❛ THESE, OUR BODIES, POSSESSED BY LIGHT, @lacvnc.
the title story doesn’t quite add up, as many would say, the pertinence of its fragments askew to the point of false recognition. there’s something off about the boy that grows up with his spinal cord tilted sideways for everyone’s perusal: his flesh, skin, would have to adjust until he becomes the semblance of a monster. eventually, he thinks, it’s better for him to follow the shape of the water, dependent on the flask that contains him, since nobody likes looking at the child with a disjointed vertebrae column. it looks like an abstract painting no one can come to comprehend, or it sounds like a cacophonic music no one can bear to listen. and so, he pretends. ( pretends just like how he ran, ran, ran he splintered his ankles into shards. )
tonight, the façade is a silhouette of avant garde creations, formed together to piece a glass of syllables that he will pour over the hours. after two years of his so-called mysterious disappearance, he can feel the curious eyes drilling into his cranium, trying to gauge whether it was the truth, or the lie that he’s spilled into the public. again, he’s in rivulets. nobody can figure it out because nobody knows the whole story, unless they would put the jigsaw in unison, which wouldn’t be characteristic of them at all. not when these galas are comprised out of nothing but those wearing flimsy masks, stabbing each other in their backs — it isn’t like them to complete the whole picture using what they have. so, in the fractured portraits he lives, letting the cascade of their inquisitive looks into his life once again. just like how it was after eomma, appa passed.
but he’s a child of tragedy; out of all the seared interests in his personal life, they always look at him as if he were made of something fragile. again, return to the glass bottle. he plays around that, his hand around the neck of the bottle, gaining full control of how fast it would spin. in this game of roulette, he’s the god of luck, decisive fingers curled around the throats of those believing otherwise. they would show sympathy, one that he’d scoff inside. he only attends this kind of gatherings to honor his late mother, carrying the legacy turned to ashes. and even after over a decade, they still wonder if it was a scheme: if eomma’s death was staged by appa. they sure love their dramatic thoughts — although something the harsh facts don’t fall far from the anchoring beast’s stomach.
life as a large engraved question mark, he grows weary. the night is far from ending, but he vacates the party via the back door, sneaking out from the pantry. nobody asks, for he is a friend of none. just a network of plenty, as the son of unfortunate souls. he takes a walk, combing the sidewalk of the neighborhood until he reaches the end of it. tells his butler not to wait for him via a text. and when he looks back up, that’s the moment their eyes lock: someone who looks just like him, staring back. there’s something that wilts in his insides, knowing that the stranger isn’t humane. but that’s barely the matter. puts his phone in the back pocket of his lavish jeans. he fists and unfists his hands, once, twice. he’s too tired for this, but the stranger doesn’t seem to have the intention of tearing his gaze away from jongin either. there’s a sense of dread, but he doesn’t believe that it’s an illusion. it feels like staring back in a mirror, except they have different attires. he realizes he’s stopped himself in his track, leaving quite a gap between him and the stranger — there’s an entire crossroad separating them, and jongin hopes the man would just disappear behind a passing car. but he doesn’t, he doesn’t.
