relying on concrete images to grasp some sense of sanity is a dangerous method of maintaining control. he doesn’t like to sleep because dreams are too vivid. the reality he knows how to deal with after 27 years of experience. just smoke a cigarette or beat someone bloody, watch it all disappear in seconds underneath busted knuckles and calloused fingertips.
the action is what relieves his stress, not the nicotine addiction or the violent trip he easily justifies. but lately, his dreams have involved collapsing cities, visions of entirely different people, lives of historical figures he has no recollection of. you are supposed to draw from memory and subconscious for a dream to exist–what kind of psychological bullshit.
He picks up a canvas (option #4), appraising it as if it were just a blank wall. Can’t help but consider it all a waste of money, muttering his response.
“Did I mention sex at all?” attention rests on a familiar face. familiar in a way that he knows her name, but can’t attach a purpose to it. hyeri comes and goes in his life. people like that are bad to have around, just like the cigarette between his fingers. it’s too comfortable and he can never get used to temporary people on his payroll. “So you’re running away from your identity crisis to bug the fuck out of me again–” he flicks loose ashes at her as a form of mediocre vengeance, “–get the fuck over it.”
these days she dreams of empty houses, painted black and left to rot on the side of the highway. she always wakes up in a cold sweat, heart full of blood and a throat screaming lullabies left for the dead.
she meets sunggyu the morning after she enters the houses for the first time. there lie in his eyes a distant familiarity and her biggest fear: two houses painted black, cut out from the sheet of a starless night. she flits from van gogh’s field of poppies next to his desk, to the dying cactus on his windowsill. ( “how the fuck did you manage to kill a cactus, anyway?” ) turn your terror into power, power into the art of persuasion. this is the only remedy she knows.
“no, but i was hoping you would mention sex.” last night, the house had collapsed, diminishing her into a dust storm. she’s a layer too thin sitting against his wall, legs crossed and salt-skinned. ghostly remnants of a cold sweat never rub off, no matter how many times you run through tap water and stand under the rain.
she laughs. "you know, maybe if you got laid every once in a while, you wouldn’t be so...” she squints at him. ponders silently as if there are a million words to describe him. “tense.” nodding towards the canvas in his hand, she quirks a brow, half-smile slipping smoothly over her lips. “actually, i think the one with the identity crisis is you.” she crinkles her nose as a sudden gust of grey ashes spiral through the air. slender fingers reach out just in time, flecks of ash parachuting to a muted landing on her palm. “you’re the one who hired me. so no, i won’t get over it.”