#aj | thread

[archiveidjowi-blog]

candlelight.

@idyeonwoo, cherry bomb dorms, heart and hearth and home.

when was the last time cherry bomb’s aj had a night where she was in the dorm, for a reasonable period of time, at a reasonable hour? sometime long before power up promotions began. perhaps there had been one brief shining moment between the end of invincible youth’s first season and the start of power up promotions and her latest string of appearances on master key. a single afternoon and evening when crime scene wasn’t filming, when there were no music shows to go too, when she was not tethered to a set filming for something, endorsing some brand. 

god, she’s tired. she’s tired, but being left to her own devices, home alone in the dorm? she should love that. she should thrive on the uncharacteristic silence, the calm. she stretches out against her bed, rolls to the side to look over at dahye’s empty mattress. her lips twist. its probably for the best, that she’s not home. it’s been awkward enough lately. she tilts her head a little, examines the flickering light of the candle. lavender is the promised scent. it’s supposed to calm you down, relax you. 

so why does jowi feel like screaming? why does she want to climb out of her own skin? why is it so goddamn quiet? she rolls out of bed, takes the candle with her through the house, like a girl in a ghost movie. lingers in the kitchen, sets it down. in a matter of minutes she’s assembled a vast arsenal of utensils, hair tied messily atop her head. there are a few unexpected things about ahn jowi. first; she adores math. she excelled in the subject, found comfort in the certainty and surety. second: baking is just math, with a dash of chemistry, and she loves that too. 

by the time the door swings open, she’s up to her elbows in flour, music playing at a constant, driving pace from the little bluetooth speaker beside her. she pushes her hair from her eyes, grins. a streak of flour is left dusting her features. “oh, yeonwoo, hey. you wanna help? i’m making cookies. nothing fancy just... chocolate chip? so. yeah.” she shrugs, grin lopsided on her features, like she’s never quite sure how to smile without irony. 

[archiveidjowi-blog]

absolution.

@hyukid , hyuk’s new apartment

where do you turn when you’ve made a mess of your life? where do you go when you have your head in a knot? you go back to the familiar. to the comforting. on most days, that would be dahye, but that particular respite has rendered herself unavailable. san is preoccupied, making new friends and fighting their battles for them. sanha is wrapped up in work, in girls, in whatever else. so what does she have, tonight, when she’s falling apart? what does she have tonight, when she’s too exhausted to practice anymore, half way to tipsy, when the cleaning staff has kicked her out of the company practice room regardless. 

so she’s at his apartment. that’s mistake number one. no, rewind. mistake number one is the first bottle of soju. mistake number two is the second, opened in her hand, half drunk. the third is being at his apartment, now. it’s new, still smells like paint when she steps inside, toes off her shoes and parts her lips on a heavy sigh. “hyukie,” she whines, lips pursing together, the tint she’s applied earlier in the night staining the center of her lips, an ombre drift outwards, kiss bitten or berry stained in effect. “sorry i’m late, hun.” she coos. 

he’d invited her over that evening, to come see his new place, and she’d sent him something distant and distracted. sure, if i have time, or, i’m at practice right now. she can’t remember anymore. she’d known, though, that hyuk would wait. he always waits for her. he’s always there. with those eyes that turn on her and - 

just like that, she softens. god, he looks at her like that and she can’t help but return to his side, now and again. it’s not healthy, not for him. probably not for her either. she wants it to be. it could be, if she let it, if she was another girl, who knew how to return the affection, the honey sticky sweet in his gaze when he looks at her. her shoulders slump. she feels like shit. she should have stayed away. there’s an acrid twist in the pit of her stomach. “it’s a nice place.” she tells him, but she’s not looking at the apartment, just at him. like she can drown herself in the affection there, and choke on the turmoil and pain, all of which sit with her at the source. 

he deserves better than this. 

[archiveidjowi-blog]

fatigue.

@idyohan, at the end of the rope. 

kcon didn’t go well. 

correction. kcon had been wonderful. it was her social life that was spiraling, a nose dive that plunged straight for rock bottom, left her sure to be dashing against the rocks. she’d like to say her load was a little lighter these days, that she had some more time to herself, but with each show she finished another reared it’s head, appeared in it’s place. she finished her run on invincible youth only to roll right into promotions for power up hitting full swing, meaning the usual round of appearances. people digging into her life, hinting not-so-obliquely at him, at marco, and then just as easily turning the focus to anything else; her shows, her abs, her endless array of crop tops. do aegyo, do a sexy dance, be this, be that. 

she performs these roles with the ruthless and critically appealing efficiency of a girl with years upon years of training, with just enough mess, and rawness, and emotion to still read genuine despite everything. the flaws set her apart, her company had said once. she’s a little dorky, a lot quirky, kind of loud and brash and boyish, in her way, offset by the delicate femininity of her appearance. it had sounded like a lot of bullshit at the time, but maybe they’d known what they were talking about. 

she almost trusted them, lately. they knew how to market, at least. and if she was going to be a product (well, she already was), she wanted to be flying off the shelves. 

she was. 

converse was a nice deal at least, she liked that well enough. even enjoyed how the commercial had turned out, all artsy and slightly overwrought, flashing and sepia toned in turn. she wanted to be that girl they presented, strong and sweet in turn, a little bit savage, and relatable. instead, she was drunk on a tuesday night, in one of those places that is supposed to be entirely your own, but is all too often found to be a shared element with those who know you best. see, the karaoke is one of the more notable venues in gangnam. and ideally, they don’t let other people into your room, and she’s allowed to belt her heart out, get drunk as fuck, relax on the lux velvet couch and do absolutely nothing, nothing at all. 

instead, he finds her. 

they let him in because of course they do, because how many times have they done this, arranged meetings that happen clandestine and secret. her stomach flip flops and she feels, at once, immensely caged. the backing plays quietly, forgotten in the ringing of her ears, and she drops both the bottle of soju and the flimsy little copper tambourine. 

“no.” she tells him, firmly, for once. “nope, no, no, no no. out you get, go on. shoo.” she flaps her hand at him, uncoordinated, as if he were a stray cat in her path - except not. 

she loved stray cats, always stopped to try to pet them. 

[archiveidjowi-blog]

clandestine.

@idsanha​, swanky rental. 

it’s one of those secrets that everyone has in this industry, those places open to those with no privacy, with no hope of respite from prying eyes. for a pretty penny, however, you can have anything you want - even just a little, tiny sliver of time to yourself. 

with her world crumbling around her, with the few pillars of constancy in her life eroding, she turns to this familiarity. to the one thing that remains unchanging. 

sanha. 

she can depend on him to be as utterly lost as she is, in this maelstrom of a world. as san withdraws into his promotional preparation hermitude and clings ever tighter to that boy of his, jowi is left reeling in the wake of yohan’s indiscretions on her own. left to fumble and falter as dahye turns her back too, on a girl who truthfully ought to have been ostracized a lot sooner. jowi never deserved the kindness of any of them, the time of day from a single one. but she’d grown accustomed to her little band of misfits. depended on them to prop her up, to anchor her down, depending on the moment. now, she depends on sanha to drown her, to humor her, to destroy her as desperately as she seeks to destroy herself. 

with sanha she can find a comforting, compatible chaos. the same energy of hedonistic malaise that infects her to the core, renders her incapable of functioning without subconsciously, masochistically finding the route that will cause the most harm to herself, perhaps out of some latent suicidal self loathing, punishment for her own sins - past, present, and the innumerable future. 

the path she weaves now, on unsteady feet, is a familiar one. stumbles out of the car and ignores the plaintive whines of her manager, the desperate plea for her to be fucking careful this time, stumbles up an empty staircase, devoid of even cctv for once in this godforsaken surveillance state, and up to a room. it’s been rented already, a light beneath the door and the sound of music from inside and she waves off an attendant who quickly recognizes her, bursts into the room. hotel/motel party room rentals provide a respite from the real world, complete with anonymity, security and luxury. all of jowi’s favorite things when looking to get properly decimated - as if she weren’t halfway there already.  she prowls in as she kicks off her shoes, a storm cloud of misplaced energy, crackling as she weaves across the slick, shining floor. “sanhaaaaaa, ‘ she whines into the wide space, poking around until she collapses down onto the first couch she finds. “bring me alcohol i’m running out,” she complains, drains the ends of the grapefruit soju bottle in her hand. the label is half-removed, a haphazard effort to gouge her own appearance from the offending papery wrapper. “did you wait long? did you miss me? how was kcon? did you get into mischief?” she adds, moving to drape herself over the back of the couch to look at him, pouting as she drops the bottle with a clank, lets it roll away forgotten, discarded. “distract me with sordid tales of your conquests.” 

[archiveidjowi-blog]

lovelorn.

@iddahye, backstage. 

they run in circles like this. endless, cyclical, worn down until she’s something raw and exhausted. smoothed out at the edges, rounded off into softer and kinder. there are so few people around which jowi is truly kind. 

it adds to the cruelty then, that dahye loves her. on most days jowi ignores this. desperately and miserably clings to the excuse of being unaware, the excuse of not knowing, of mistaking romantic love for the same relentless grasping after affection and companionship that color her own actions, her own words. but the undeniable truth exists, and sometimes, when aj is too tired to lie to herself anymore, she remembers that. 

she sees it, too, in wide doe eyes. in the small actions, the way the other has an endless patience, a wealth of empathy for her, when jowi ought to have exhausted that long ago. there is no reason for anyone to put up with her as much as dahye does. there is no reason for someone to still care about her, deeply and truly, after the wealth of transgressions jowi has under her belt. 

 but dahye is there, like an anchor in harbor, like a port in a storm, dahye shelters. dahye is a constant, dragging her down to earth again when she soars high and erratic, hauling her out of the depths when depression wraps his hands around her ankles and pulls her into the deep and the dark and the lost. 

except, right now. 

right now, dahye is cold. distant. distracted. dismissive, even, and it sneaks under jowi’s skin in wheedling whispers that promise this was always going to happen, countered only by those that insist she reads too much into nothing, as she always has, that any perceived lack of affections of late has only been caused by the inevitable truth that jowi has by her own narcissistic nature overestimated how much dahye cared for her in the first place and is only now properly coming to realize her lesser role of importance in the other’s life. 

so the show, going on it together? its awkward. she fidgets as the cameras call for a cut, hosts departing for water, spins idly in her chair and toys with the end of long twin braids. “haven’t had hair like this since middle school,” she notes half conversationally. its a lie, she had the same look for ice cream cake. but she has to say something. anything. 

[archiveidjowi-blog]

disgrace.

@idsanha kcon afterparty, alcohol levels: toxic

here’s a secret; few people in this world understand her in the same way that sanha does. it goes bone deep, visceral. it’s stupid; they say people are made of stars, that everything is star dust, exploded and reformed. sanha feels like he and jowi might have been the same star once, long dead, long dust, reformed in two broken people. there’s a comfort she finds in him she can’t get anywhere else, in warm hands and easy smiles. in the banter that spreads between them as natural as breathing. 

she can’t even remember, now, how they became so close, when she ended up wrapped into the fold of san and sanha, 2san, san squared. she can’t remember when it went from two lanky boys to her sandwiched int he middle draped equal parts over each, three broken people trying to put the pieces back together. they’d made a mosaic of themselves now, intertwined and interrelated. she borrowed the better pieces of them for herself when she needed them - san’s fervor, sanha’s humor. half of her early variety hit jokes had been things she’d known would make sanha laugh or cause a curl at the corner of san’s lips, the stupid puns he always hated to admit he loved. 

they feel like part of her now. 

sanha especially, she’s not sure she could function without. where else would she retreat when she was too much herself to deal with it, when the sea inside her boiled, bubbled over, spilled out her mouth and her eyes and rendered her useless? where else would she bury the affections she was so damn scared to show anyone else, giving them away to sanha because he would always understand, quiet gestures and the glide of lips across his jaw, fingertips intertwining. safety in it’s strangeness, in the knowledge that it was two broken people finding solace, that he would never require of her the broken, twisted, rotting thing she could not give: her heart. 

so as the night barrels towards catastrophe, she heads for sanha, for the sanctity of his arms, for the protection of his embrace, lurches headlong into the boy, thumps her forehead to his shoulder and winds her arms around his waist. he’s got the foresight to gently pry her off him, at least to hold her back slightly, before too many can kick up a fuss. there’s always a fuss. “sorry,” she half mumbles, half slurs. “i’m just feelin’...” she trails off, an addled mind trying to scramble to put the vastness that spread inside her right now, pushed her bones apart, split her skin, into words. “like i need to fuck something up.” 

[archiveidjowi-blog]

limbo.

@idyohan, kcon party. alcohol levels: dangerous. 

it’s been awhile.

weeks, actually. a month maybe, even. since she’s seen him, spoken to him. there was a brief almost run in but she’d beat a quick escape. and he hadn’t followed, for once. but the last time they’d run into each other, god. she’d been a mess. which felt, truthfully, entirely unfair. 

she’s spiraling. just a little. there’s not a reason for it right now, except the fact that their comeback is so distant. the summer slowly passing, everyone trying to get in on that fun summer trend action, articles pitting them all against each other. will it be honey, will it be fantasy, what about wink? she wants to grab msg by the shoulders, shake them, remind them that red flavor had put them on the map, that if they released another summer song, another smash hit, they could really begin building something. something lasting, something strong, something good. 

instead they just sat, languished, while jowi filmed forty varieties at a time and tried to keep her head above water, while hera branched into acting and good, that was good, but jowi was here for the music. she wanted the music. if they weren’t going to give her a chance to perform something new with cherry bomb, couldn’t they at least give her the solo she had been begging and begging and begging for? 

that’d be too easy. 

so instead she’s treading water, wheels spinning out on the pavement, watching the world run past her. watching a year old group in uniform concepts go rocketing past cherry bomb while their hit from last year slowly fades, the divisive bolster of peek a boo not enough, not enough. 

just like her. 

the last thing she needs to do is run into him now, as she staggers into a side hallway, fumbling a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, but she does. shoulder into shoulder, a whine on her lips- plaintive and petulant until she looks up, sees him. there’s a tightness in her chest and her voice strangles in her throat. “oh, hey, “ she mumbles, chews at a chapped lip. “you got a light or somethin’?”

[archiveidjowi-blog]

rush.

@idohsan , party step two, kcon. 

with yujin, she’d gotten tipsy. she’d felt pleasant and bubbly. 

with san, she got trashed. 

hammered. 

she’s worse for wear at this point, her head spinning and her hands like claws where they clutch at her drink, sure it’ll slide right from between her hands with little prompting. a rum and coke that leans heavily on the coke because she’s sure they don’t want them getting too fucked up. joke’s on them, jowi lives to get fucked up. only the distractions keep her sane anymore. or maybe they heighten her decline, hasten it. it’s hard to say. maybe she wants that, wants to rush headlong towards disaster, wants to tempt fate and see if today, at least, things can be turned in her favor. 

probably not. 

probably she’s just an idiot making mistakes. probably she’s just erratic, just stupid. just addled, with the alcohol in her veins and the stress that permeates her, an ever present demon. jowi drains the rest of her glass and leans her head onto his shoulder. to an observer it would be strange, intimate even, some of the ways that they interact. but for once in her life, and truly only once it seems, with san jowi is able to separate the emotional and the physical. to be truly herself, without feeling the expectation of offering herself in one way or another.

she and san are in a three legged race to the finish line, shackled together and stumbling through the obstacles, worse for wear but unable to stop.  so is it a surprise when yujin flutters away into the crowd, she departs to find san. to trade comforting, positive friendship for someone who understands the rot in her chest. something inside her died long ago, and the septic mess spreads in her now, steadily creeping towards decay. 

she laughs into his shoulder. nothing’s funny, but its not an amused laugh. a sad laugh maybe. incredulous. or angry. “so,” she says, “saw titanium perform today,” there’s a pause, because if anyone knows what this means for san, what this means to san, it’s jowi. “so lemme buy you a shot. or twenty.”