#{ definitions. }

[shewolfaurea]

Aurea: Definitions +1/?

[tsdrats]

"Thick dome of jasmine/ Under the dense canopy where the white jasmine/ Blends with the rose …/ Come, let us drift down together." 

{ x ] 

it’s not the scent of jasmine that hits him. that claims, suffocates, triggers a reaction. rather it’s the clouded dew that falls over the forest at night. that scent. that kind of gentle shrouds that wafts around the face and tinkles the skin. wet and makes him want to touch at his face to make sure he’s not dreaming, to make sure he’s worthy enough to bask in the sights around him.

street lamps tower, flicker as if in warning and haneul continues by them. marvels at how he’s managed to cower beneath the things he doesn’t know, without intention. marvels at how he wishes he could stretch that large, appear that large and not at how unnaturally it is that the lamps almost look like the canopy of trees in a forest.

but they can’t be because he’s on his way home, he’s been on his way home for a minute now. whether it takes a minute or an hour he takes it as a journey, foot by foot, step by step. his boots in the gravel of the sidewalk are the only reminded that he has somewhere to be, that his destination is the comfort of his bedroom, the faded shine of the stick on lights on his walls.

and he has to get there, so what’s taking so long? where’s the lead pull in his boots coming from? why is he suddenly heavy, tired of nothing but the thought of walking more.

he keeps moving even though all the houses he pass look the same, even though the haze has startled to settle as a fog. even though he knows he needs to breathe and wake up. something about walking around in the daydream sounds so appealing, much more appealing than the empty streets of the night. the echo of his thoughts and the tire in his limbs. it seems easier.

just like the voice that starts to weave through the cloud. it’s not thick yet, he can still see lights, lamp posts, street signs and houses. he can still see the paint on the streets telling cars where to go, he can still see the jagged edges of rocks and terrain that make up the neighborhood. 

the voice is subtle. it’s sharp enough to pierce through the haze, deliberate and with intent. but it’s gentle enough that it doesn’t graze his ears the way it seems to slice through everything, invade everything. instead it dances around and if it had a trial it would look pink and purple. if haneul’s stopped moving he’s unsure. if haneul’s floating he’s unsure. he just knows the sound, the call even if he can’t make it out.

he makes out laughter too. from all directions and all crevices. from the window of a house he’s passed four times. from the top of a lamp post that flickers in darkness. from beneath the stones and the gravel of the street. his body reacts and he’s pulling his flannel closer, feeling his skin tingle and his body shudder.

he cowers again and isn’t sure why.

why the voice sweet as a rose has laughter that stings, taunts.

‘what do they call you?’ comes the question, riding on the wind as if he needs to chase it. soft as if there were a motion with it. haneul thinks he’s imagining the eyes that peer at him through shrouds of black, blue and green, the colors of the night don’t hide the figure that plays it’s presence in them. it’s faint, the silhouette. the twinkle of two eyes and the grin. they’re pink, a bright pink with specks of black and all of a sudden he’s overwhelmed. with the need to move, to walk, to escape.

 instead he’s swallowing any whispers of his name that want to come out. choking on that same sweetness that tugs at his skin. his throat.

laughter repeats. haneul swallows.

‘don’t you have manners?’ when the silhouette moves haneul’s body stills. it’s heavy with something else. lead-ridden with a fear he can’t quite place. fear that’s coming from a weight, a presence, an unknown. and haneul’s shoulders sag, his lids want to close and fall into it.

fall into the command. sweet in a way that makes his stomach turn, his brain fog. tell me.  tell me. let me.

he catches the shroud of black, a tad shorter than him moving around him. he hears the laughter as it circles his head, as it digs past his ears, clouds the words telling him to move. he tries to follow the eyes but can’t keep up. where there was one pair there are now two. and three and four, and behind his eyelids when he tries to drown them out.

‘what do they call you?’

“haneul.” it’s ripped from him, the way a sob sounds when it breaks through, but more air, no tears. like a gasp of air from being submerged. “my name’s haneul.” once it’s said, haneul finds himself scrambling to get it back, to cover it, keep it safe. but all he gets is the same laughter and a disappearance of the many pairs of eyes, the fade of the laughter, the pull. immediately like it’s been sucked into a void. a space.

‘that wasn’t so hard was it?’

that space is now occupied by a person, the owner of the pink pair of eyes. the majority of them still shrouded by the night. this time the flickering lamp post is only highlighting that their hair is pink too, their skin is bright, not in a color but in a glow. 

haneul’s first step is a stumble back.  the response he gets is another laugh.

‘it’s too late to be afraid.’ when haneul looks around there are pairs of eyes surrounding him, lurking where he thought he’d seen them before. there are trees and vines encroaching where he’d seen dips of darkness in alleyways and corners. they’re gold, green, cat-like, empty, open, focused. ‘haneul.’ his attention is drawn from them, from the rustles of leaves and the sound fo whispering. it’s drawn back to the person(?) in front of him. ‘it’s nice to meet you.’

haneul doesn’t return the sentiment, but his smile is a lazy one. he feels all the fatigue from before start to settle again. he feels all the air return to him so he knows he can respond, feels like he should. but nothing comes and he sees a motion that looks like a shrug. as if to say ‘that’s okay’ as if to imply i need nothing else. 

haneul has never truly felt like he’s had anything worth stealing. he’s got parts he wished he could shed but nothing that would interest anyone, nothing worth taking a closer look. and even so, with all those parts and all those troubles, he feels inclined to hold his body closer than he ever has. to beg for something he’s not sure he’s lost.

but when his mouth opens everything disappears. the street is clear, the lamps are bright, the houses are alive and he's awake. thrown back into the chaos of a world he suddenly missed.

the walk home isn’t any easier, nor is it anymore difficult. it just happens, he follows the steps, allows his brain to work in overtime to get him to his doorstep and to get him inside. his body does the rest, the falling into his sheets, the curling around his pillow. when sleep doesn’t come it’s not until there are a hundred renditions of the eyes in his sketchbook and his fingers are stained, cracked with colors of pink, black and purple.

then does sleep come. then does he welcome a pull.

[tsdrats]

fadeto.

‘haneul what’s that sound...’

“ ‘snothing..” 

the affirmation comes with a hitch of his breath, and the lasting crunch beneath his fingertips. he destroys. it’s been a while since but it’s a habit. haneul picks at things and parts that can remind him where he is. where he needs to be. when he’s not grounded enough he needs something. anything.

today it’s the jagged parts of a seashell. his palm curls around it as his sister talks. she fades in it. sharp at some edges and blurred on the others.

his name always sharp, tugging, invasive in how it pulls for him. not in the way he’s used to. not in the coaxing way he’s had. liquid like the sea pulling him forth. water running smooth over sand. no. she yanks, drags, a heavy morning tide and haneul gets drowned each time.

bubbles of blood beneath his eardrums, tingling, aching. he’s had this cotton feeling before when he buried too deep in the snow, but now he’s no excuse. no cold of the winter to hide in, just the open air of summer.

dry. scratching every reply against his throat.

‘haneul.’ “....yes....” are you listening? are you here?

she doesn’t mean to. as the weeks went by haneul knew his sister speaks from desperation. he clings to memories instead. of his sister wrapped around him the way the horizon would to the sea. gentle, melting and joining and existing with him. at some point she’d dipped low and deep. dark and irreversible. at some point she began the jagged rocks that broke the horizon.

he wants her back. wants her understanding and the smooth press to a space he can’t quite fit in.

the distance has made her frantic. scared. and haneul always always stretches himself for others to lay their fears and worries to rest. to fold in him and tuck away.

she misses him. she can’t quite express it how they’re used to. she can’t quite remember either.

so haneul, scrapes the parts of him that he can. to stay present in the moments she needs him to. attentive but absent. floating towards but heavy with effort. jagged shell edges cut into his skin and he inhales each time his name is called.

i’m here. he tries to press it back, with hums and tilts of his head. movements she can’t see. movements he can barely feel. his body is trying. trying. creaking as she rushes to fill the spaces she asks of him. breaking each time.

‘come home, please?’

i can’t.

when his fists tighten he remembers where he is. a bedroom filled with fairy lights and unfinished dreams on a wall. stars and space and seas and skies. he remembers why he stays, why everything around him is better than everything else. why this is the one place he doesn’t quite have to bend at all. he does break, almost every night he lets himself fall through cracks only for the dreams and hopes to pick him up. dreams of the promise in the comfort of space and the warmth of stars.

the resilience of a supernova and the birth of a body so brilliant even the stars were envious.

he remembers. he squeezes.

“i....” it’s barely a breath. it aches with how weak it is.

want to be here.

‘please, just for a day.’

a hiccup. maybe from the pain? from the red now rolling down his palm. 

when had it started to hurt?

when had loving and listening become so painful?

“i’ll try.”

when she hangs up he gets a glimpse in the mirror.  of how it was supposed to be, haneul showing off his hair color. haneul smiling, being, all that’s expected of him. the bright, thoughtless, goofy stage hand that he’s known as. not the boy, thoroughly disconnected, clinging to how his reflection holds in the mirror but his focus can’t. his body can’t. he wants to slide through, see how sharp the edges are. see if the body holds. see if maybe - the version of him in the mirror is preferable. 

somedays he feels as malleable as the sand he’s pulled the shell from.

other day he feels about as solid and heavy as rocks that lay at the ocean floor.

he’s tired.

he runs a hand through his hair and strands get caught in the cut, reminding him of his skin. of his body. he’ll wash it in the sink, he’ll bandage it up and he’ll try to remember that he does exist and that he must. not because he must. not because it’s a defiance to the world. but because there are places and bits of him nestled in too many people to quite let go.

[tsdrats]

@consilian

“what do you think they know?” who haneul? 

miyoung’s voice is an echo at first.

it’s raining again. it’s been raining for quite some time. haneul tries to count it in droplets and fails. then he tries to count it in the smudges and the melts of droplets together on the window. he fails. so he tries counting it in sounds. he fails again.

he can still hone in on her words, the same delicately placed curiosity that she gives him. that she allows. it’s so different from what he’s used to even if it’s their norm. even if it’s one of his few anchors, it still surprises him. not enough to move him, shift him from the way he watches the plants on the windowsill. 

they don’t move either aside from the small gusts of wind that filer underneath the window. subtle. monumental. haneul thinks that’s probably how life moves against him. subtle but monumental. he’s both boneless and bone heavy. it’s tiring.

“the people living in the plants.” these are the things that would make his sister sigh, fond, concerned. the strange mixture of both that made haneul unsure if she was someone he could hug or someone whose hugs he just had to take. he was unsure how much of himself he wanted to lay in her, body or mind. family or not. he was cautious. unlike the way he just speaks and speaks and subconsciously worries about the tire that might be in miyoung’s voice. that could come.

it never does.

he hears the start of a laugh, feels relief open his chest with a breath he didn’t know he’d had.

‘what do you think they know?’ “i think they know we’re not giants.” ‘how do you know you’re not a giant?’ “i don’t. be cool if i was though.”

if he moves in that second, to give her a smile, he doesn’t quite feel it. he doesn’t quite notice it because it’s not as jarring, pulling from his thoughts and his space to join hers. it’s as fleeting as the words are but it still happens. the return to space even if he’s back watching the windowsill, back to watching the rain and sitting in the sounds.

[tsdrats]

black.

something about a stain is fascinating.

haneul rubs his fingers together and can’t tell where the wall ends and where they begin. he rubs them together and he can’t quite tell where they start and where he ends.

or begins.

or falls. 

he should’ve done this in the bathroom. he should’ve done this int he bathroom. he should’ve. he didn’t. he didn’t and he’s left with the consistency that’s a little wet and dry at the same time sitting on his fingers. it’s like paint. it’s soft, it’s gentle and he thinks it might seep right into his pores. it might color him. he might stain different than he thinks.

it’s not like the bright blue or the gentle yellow that he uses to draw jellyfish on skin or play pretend with the stars in someone’s eyes. this is a lot less easy to work with. it’s a lot more tangible, haneul thinks the color might very well suck his skin in, take it for himself.

he thinks he wouldn’t mind. the merge. the mold. he wouldn’t mind becoming something as permanent. he’s always heard that he’s not supposed to mix colors with black, that nothing can quite touch it, come close with it. a younger, more curious him had mixed and mixed to understand. to understand why the paper looked simply like the corners of his mind. with little specks untouched, with little parts that he couldn’t reach, couldn’t cover. 

that’s how things always are, scattered until they cover, lying around until arranged. until useful. he feels a little like that. like he lays around until he’s useful. the things around him do the same. the words that leave his mouth act the same. the only words he’s spoken today were the colors that played as possibilities. but they all sat a little useless until the body became useful. until it moved, acted.

that’s how the universe is too. the stars, the body. all a little there and alive, but useless until useful, until life. until movement. crashing and supernovas and all the glorious things that make something, something. if haneul rubs his hands together enough, if he moves, if he acts can he become that? become the supernova? become glorious?

he’s not sure.

but he knows the colors staining his fingers, now staining his head, make his head disappear into the void of lights that make up his wall. he becomes one with a vast void, for a minute. for a second. 

enough to feel like eternity.

and that’s something.

[tsdrats]

@consilian for miyoung! )

“are you going to name them?” ‘should I?’

he shouldn’t talk while she’s working. he knows. he should watch, admire, wish even. haneul doesn’t have much of a green thumb. black. for the ink that spills from old camera films. occasionally paint, the occasional rainbow and color wheel. never green though. and he’s always wondered about it, more of a garden wanderer than a garden creator. 

he doesn’t like summer much either. allergies and what not. confine him to his room, make him miss out on otherworldly lighting and life. but here he is braving it all.

he could watch in silence. could even take pictures. he’s taken his fair share, until miyoung commented on how shy they were. and he commented on how shy she was. and then took four more.

but he’s here for - actually he’s not sure what he’s here for but he likes being here.

likes being able to ask after moments of silence. because the shuffling of hands is good, the feeling of soil underneath his toes is good. grounding in every sense of the word. but sometimes he needs to talk, needs to assure himself of his existence and miyoung doesn’t mind. doesn’t shoo him off like his friends do.

“i think they would like names. since they get shy and all.” ‘okay, you start.’ “they’re your babies you name them first.” ‘i’m busy haneul.’ she sings that. another thing he enjoys about this time. the mindless part. how humming and singing always goes with gardening. how thought doesn’t. thinking of whether there’s a tune, whether it’s perfect. thinking of where hands go as they just go. just how his hands flit around the leaf of one of the flowers. flit and fit underneath it. nothing to it. haneul likes that.

“name this one han. name that one - “ ‘if you say eul - i will punt you.’ “violent.”

she gives him a look. a look like he’s about to get shooed out. haneul finds himself gripping to the soil. then he remembers, as the look softens. because everything around miyoung eventually does. like the ground once hard and unforgiving to life. like the people around her, the good ones he thinks. how he sometimes melts to the floor and doesn’t shake with fear.

like now, when he feels his body lower with laughter and hers does the same. specks of soil hit his arm but he’s too giddy to move and protest.

“you, are destroying their home.” ‘says the giant rolling around in it.’ “fair.”

he sits up, curls his feet, stained and earthy under each other and presses his elbows into his knees. 

“can i name one after myself?” a hum is the response and he knows she’s back to working. the strange kind of dedication, a space he knows well when he’s behind a camera. so he pulls his phone out and begins snapping. then switches it to video. “miyoung-ah.” is what he calls after some time. after the sun’s light starts to play around, to hide and dodge. after the wind picks up and flowers tickle his legs.

‘hm?’ “tell me about them. new ones, old ones.” ‘are you recording?’ “they’re getting names, this is technically their birth story.”

he gets another look. one that the camera captures. he holds it steady because sometimes haneul can’t quite take all of it. he had someone stare at him with so much pull he felt his body give in. that person was a powerhouse of a woman, an enigma. though he thinks everyone is. and he’s still a little jarred by what a look can do. miyoung’s never tug though. never dig or knife in. they settle. and while his hands shake the camera to capture it all, when she looks it settles.

he looks. through in the beginning. she smiles and he looks around. peeks over the phone and smiles. smiles so that it reaches over the camera as well.

he’s always told that when he records, some things he shouldn’t view through the lens. just to experience. and he gets why.

“this is their day remember?” ‘stop recording me then!’ “start telling me about them then!”

he’s laughing again and so is she. even when a fallen petal manages to hit him square in the nose. he falls back, phone still held high and mind a little clearer even if he doesn’t know from what. she starts telling, he continues recording and doesn’t hate summer as much.

[tsdrats]

@inhyelation )

“who are you in this vast multiverse ms. strange?” ‘you’ve been watching too many movies han.’

and he has. calls it his coping from the latest movie in the marvel series. infinity wars, a travesty and a masterpiece. it’s been a while since haneul’s been simultaneously stunned ( by graphics of course ) and thoroughly agitated. movies do that to him yes, but well it’s been a while.

a while as far as he can count. maybe it was last week he watched a movie and it did the same. sometimes, more often than not, the pleasures fade. sometimes, he can’t keep track of how the world astonishes him. can’t keep track of how he fits around it, loves and learns it. maybe it was just the night before the avengers movie that he watched another. that he was astounded by another. 

time always, always blurs.

no matter what stuns him into moments. no matter what captivates and seems to turn wonder for hours always fades.

so he’s watching doctor strange. feeling both connected and disconnected. must be why he called hyeri doctor strange. missus. he could fix the title but still said it. could’ve called her hye. could’ve said nothing at all. but he’s sitting bundled in pillows, warmth that she insists on because she insists he’s not feeling well. also insists he drink tea.

“i’m in denial.” ‘you’re in limbo.’ “that too.”

haneul doesn’t have words for this. doesn’t think he ever will. but the close ones work, thinks whatever hyeri comes up with will fit. it always does. when he’s mumbling about the movies, reciting and repeating like chattering teeth. she tells him he’s cold and gives him tea. and he goes with it. because the tea is always warm and he always feels better. because the pillow ground rather than sink and he feels better.

maybe it has nothing to do with the movie. maybe it has all to do with universes. 

maybe this question, that he’s so conveniently paused the movie on, is just a little too close to him.

'scoot over.’ hyeri pushes ( gently against the couch, against the pillows ). "password.” haneul stills ( slowly, into the pillows, into focus on the television ). ‘haneul.’ hyeri nudges him. smiles wide. invites always. "pass. word. ms. strange.” haneul grounds himself. smiles full. holds her gaze.

he gets a shrug. but the smile remains.

‘dunno yet.’ he opens, blanket and arms and all. “space granted.” she slips, joy and eagerness and all.

‘now press play and stop crying over infinity wars.’ “never.” he does press play though. and he shifts and falls.