#magpie:txt

[ech0h]

@sacrosaenct / INTO THE

still, her hand tightens to the point of pain around his, even as she guides him in, the murmur in her ear, at her side, prompting them both further up and further in.

yunseol’s hand fits against his own in something familiar, and the humidity sticks them together like a coat of glue. inseparable, but they’ve always been. of course, the last time they entered the forest just like this, they were convinced off and into different directions. this time they stay stuck together though, too many voices guiding them forward, some that come out from ilwoo’s mouth, and some that he can’t hear but that he knows are real by the way yunseol cocks her head in imitation of the songbirds in the trees above them.

the shade doesn’t keep them from the heat, but ilwoo ignores it. the deeper into the forest they go, the darker it gets. too many trees with their twisting branches and leaves fighting for the sun. it leaves them in darkness. “do you think it’s different? from last time, i mean.” ilwoo says as soon as he can trust that his mouth is moving only of his own volition. his jaw feels heavy, though. overworked. like he’s been chewing gum all day and now his joints are stiff with it.

he almost expects to backtrack to where he was lost in the woods that first time around. or the marsh, where yunseol had told him she’d ended up. but they climb higher instead. the trees thin out with the elevation, and the sun rakes at the back of ilwoo’s neck. he ignores it, because at the top of the mountain there’s too much else to focus on. heaps of dirt and a wooden box jammed down deep in a hole. flowers overflowing and wrapped tight around it. 

“what the fuck is that?” ilwoo asks out loud, and this time it’s entirely himself. he drops his hold on yunseol’s hand and inches in a little closer. “is that a fucking coffin?” he asks, twists his head back to look from her to the hole and back again.

[ech0h]

HYPNOSIS / at ilwoo's place, late enough and outside with @willowhour

it’s hotter outside than it is inside, that’s all ilwoo can keep thinking about as he crouches in the overgrown grass in the side lot right next to where he lives. far enough outside of that one condensed point of town that nobody really cares how many people are rotating their way in and back out again, bottles of beer clenched tight in fists, the kind of grip that makes it seem like they’re scared someone’s going to take it from them. ilwoo doesn’t really care what’s going on, seongmin’s a good enough chaperone. better than ilwoo, anyway. he’s out here hiding instead, lighting the end of a cigarette and taking a drag that he shouldn’t be. he’ll regret it, and maybe soon. he’s at least had enough foresight to bring his inhaler with him, a misshapen plastic bulk he’s shoved int the pocket of a sweatshirt he doesn’t really want to be wearing. not with the way the heat lays over him, sticky-thick and stifling. he’s about halfway though it and muffling a deep-chested cough into his sleeve when he spots yurim. this alone isn’t worth a mention, and he almost turns to spit, to see if chunks of his lungs might come up with the saliva, when he notices the ungainly way she's walking, out of tempo from the murmur of whatever song is playing inside. she might be drunk. might be, but it reminds him of that time he came across her in the woods, half asleep and with bramble scratches raked down her arms. and as he watches her, ilwoo realizes that might just be where she’s headed again. that uneven treeline in the distance. he mutters out a quick “fuck” and drags the half-smoked cigarette out on the bend of his knee, smears a wad of ash against the denim. he pockets the remains of it as he climbs up to his feet and jogs after her. bad idea after that smoke, and he hacks out another cough as he settles at her side, stride shortening to keep pace. he starts to talk, tries to talk, but everything feels strangled on the way up. hands on the inside of his throat winding up his trachea like an old dish rag that needs to be wrung out. ilwoo doesn’t want to keep all that used up oxygen in him, so he fishes out his inhaler one handed and shakes it, tries to make out yurim’s expression as he breathes in a pump. “hey, yurim.” this time the words come out. “you in there?” he nudges her shoulder with his, just hard enough to veer her slightly off her strange path.

[ech0h]

BROKEN / at the garage with @4ntemortem

ilwoo’s got the fan cranked up past high, in that way where it starts making this grinding whir-click of a noise, protesting the idea of living. it’s unavoidable though, because once summer hits the garage starts feeling a little closer to hell than anything else. the heat seems to pool on the concrete floor, steam spilling out from the engines and sticking to his skin. he’s got a good month left until it becomes unbearable, but he still has himself sat down right in front of the fan anyway. it’s basically a break, so it doesn’t matter much. he’s the only one on shift at the moment, and the only thing left for him to do is finish the repairs on some old farm equipment dragged down from the ginseng farms. he’ll get to it before the sun sets. or that was the plan, but now there's a car rolling its way up slow to the garage, groaning and wheezing the way most of the cars do that pull up a couple of hours before it closes. he lifts his hand to shield his eyes from the sun still lingering above the treetops, watches as jiyeon pops the door open and climbs out. it’s not all that surprising, by now and ilwoo could match every car in onyang with the person who drives it. it’s not like there’s an abundance of garages around for people to be picky about. he bets jiyeon would’ve preferred to be picky about where she brought her car to. but it’s onyang, so she’s stuck here bringing it to him. ilwoo smiles when she gets close enough that he can drop his hand. it lacks in kindness, and so it reads as something unsettling instead. like it should be crooked, sliding into a frown. but it doesn’t change, it just stays as that not-smile on his face as ilwoo leans back enough to balance his elbow on a cart behind him. “now, you know i can’t drop all my work at a moment’s notice just because you want to come see me.” the only reason that ilwoo says it is because he thinks it might get a rise out of her. that’s how he’s learned to deal with most everything in his life, good or bad, talk at it until something happens. enough times and it starts to become a pattern, one that can all but be used as a blueprint for their relationships now. ilwoo says something that makes jiyeon annoyed, and so she gets annoyed. maybe she takes a jab at him right back. like a game, only without any of the fun. “oil changes aren’t that hard, i bet you can manage.” ilwoo finally drops the smile as he says it, doesn’t bother asking the real reason she brought it in, either. with no other options around, she’ll be liable to tell him. the same way he’ll be liable to fix it for her, because he’s not above taking the money.

[ech0h]

ESCAPE / two days ago, driving outside of town with @shuteyed ilwoo has one hand curled loose around the steering wheel. his other arm is hanging long outside the window in the way that driving instructors tell you never to do, because that’s a good way to lose it in an accident. but ilwoo doesn’t care, and he was never taught under a driving instructor anyway. just his uncle in a rusted up beater that ilwoo later ran into a tree.

he always has mixed feelings about driving out of town. it should just be enjoyable, it’s not a great town. sometimes it feels like living inside of a something gutted and dying, just waiting for it to rot away into nothing. to rot him along with it. what pulls him back is always the forest, which shouldn’t even factor in. there are plenty of forests in plenty of places. better forests even, in better places. but they don’t feel the same. ilwoo knows because he’s driven out to them white-knuckling the steering wheel and stubborn about it. but they feel wrong. whatever the opposite of home is. so that’s what he feels like as he eases his foot down a little too heavy on the gas pedal, enough that the engine lets out its guttural whine. if it were any other car, he’d be questioning it. but it’s his, and so he knows what kinds of broken he can ignore. “what’d you need to get, anyway?” ilwoo’s entirely sure seongmin’s already told him, but sometimes it’s hard to make the words stick when it’s not stressed that they’re the important sort he needs to hang his attention on. he’d picked up on the key details anyway; they needed to drive a town over, seongmin had something to do. an excuse to leave and that had been about the time ilwoo had stopped processing everything he was listening to, apparently. underneath his voice, the music cracks and pops with static. there’s an aux chord, one end of it plugged into a phone old enough that it still has something to plug into. the phone’s cracked, and ilwoo keeps it in the car like a backup album reel. it’s not too far of a drive, not with the way ilwoo keeps leaning his weight down against that pedal. but he feels it at his back, onyang. like something meat-hooked through a shoulder, trying to pull him home. he does his best to ignore it.

[ech0h]

RECONNECT / at the crow's nest with @fatedandbound

it's been a while since they've sat like this. but then, it's hard to get together when one half of you has turned into a ghost and is displaced somewhere new. ilwoo doesn't resent jinri for that, or at least, that's what he keeps telling himself when they run into each other around town. a place folded up so small it feels like a box that someone's always rattling between their hands like an unknown birthday present. no matter how much he tries to help it, he'll get knocked into everyone eventually.

but this time it's on purpose. making nice, trying to put all those feelings to rest. he shouldn't be having them, anyway. he has a life here in onyang, one with roots. one that's hard to rip from the foundation of the town, something he can't replant back down in the cement streets of seoul. ilwoo sometimes wonders how jinri managed. but then he refocuses back on the now, to her sitting in front of him, and realizes that even if could get himself to leave, that he'd likely end up just like her. right back in onyang, sitting in this decrepit old bar, pretending that was what he wanted in the first place.

and still, despite knowing that, ilwoo can't figure out how to properly digest all those feelings. every so often and they rise back up his throat like bile.

"what's been up with you, anyway?" ilwoo asks as he trades out one empty glass for another. he wants to chase at that point in tipsy where it feels like his brain slackens along with all his muscles and he remembers what it feels like to be relaxed. he's been drinking more and more lately. he should put a stop to it, probably. but it's hard to when his mind keeps revisiting the sound of his own voice as it forced its way out of his mouth unbidden. the way that coffin looked standing upright and too big, enough room for at least two people inside.

he takes another long drink, glances up at jinri over the rim of his glass. "can't be all bad, can it?" he means it as a joke, it just doesn't manage to sound like one.

[ech0h]

BLUE DAYS / walking in the woods with @saintsons

the sky above them is painted thick in the shade cornflower blue, all mixed up with the clouds. but all ilwoo keeps looking are are his own two feet as he snaps twigs in half and spots beetles trying to outrun their own small deaths. ilwoo does his best to accommodate, though he's not so sure uiseong is paying them any mind to his left.

the farther they walk in past the trees, the less sun there is to keep them company. ilwoo can't find it in himself to mind it, though. he's always liked hiding out in the woods, ever since he was a child. ever since he was branded with the sorts of labels that people didn't look kindly on. to ilwoo, setting himself down in the shadows of the trees was always a reprieve. to a boy who always felt compelled to fill the silence around him, the trees never had the capacity to listen. so he could talk or not and it didn't matter. he could lie or tell the truth and nothing about them cared. the woods have always felt more like of a real home to him than the house he was raised in.

"how've things been with you, anyway?" ilwoo asks him, though all the words are rounded out odd and clumsy around the lollipop he's got jammed up against one cheek. it's green apple, and that's no secret with the way his lips have been dyed an unnatural acidic green.

ilwoo pulls his eyes up from the ground to glance uiseong's way instead, like he might find the answer to his question written lopsided across his profile. not good, but pretending like it anyway. or, trapped, but we're both trapped here together so i guess that makes it alright. well, maybe not the second. that's just what would be written across ilwoo's face if everything was reversed.

[ech0h]

UNWANTED / past, around seven years ago with @adoeration “i just don’t get what you see in the guy.” this isn’t something new. ilwoo has reiterated this point more than a handful of times by now. it nearly sounds like one of those chants he can’t stop, the words unfolding out from his tongue like a paper-chain trick from a hack magician without meaning to. except this one’s done with purpose. he really doesn't get it. him. them, as a concept. gaeul and her husband-to-be. she’s in some state of getting ready, juxtaposed by ilwoo decidedly not. his jeans have a hole through the knee, and he thrifted his t-shirt a good couple years ago. it nearly feels like paper at this point, a sheet of it that was run through the washer. “there’s still time, you know, to not…” he trails off, emphasizes his point instead by waving a hand in the air ambiguously. a choose your own adventure presented to gaeul, only without any of the options. the only stipulation being: not this one. it’s not that he’s terrible, really. it all just feels too soon. off. like jamming together puzzle pieces that don't fit just because they’re all sort of the same color. “what do you even see in him?” this isn’t the first time ilwoo’s asked this question, either. it’s just, he’s never gotten a response he finds satisfactory. there’s a whole slew of words you can use to describe someone as bland, and gaeul’s never used any of them. so he keeps setting up the question, like eventually she’ll find the right word, the word that matches the picture ilwoo’s constructed of him in his head. he leans back in the chair he’s on, far enough that his head thumps against the wall. he aims his eyes up at the ceiling instead of gaeul’s face. he’s sure she’s not happy with him. lately and she’s not really been much aside from annoyed. it’s his own fault, but his opinion keeps leaking out of him like a crack in the bottom of a broken vase. unwanted.

[ech0h]

EP 1 SUBMIT / INTO THE with @sacrosaenct​

THE ANTLER GOD USES YOUR MOUTH AND SPEAKS—

“you need to pick up that knife.” you’re standing in your kitchen, and you stare at the block of knives sitting on the counter. you’re the one who controls your own hands, but the longer you stand there waiting, the more it wears out your jaw. “you need to pick up that knife.” frustrated by yourself, you turn and dig through a drawer instead to fish out a folding knife. you already seem strange enough to the people in town without walking around with a cleaver. you shove it in your pocket and resume making breakfast when you interrupt yourself again. “you need to go to the forest.” you tell yourself in a voice that isn’t quite your own.  you keep telling yourself through bites of cereal until you get fed up enough that you do as you’re told. that’s when you see bat. that’s when you both go in together, in the same way as before. when you were kids. at the crosspath where you once separated, you watch bat cock their head. you almost ask before you interrupt yourself, “this way, up higher.” so you both do just that. until you find a hole. standing upright in the middle of it is a coffin, once buried vertically. wrapped in long lengths around the coffin are vines, sprouting thick bushels of purple flowers that you’ve never seen before. bat tells you that you need to free it. you hear your mouth agreeing as you draw out your knife.

“you need to go to the forest.” ilwoo keeps whispering it to himself as he drags his heels through the dirt. at this point, he’s not sure whether or not he means to be. if the words managed to work their way into his jaw permanently, a perpetual grind of “you need to go into the forest.” and there’s that knife clenched in his hand. metal indents at his skin, folded up in the casing. there’s something like worry churning around in his gut. like worry, because ilwoo doesn’t think that’s what it actually is. more likely someone might call it anticipation, except he shouldn’t be feeling that while he’s carrying around a knife and dragging himself off to the forest. so he doesn’t admit that to himself, keeps pretending it’s worry.

technically he could turn back. technically he could keep muttering to himself all day. it’s not like he’s leashed around the neck and being led there. he wants to know, that’s the crux of it. he wants to know about the woods. they’ve been such an overwhelming presence in his life. he wants to be in them. maybe he wants to get lost inside of them again, too. like he doesn’t feel home when he’s not being swallowed up by the trees. like he left some piece of himself there when he got lost in them all those years ago. like he needs to find it again. like he needs to lose more of himself. but they’re just the woods. that’s what everyone says. that’s what ilwoo tells himself, sometimes. he’s always been a liar.

close enough to the edge of the trees and the mosquitos sit as dense as fog. behind them, like an apparition, is yunseol. he cracks a grin between his “you need to go into the forest” that catches on his teeth, a clipped grind of an incisor. yunseol, just like before. it’s deja vu, or some iteration of it that tastes like nausea, salt-sticky spit underneath his tongue. he reaches a hand out to her, like a reassurance that everything is real. just like before. a small pile of mosquitos gnaws at the bone-jut of his wrist as he moves through them. he’s too caught up in his speaking, in telling yunseol now, “you need to go to the forest” to brush them away, to notice them at all. 

he tugs, and she follows. they fall in step. just like before.