had a tie- the humidity from the water, the ambient temperature, is frizzing it out at the nape of her neck. she’s sure it’s tangling -not a cute look. “besides, bugs get to be pretty awful in the summer.”

he plays into the lie and her heart swells a little,  the way it always does, when he makes her feel like this horrible outpouring that comes from her might not be too stupid to bear. how absurd is it, to be unable to control something so simple? it ought to be easy, a simple decision: tell the truth. don’t lie. just be sincere. 

and whenever she thinks about it,  whenever she considers it, decides upon it, it falls apart as soon as her lips open. what a lack of self control. what a fucking freak. 

“it was a private jet. there weren’t enough seats.” she tells him with a grin tap dancing her fingers up her arm, crossed over her chest. “what with me and the son of the french ambassador and his security detail.” she lifts one shoulder in a shrug, “he was a dreadful bore anyway. probably; he didn’t speak korean so i’m not really sure.” she bites her lip. “good smell.” she returns, “if you like that kind of thing.” maybe she does. maybe she doesn’t. maybe it doesn’t matter - what good does liking this or that, him or anyone do? so few people even bother seeing her as a real person. some days, she doesn’t even feel like a real person. 

she feels vulnerable in this moment, so she takes another step away, and he follows. he has a habit of that, of following. of playing along. it’s something she’s wanted (needed?) for most of her life. and similarly, paradoxically, something she has always been mortally afraid of. “well you’re a glutton for punishment, so perhaps you should thank me.” she returns, her voice beginning with smug confidence but sloping down into a quieter lilt as he fits himself (barely) onto the rock with her, lets her gaze dart down to the jut of bony shoulders and the hollow of his collarbone. “well there’s no stopping you, so i might as well.” 

[macbcth]

“I belong to quick, futile moments of intense feeling. Yes, I belong to moments. Not to people.”

— Virginia Woolf (via briqou)

[seoyulhrs]

LIFELINE.

[seoyulhrs]

hrskitaek‌:

and then they’re moving. rock to rock like they’re fourteen again, still wondering if maybe there might be something better for them out there.

before they’d realized there wasn’t.

“where am i coming to?” kitaek laughs his way through the question.

“wouldn’t it be? you’ll get yourself into a fight. they’ll break your pretty little nose.” this seems a fair assumption to make. for all his narrow build and rounded eyes, kitaek doesn’t take insults lying down, doesn’t shy away from a fight when he feels wronged. and, statistically speaking, he’s not liable to come out on top next to rook at the very least. she rather hopes it doesn’t come to that sort of thing. at least, not before someone gets robin in the face. the thought twitches the smallest of smiles to her lips, toes curling against the eddying ripple of the water, cool around her ankles. 

“you’re good at holding your liquor and making a mean long island iced tea,” is her rather rational response. there is more that she could add, too. you’re good at playing along with my lies and stories. you’re good at making me smile. you’re good at making me remember i’m a person, bringing me back down from the clouds or out of the fog. you are very, very good at fighting and very, very good at making me think, perhaps, there might be something worth fighting about.  you are very good, she thinks, at looking both like the boy i knew once and the man you’ve become,  and you are very good at making me feel just a little bit lightheaded, for reasons i am not willing or able to dig into.

but she doesn’t say those things. they’re secrets for herself,  tucked up in her chest, hidden there. as if bringing those thoughts out to examine them will lead her down a dangerous path.

she’d reach out, if she could, to comb uneven strands from his face. she’d pulled it up into a tiny ponytail once when he’d been really drunk, and the picture is still her contact image for him, a sprout of frizzing hair that stuck straight up from the crown of his head. she sighs, when he looks at her like that, with those big dark eyes and that glum expression. speaking of lightheaded. 

“you shouldn’t think about them too much. it’s not worth it.” funny, from a girl that’s fucked one of them and spent the better part of high school mooning over the other. but in the end, had either of them had the decency to play into her little stories? to give her the time of day in the way kitaek did? lies aside, kitaek took her strangenesses in stride, and that had to count for something, whether he had a penchant for creepy photos or not. ( besides, weren’t all artists a bit weird? )

“we could talk about how you need to eat better because a diet of cigarettes and vodka is going to ruin your digestive track, but i’m not sure you really want to hear that today.” nor from a girl who barely fares better than that herself. hypocrisy.

 “skipped it over the seine. summer trip to paris.”  she’s never been to paris. 

she’s never been anywhere. hemmed in by the dead end town she was born to, condemned to die in. a place too small for all of her, spilling out of the edges and bursting at the seams. she feels like screaming. 

he stumbles his way onto a rock, a hiss from his lips as he comes closer, and she squeezes against his palm. his hand is barely bigger than her own, but there’s a familiar comfort to the way he grips her as if she might be an anchor, enough to keep him from falling. she’s never considered herself a reliable person, but kitaek makes her think she might want to become one. 

 “you alright?” she mumbles, but he’s already there in front of her without complaint, smelling like sunshine and pine trees and smoke. “you smell like a campfire,” she tells him, a poetic twist on the truth of a cigarette stubbed out at the top of the trail. still, it lingers in her senses, a faint cloud that obscures her better judgement. 

the oblique mention of shinwoo and she frowns, torn. there’s an old loyalty there, some twisted remembrance and a side of unforgotten longing, a boy who’d had the decency at least to stick around, even if he’d never really seen in her more than the amusement of a doll, pull her string and listen to her talk. but hadn’t that been better than nothing? wasn’t it still? “did they come to the bar?” she questions, figures he won’t answer. there’s a helpless feeling in seeing a friend attacked day in and day out.like she wants to hold the pieces of him together, in place, lest he shatter. but what good can she do, from one outcast to  another? 

it’s not until his thumb runs over the inside of her wrist that she realizes the closeness of him. he’s taller than he’d been once - though hardly towering - and his hair is wild and his eyes are sad and his voice is soft. her heart suddenly stutters to rapid speed in her chest, a jump and skitter that thin her breath and widen her eyes, and what would have been a more eloquent or sardonic answer dies on her lips in favor of a sage nod, fingers closing tighter around his hand, for a moment,  to squeeze lightly, reassuring. 

it’s a weird moment, one that she isn’t sure she enjoys, one that stirs up an uneasy twist in her chest before he shifts, ruins the strange tension between them with the muddied press of his feet and she whines, jamming her knee into his thigh. “you awful brat,” she complains, sneaking out from underfoot to hop to the next rock, kicking ripples in the water in an attempt to dislodge the mud. “well i was standing on the rocks for a reason, you idiot. it’s cleaner.” 

“anywhere. whatever. instead of the vigil, let’s stay here, out in the woods. or catch a bus. no one says we have to go.”

[seoyulhrs]

OLD HABITS DIE HARD

‘haven’t you missed me?’ slurred words, arrogance mixed with a slight sense of curiosity. it’s a good thing most of the town had either left the party, or got too intoxicated to be minding other people’s business. ‘you wanna know a secret?’ gently, he curls a strand of her locks around his finger, tucking it carefully behind her ear. then he leans in to whisper, as if anyone would hear him if he didn’t. as if it added truth to his inebriated confession. ‘i did miss you.’

seoyul and secrets go hand in hand. 

like a vault she carries them deep in her - first and foremost her own. it is so easy to hide oneself when you present lies so willingly, to slip in bits and pieces of the truth. hints at the reality of a lost girl, but never enough to be pinned down. never enough to be found. seoyul isn’t sure she wants to be found - there’s a danger in that, and she’s never enjoyed the thought of vulnerability. she carries the secrets of others, too. robin and osprey and sparrow. it makes sense, she figures. even if she were to spill the beans, who would believe her? and secrets have a terrible need to be told.  so she’s the easiest recipient, secrets deposited into her one by one to lighten the load of the bearer, whether they recognize that or not. 

she’s robin’s secret, too. 

it’s not something she’s really proud of, looking back. being someone’s secret, like that. it might have hurt more if she’d loved him, if he’d promised her the moon and stars - or even more than a few nights of drunken fun.  the attention had been enough, then, for a lost girl to recognize as affection, to hold onto as a package deal.  sanha was attention and revenge at once, two birds with one stone. 

not that swan even knew. that soured it a little. but it was better that way perhaps - if swan knew she could forgive him and that would ruin the whole thing, wouldn’t it? she wants the upper hand on swan just this once, just one time. 

besides, even if it takes buckets of alcohol to do it, it’s nice, validating even, to know she could be wanted too. even in comparison with swan. to fool herself into thinking she could provide something lacking, something absent. 

in the end its all just youthful indiscretion and she knows it, but that doesn’t stop the prickle of pleasant surprise when he appears before her, flushed cheeks and slurred words. she chuckles a little bit, throaty and soft. the world blurs around her into a pleasant kaleidoscope. she needs to sober up before she goes to poke around the vigil again. his fingers find her hair, as shinwoo’s had earlier that evening,  and she wonders what it is about the wild tangle of it that seems to entice. “i see you around town all the time, how can i miss you?” she points out, purposefully obtuse, as if somehow unaware he’d been pointedly ignoring and avoiding her for the better part of half a decade.  

her lips twitch, into the slightest hint of a smug grin. who wouldn’t want to be missed, after all - least of all the town lunatic, ostracized to a misfit band of friends currently being accused of murder, at least by the rumor mill.  if there is one thing that brightens seoyul’s attitude it’s the feeling of being wanted,  after all - she’s so easily pleased. “why would you bother missing me, i’ve not gone anywhere.” despite her best efforts, the town is a bear trap around her ankle. “you’re very drunk,” she adds helpfully, pats his cheek lightly as she does.  

[namshinhrs]

pink walk.

[seoyulhrs]

namshinhrs‌:

his hand picks up where he had left it and goes to pick a lock of seoyul’s hair, wild like her spirit. “come on, seoyul,” he drawls out his words slightly, like a whining child, “i can’t believe you’re talking about him when i’m right in front of you.” he winds her hair around his finger, unravels it, and repeats. if this was anyone else’s hair, he might have yanked on it as punishment – but it’s seoyul. “can’t we talk about something else? please?” there’s an underlying hint of desperation in his voice, but he doesn’t show it – the uncharacteristic ‘please’ might give it away. he still carries that insufferable grin as he tilts down to her level. “i’m really not in the mood today.”

a hand lifts, freezes, hesitates. she frowns, watches the way his eyes roll. the whole thing seems so juvenile, the way they hate one another, the way they pick and poke and prod. what’s the worst kitaek’s ever done, anyway? some vandalism, a few photographs. hasn’t shinwoo done comparably? 

but this is not a town that forgives the sins of those without the money or family to back it up. lark can lie until she’s blue in the face, dove and swan can manipulate and chickadee can line the whole world up in a row to knock down. but one high school lie and a need for therapy paint her as a witch and kitaek’s youthful indiscretions  in the name of art brand him a murderer. minseok’s temper makes him a delinquent but rook and robin are simply edgy bad boys. the whole thing reeks of double standards. 

but no one listens to kim seoyul. 

no, it’s easy for shinwoo to pout at her, to beg her undivided attention, when once she would have handed him that and her heart and her soul on a silver platter. to refute one of the few true and honest to god friends she does have because the other makes him uncomfortable - as if shinwoo would have been any kind of stand in, as if any other relationships in her life were not so superficial and so transactional. how can she be anything but loyal to a boy who took her at face value, who accepted her for the strange creature that she is, part and parcel. 

“i can’t believe you’re such a child,” she returns easily enough, as his fingers tangle up into her hair. she turns her head, faces him with a cant to the side, eyes piercing and unreadable, half dreamy and half calculating. “he’s my friend. my best friend. of course i talk to him. i’ll always talk to him.” it’s a spur of the moment declaration but she supposes it must be true - the kind of thing that she hasn’t considered or quantified before but makes sense as she says it. “it’s not my fault you believe anything you hear.” unless its from her, of course. no one believes kim seoyul. 

so no one will listen when she points out swan is plenty suspicious, or that chickadees name was all over that post and, frankly, she was pretty damn calculating. no one would listen if she said dove or lark are plenty likely to be willing to cover up the crimes of their friends. who’d listen to a little liar bird when it is so easy to believe prettier, more carefully crafted facades? 

despite herself, despite her better judgement and her own best interests, she grins at him anyway. takes his wrist and squeezes, lets her thumb drag against the point of his pulse as his fingers play into the curls of her hair. “now what would yeoreum think.” she points out, brows arching slightly, half curious to see if that grin might slip and falter. there’s a something brewing in the back of her head, a consideration of minseok and yeoreum, thoughts and pieces that are falling slowly into place. theories to be tested. “fine, you don’t want to talk about that. you’re not in the mood. so what do you want to talk about? how very sad you are at this very fine vigil? how distraught and devastated? about the ghosts in the trees or the omen i saw this afternoon?” 

he wants stories, so she’ll give them. seoyul is an accommodating creature, eager enough to spin a yarn for a listener, happy enough to sacrifice her dignity for a little attention. (pathetic.)

[arabidopsis44]

[seoyulhrs]

DALLIANCE.

@hrsjungmin, picnic by blackmail

the world is not enough for kim seoyul. perhaps it never will be. ilymo certainly cannot be, by nature of it’s very cruel and punishing predictability - murders aside. even then, as enticing (and morbid) a distraction as a string of mysterious murders may be, she finds it all the more likely that their resolutions are more simple than anyone makes them out to be. mutual suicide or a passing stranger in the night, or some cruel old man who’s since passed on. or a priest, at the church perhaps. 

in the end, it won’t be any delightfully macabre plot. the ilmyo talk blog and cryptic signs and signals will all turn out to be someone just like her. someone desperately bored, searching for meaning, for order, for a narrative in the world that does not have one. 

so yeah,  maybe she’s been inclined, in her time, to provide spice here and there. to add a narrative to her life when it seems, feels, is so meaningless. to soothe the ache i n her soul with the balm of lies, an anxiety that piles on her over time, a compulsion that she cannot stop. 

there are few that look past this first, surface layer of seoyul. few who bother to find any need to do so, when she makes it so very difficult to see beyond the veil in the first place. there are those she might have wanted to try, of course. it would have been nice, if rook had ever bothered. it could have been lovely, if swan were able to see there was more to her. that it was a cry for help, for belonging, for love from a girl who’d never had any of that. 

instead, seoyul is either ostracized or accessorized and neither are particularly pleasant feelings. but for years now this is the uncomfortable reality, and so she stores up her secrets and keeps her eyes open for little ways to change the rules, to adjust the narrative. to fit herself into places, spaces, lives that do not necessarily have room for her. 

jungmin’s is one of them. 

it started so far back then, when she saw the pair of them arguing. when chaekyung disappeared. and he had been so desperate of course, for her not to tell anyone. he’d have given her anything - she’d tested it. money, gifts, he’d forked them over. how foolish, when no one was liable to believe a thing she said regardless. but he’d been worried, and she’d liked the feeling of power, at the time. with her newfound interest in the detective, jungmin is antsy again. she can tell. the way he jumps and skitters around her, the nervous flick of his eyes, the bob of his adam’s apple. 

so she takes a chance. 

requires of him the one thing she wants more than anything. companionship. 

“you’re taking me on a picnic.” she says to him, when she sees him. swoops down upon him at the bar like a crow plucking some shining stone from the forest floor. he looks to protest and so meaningfully she adds, “didn’t chaekyung just love  picnics?”  she can see the resignation in his eyes immediately and she beams at him, a smile as soft as her heart and far less harsh than the implication of her words. a quick stop by the convenience store and a few quiet, winding streets towards the woods and they’ve found themselves a spot. she spreads the blanket out and sits, beneath the shade of an overgrown tree. “don’t be so glum, like this is a terrible chore.” she laments, as she sets her shoes beside the blanket, picks up a bottle. twisting off the cap, she offers it to him. “we even got soju so your day drinking hasn’t been interrupted. it’s finally summer,  the least you can do is enjoy it with a pretty girl.” there is a palpable sarcasm that lays over the words, well aware that whatever her visual impression may be, it’s hardly enough to overcome years of bad press.

[seoyulhrs]

TOP SPEED 

“Hey there,” he mutters, shooting her a small smile as he joins her at the front desk. “Where’s the-” he’s silenced by the shushing of another librarian attending to a small pile of returns. he snorts, lowering his voice slightly, giving his empty water bottle a shake. “Where’s the water fountain in here?”

it’s not exactly the job of her dreams. not a lot of little kids go around filling out worksheets about their deep and abiding love of archival research or the dewey decimal system. it wasn’t glamorous or creatively fulfilling or particular engaging. but it was a steady pay check and job security and decent benefits. its the kind of job that, hypothetically, she could do anywhere. like, for example, somewhere very far away. somewhere like seoul, or busan. 

of course, so far there was no luck on that front, but in the moment it was at least something to dream of.  a lifeline to cling too, when you were out getting slighted at every turn, when your friends were a handful of miscreants with misdemeanors and poor attitudes, and everyone looked at you like the town’s dirty little secret, a crazy wisp of a girl meant to be locked in someone’s attic somewhere. like a sideshow freak or a parlor trick. 

she slams the book on top of the stack, scanning finished, and the thud obscures the sound of approaching footsteps, so there is still a frown fixed in place on full lips, distracted into a narrowed eye glare of surprise as she pulls her gaze up to meet the intruder. she sighs. “i should have known you wouldn’t know your way around the library. the only library in town. the town where you went to school and grew up.” she points out, step by step, as if to reinforce the fact that the only people int he library are those who were, like herself, desperate to escape the town (all three of them, across all years of university) and kids who’s mothers have left them here for read aloud and gone to drink at the brunch place ‘round the corner. cheery.

“i’ll show you.” she adds, stepping from behind the circulation desk and waving away the tutting of the only other librarian, her grumbly and rather matronly coworker, torn between disapproving of every aspect of seoyul’s wild lifestyle (from her hair to her past times to her reputation) and the desperate need to (as many mothers must) see her settle down and pop out babies. 

they head out of the main area towards a branching hallway, bathrooms on either side and halfway down the hall a water fountain fixed to the wall. “the pipes might not be lead lined, even. a real treat,” she points out, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe. “out for a run in this heat? bold.”