circles.
@idjohyun, after filming for olympus’ variety around 11:30pm at san’s apt
san’s tired, tired in that way that seems multi-storeyed. there’s the physical, from riding through the promotions of their latest winter-themed release. of waking up at ungodly hours in the promotional dorms they round them all up into when they need to make schedules at five in the goddamn morning. a cramped bed, unwanted company, lost hours of sleep (a joke, like san has ever gotten enough sleep these past few years). and he’s tired of being around them. is tired of being shoved into the countryside with them. a forest stacked like a blockade to keep them in. san lives his life in cages. that’s what it feels like. moved from one into another. the rest of olympus scurrying around him like frenzied rats, willing to turn on their own and cannibalize if they get hungry enough.
that’s how it’s always been. but he’s tired. maybe san’s been tired for a long time now.
but he’s back in his apartment, now. a miraculous morning of no schedule and so they’ve let him sneak back in like an alley cat. he still has trouble calling it his home. san’s not sure what he could point to as his home. maybe midas. that’s where he’s spent the most of his life at this point, isn’t it? in that building. for almost twenty years now. it’s nearly nauseating to think about.
it’s draining, being around them all. the rest of olympus. especially when he’s wearing that mask. san of olympus -- a jagged-edged difference to ryu san, the obsessive and volatile. sometimes he wishes he got saddled with a stage name, too. that way he could divide himself up, half and half and call it a day. that way nothing would spill over. a confusing mixture, and san’s learned to hate the taste of both sides. but that was never his path. from the beginning, this is what was expected of him. what his mother wanted. his name was given with the expectation that she’d someday see it plastered on the side of a bus. there was no room for a stage name, not for him.
and this hodgepodge of chaotic feelings swarming his chest like flies looking for rot is perhaps the reason he has his phone tucked against his ear. the droning of the ringer as it searches for the victim. that’s what johyun is, right? his victim. it feels like that’s what it means for whoever he latches onto. a parasite of a boy. san picks at a loose string of his duvet as he waits for it. that click he knows will come. of johyun answering his phone. it always comes. johyun’s reliable that way. johyun’s easy. a cruel thought, but that’s what san is. parasitic.
“johyun? are you busy?” that’s what san starts with when he hears johyun’s sleep-heavy greeting. wheedling. a reed-thin voice, swaying in the wind. because he thinks it’ll trip johyun up. because he’s tired. so goddamn tired. he waits for his muffled reply, maybe there’s hesitancy found near the edges. they’re over, after all. that’s what san tells him in between his fits of cold-hot-cold. it’s confusing. he knows it is. knows he is. johyun’s not alone. san hates himself, too.
“i’m lonely.” that’s what san says next, and then “i miss you.” because that’s johyun’s kryptonite. and san’s always been good at sleuthing those sorts of things out of people and then finding ways to exploit them.