From outside his car window, the sun shines and beats down with the same ferocity as an otter cracking open a barnacle at sea. His car tries in earnest to curb the wicked heat but can only sputter and cycle through lukewarm air, baby’s breath against his face. With his hands glued to the wheel and the smell of lemon-verbena freshener sticky sweet and the silence between them stretching on and on, Inho feels the rivulet of sweat run down his temple with uncanny clarity.
It’s only a one-hour drive. One hour and fifteen if he passes through Gangjin. But it’s purportedly the hottest day of the year and from the periphery of his vision Yisoo looks a little like hell, or maybe he’s just dozed off. Inho hits the gas as hard as he can without breaking the speed limit.
They hit the twenty minute mark. On this empty highway, his lonesome truck sounds like it is roaring. Inho finds it somewhat obnoxious but also feels something like empowerment and so he zooms into the upcoming tunnel and revels at how the roaring amplifies tenfold. He turns and looks at Yisoo, both their faces dark in the cavern of this interstate underpass. One hand peels away from the wheel to rest on the radio knob. He switches it on and a precisely-manufactured, exuberant pop number promptly interrupts his truck’s own bellowing. Signal bonae, signal bonae. Jjirit. Jjirit. Jjirit. Jjirit.
Inho gauges Yisoo’s expression. He makes a stab in the dark. Breaks their silence. The girls continue their forlorn warbling through the speakers. “You haven’t listened to this music before?”
Set in modern times, because it's more conveniently uncertain.
a drabble for @toauz
[...]
Her presence only completes half of the gesture, he's just eager to complete it.
Or so she'd been told.
Inside the house, the parental units are out of sight, but not totally out of mind—echoes of their incessant chattering making its way into the veranda. Out here sits a table expertly set for two, half shaded from the blistering rays, complete with an intricate arrangement of pale pink peonies and cape jasmine gardenias in the center. There's something about this that's so much more blatantly shameless than the events of this past afternoon that Ahra has to fight down the urge to apologize because, Jesus, really? As if enough posturing hasn't been done for the past two hours.
A sigh. Trying to not sound somewhat defeated, she asks, "Wanna sit?" A gesture to the opposite chair, as she sits down. Hyunwook follows suit, and when's all settled there's that silence again, polite and unsure all at once. Courtesy of Ma and Pa on both sides, on the insistence to "leave the two alone," as if this is the first time any of them had laid eyes on each other; any stretches of years of prior—and current—familiarity suddenly negligible.
For the sake of the show, amusement pending, she gives it a try. Envisions the dossier slipped inside the manila folder, the glossy headshot paperclipped to the corner, the initial impressions before seeing the real thing up close. Figures. Entertaining hypotheticals always drain out the fun from memory, don’t they. The Ahra from this one wouldn't have a single clue about the gaudy hypebeast wear, the fingers up the nose, the voice cracks heard crystal clear over the landline. Both portrait and living subject far too polished to know the juvenile embarrassment of getting older, as if being some pseudo-embodiment of grace too, is some bestowed birthright.
Pfft.
It's about as far as she'll go. Ahra leans against the table edge, one elbow propped to rest her chin in the curve of her palm, as if to say Well? but it never breaches the surface. No elephant is too big to ignore, even with this bit of room.
"Where was it this time?" Of all the icebreakers out there..."Brazil?" She can't trust much else at this point but the bare assumption that this isn't his first rodeo when it comes to this sort of thing. No expectations here. God knows where those'll lead to by now.
Imagine her surprise anyway at the hum of assent before some elaboration: "Sao Paulo."
“Oh? What's there?" Pastel, Oscar Freire, the largest Japanese diaspora on Earth, strictly city speaking. As for the country as a whole?
"Rackets."
A squint. "Right..."
"No, really. You're looking at the top exporters of badminton rackets in the world."
"And that's going to be the next big thing for you?" You, she means, in the broader sense, but he knows that. Neither of them come as standalones in this arrangement.
"No."
Okay..." Ahra falters. Then? Small talk shouldn't leave anyone this dumbfounded. Losing touch already? Feeling the heat creep over her cheeks, she finds sudden interest in the pale lace patterns on the tablecloth.
The twitch at his mouth is innocuous at first, but there's no helping it. The grin that surfaces despite himself, the dead giveaway.
"There was a conference too, but" his head tilts, "Not sure how much that'd grab your attention."
Ahra gives him a look. "And rackets would?"
"Did."
"Uhuh..."
She exhales, expression softening, nothing more but a motion of pure relief. She won't admit it, but he might've seen it flash across her face anyway. The Oh God, the slow sink of dread in the possibility that this is what it'd be like, once all is said and done.
Ahra searches his gaze, as if looking for that same sort of second guessing, only to find nothing but a boyish glint in his eye. He doesn't need to say it out loud for her to know it. Gotcha.
Some things don't change. They better not, because God knows where that'll leave them altogether.
HEATHER
Four rounds, then five—the grill pops hot and sizzles crisp and the drinks pour through with something like reckless abandon, but all of them have senses too trained to even fathom going past the tipping point. Makgeolli tastes sweeter on a summer night by the window seat, left a little open to let the heat of the flame out and the cool breeze in. There are enough years shared between them to have a never-ending arsenal of anecdotes, bygones, and what if’s, but the night has to end somewhere. By now, it’s almost expected.
Heather counts out the bills in her hands one-two-three one-two-three and like clockwork, a phone rings from the other side of their table.
“Duty calls.”
The looks passed along are both knowing and of self-inclined relief. Couldn’t be me. They pick themselves up and off to wave goodbye, until next time.
Heather slides the money over the counter and leans against it, hands in her shirt pockets as she waits. “Tomorrow’s Saturday.” On most weekends that hardly means a thing, but she’s hell bent on making it otherwise. She drums her fingers along the laminated wood, tilting her head to direct her gaze at Lena. “Think we should take the long way home.”
LENA
Tomorrow is Saturday, which isn’t so bad if you’re, say, still in school. With one lingering look from her periphery, school feels just like yesterday—summer nights, window seats, frat parties only at the beginning of the list. Lena hums contentedly at both that thought and this moment, sparing just a few bills more for the tip jar. Big, big bills.
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” she echoes, finally allowing herself to return that gaze. There’s a beginning of a list, and then there’s the top after some accommodations and life experiences added on as you’ve gone along. “Today, I’m thirty-nine.” There’s nothing wrong with the scenic route at night if you’re sick addicted to things that never make sense. Lena burps, loud, out of nowhere, scrunching her nose before mouthing a quick excuse me and laughing it off, linking her arm with Heather’s as they wait for the customer copy of the bill and some change. “How about some cake first?”
Like, actual cake. It’s their day off tomorrow unless duty call calls. But who dies on Saturdays anyway? Get a life! At least enough until Sunday, 6 am!
(God, but they’re just kids—)
They leave, arm in arm. At the door, Lena says something about bills—mainly the phone one, cracking a joke about who’s got Heather wrapped around their finger for her to be running it up like that. Some feet away, in the dark, they part. You can’t really be arm to arm in the front seats of a car, anyway.
[...]
“Come look.” Lena beckons heather with a single finger, eyes fixed on a single piece. Tarts are better in the afternoon but this place gives her every reason to cave into the unusual (how on brand), all that meat and alcohol from just half an hour ago nothing but more energy already. “See how this hurts me, this beautiful plate.” She’s ogling at roasted pear and brie galette this time, biting her thumbnail as she pretends to consider getting the whole damn thing. “Could’ve made this if I had that kind of time.” Talent, moreso. “Whaddaya think, huh?” Yup, or yeah?
HEATHER
It’s hard to pinpoint when it’s felt this natural, but that’s the essence of habits, isn’t it. Done so many times, yet nowhere close to feeling overdone. The opening notes to “Save Room” croon through the intercom as the cashier counts up five quarters and a dime and tears off the receipt for her having. Weird song choice for the time and place, but what’s weirder is how John Legend hasn’t sounded this good since they’ve graduated. A damn shame.
“That you are.” Thirty nine, and excused. “Let’s go.”
The cicadas are louder out in the open. The magnolia trees from across the street are in full bloom, heavy with petals so white that it’d look nothing more like snow on barren branches in the distance.
“Yeah,” Heather rolls her eyes. Always hits bullseye somehow. It’s the how of it that boggles her more. She squeezes her arm slight. “You wish it was you.”
[…]
She hovers only for a couple of moments. “Yeah, I’m looking.” Back at the array of focaccia laid out that is. Last of today’s batch, surely, the smell of garlic and rosemary left to being faint but ever-present.
Heather moves back to her side, an expression like contemplation but not quite. Her eyes rove over Lena’s face, bright with elation that’s nobody else’s. She couldn’t ever tell you about the beauty of knowing bread like that. The sheer intimacy of moments like these on the other hand, seeing joy and feeling it double from the mere sight of it, well. Good luck with that too.
“I think…we have all day tomorrow for you to try.”
And yet, in the same breath, over the display: “Two of the that one, to go.”
LENA
"Try what," she replies, eager to say this next part: "Your patience? In us trying to make this ourselves?" How about now, with this dumb wordplay. Her eyes crinkle when Heather puts in an order to-go, her arms searching the crook of her elbow, her cheek finding her shoulder. "You should pick one too," Lena elects, knowing that Heather already knows it's still for her, in her name. Her lips graze a sleeve as she eyes Heather's profile. "Something a little sweeter."
HEATHER
"You'd find fun in both," Heather returns flatly, more resigned than feeling truly reluctant at either idea. Wouldn't be so bad to say things for what they are, would it? Coward.
Her fingers press along the glass, nonsense hum at her lips and no real decision as of yet, telltale Heather-esque signs of being distracted by the new warmth and weight she saw coming (and yet). "Tiramisu?"
In America, they have niche story prompt books that aren’t actually niche. Rather they are dumb capitalist fun, appealing to the youthful masses or blogger moms who’ve yet to awaken their inner whatever author it is they think they look up to and like to misuse the word niche. He’d know because he’d looked it up once, pie charts listing audiences drawn to all kinds of books. but is that something you share with… anyone?
Junghan blows raspberry. “You from the States?” he asks the nearest stranger, testing the waters. Circles the rim of his glass with his index. Nothing. Maybe he isn’t loud enough. In case they turn around anyway, he continues, light flickering above someone else in particular. Swivels around to properly direct it to that person instead, tongue in cheek. “You look the type.”
SERIN
The humdrum of dive bars comes to no surprise, but no one ever goes to these things for anticipation now, do they. At one point of the night, you’ll encounter a happenstance that could happen at any other time here because it’s happened every damn time. She has her usual sitting in front of her, cold to the touch, eyes caught between dazed off and people watching, check and check. Any minute now, and someone’ll try to strike conversation because men are so certain in their predictability.
Serin’s reached the half-mark of her glass when indeed, a voice comes in within earshot. She’s slow to turn her gaze, and there’s no real curiosity to match the inkling of it in his timbre.
“Huh,” she offers with a raised brow, so close to saying ‘that obvious?’ but it wasn’t much of an accusation in the first place to confirm anything. Instead, Serin directs her attention briefly to his drink. “Depends on the definition you choose.” Among other things.
With something of a wry grin, she adds, “You look like the type who does just that for a living.”
JUNGHAN
"Maybe yes." A sip. "Maybe no." He sets his glass down, sliding it over close to where she is. They call this phrase an oxymoron, but don't prove her point. There's a space between them he doesn't mind filling, Junghan transferring to the seat right next to her, the corners of his lips pulled in for a half smile. "If you're not trying to be someone you aren't tonight, we're already not all that alike." It doesn't sound bitter out loud, just as he means it. Junghan raises his glass slightly. "Do you think this is my first time trying this?" The drink, drinking, this.
( / she paces, antsy. the good(?) kind, fingers not exactly shaking, the rest of her body prepared to feel a high that’s to come ) first of all, you’ll know not to call it the roarin’ 50s. ( / not that a bruise would be left on rhys’ arm if she were to hit him for even thinking it. she glances at lifeboat, then at margot next, rhys last. clasps her hands together as she finally stands still in front of said time machine, tilting her head, letting out a sigh ) we’re not getting on this until i stop feeling this rush all by myself.
RHYS
[ > he leans against one of the steel pillars keeping their little hideaway from collapsing on itself, arms crossed. machinery isn't unfamiliar to him. in fact, he'd been introduced to many a contraption in the military that he had learned the mechanics of, but this one...there's something he inherently distrusts about it all, even if connor-freaking-mason says it will timetravel them. ] weren't the 20s the decade that roared? [ > pushing off, he walks closer, standing a bit behind bom, still. a good soldier trusts his higher ups, so - ] well, chief - wanna tell me something that's taboo to do in the 50s, so i don't commit a faux pas? [ > to his right, margot. ] you good, captain?
MARGOT
( / the key—or "goober" as she affectionately calls it—is deep inside her hoodie pockets—a card chip about as thin as a nail, but with enough processing power to put the highest OS on the market to bust. a little too wired to be on the blueprint for the next line of PCs, so why not just leave it on the backburner for the next best thing? ) ( / somehow next best thing is code for a state of the art time machine, but it's connor. it's 0-100 a mile a minute whenever he's involved. getting Bookworm Babe and Army Adonis up in here is just another way to push the limit. ) yeah. real peachy. ( / even if her semi-pinched expression might say otherwise—blame it on the "what the hell" thought that loops through her head for the umpteenth time ) ( / pushes herself off the beat-up sofa to stand next to bom as well, give the Lifeboat a once-over ) we'll have it easier than Bill and Ted if that'll help with the nerves. trip-wise.
RHYS
[ > the side of his lip pulls down and out, and he watches both of their backs carefully. always been terrible at faces, which is why he pays close attention to their mannerisms, instead. ] [ > not that he's been given all that long to get to know them...agent christopher moved fast, connor mason moved faster, and he's not sure that he's ever seen anyone with as much anxious energy as margot. ] i don't understand that reference. [ > or someone vibrating such terribly contained excitement as bom. ] the excitement is endearing. hell, i’d be feeling the same way if i were in your shoes. [ > but he's not. the only shoes he's in are his own, and though he doesn't think he'll need to fight tooth or nail in 1950s hollywood, his first mistake would be to completely let down his guard. ] now is there a special way to climb into this thing or should i just run, jump, and hope for the best?
BOM
( / nudges margot’s shoulder gently with the push of her palm, pointing her finger at her soon after. i got that reference, she mouths, nerves simultaneously eased just thinking of the comparison point indeed. )
how curt. ( / has her head turned back towards lifeboat, smiling tightlipped, choosing not to look back at him right away in case he really is being sarcastic after all. she spares margot a glance once more, sneaking another one that lasts a little longer in the same breath. ) also, i’m sure whatever “bad” flies now will definitely fly like it’s nothing there. ( / purses her lips in thought, squinting at the sight of the door ) get ready to be mistaken as siblings, spoken down to like we don’t speak the damn language, all that jazz.
MARGOT
( / a flash of exasperation across her features, half thank you and half can you believe this guy? ) ( / really, it's not that serious, but that's between her and bom ) ( / out loud and with a dismissive wave: ) no need. ( / delivers the side of the lifeboat a good kick, which triggers the stairs to fold out. something that should be automatic, but that's just one last minute discovery bug in the design to work through once they return. priorities. ) ( / she does the honors of climbing into the lifeboat first, goober in hand to slide it in as you would with coins into a slot machine and jackpot: baby blinks to life, lights and circuitry flickering on as they should. it's always easier to breathe when you're in your element. ) speaking of jazz, there's never a bad time for some mood music. ( / kidding! unless...? )
BOM
( / if overthinking is as much of rhys’ thing as it is her own, they’re definitely in for a ride. she follows suit, taking him as a ladies first type of guy. something about him... ) ( / when she’s inside with margot, the time and space between just the two of them alone brief, bom is quiet enough for him to not hear from outside. ) do you think he knows jack about that, too?
MARGOT
( / she matches her in volume ) we'll find out. ( / if not now then eventually, what with the way this "mission" has them buckled up for a ride and a half. nothing like shared history to bring people together—literally ) ( / grins and it's a full show of teeth ) but that's what you're here for if he doesn't, doc. ( / fingers dance over the dashboard, thinking to take the opportunity by the horns before he gets on board ) i'm down for taking bets if you are.
BOM
( / the hairs on the back of her neck rise when she catches glimpse of margot’s smile, eyes shifting literally anywhere else for a second before flitting over to “check on” rhys ) depends on what your idea of one is. ( / for this round anyway )
RHYS
[ > he sees the professor and their pilot climb into the lifeboat out of his peripherals. he gives agent christopher a small, relaxed salute. it's really just the hand motion, and his commander would roll over in his grave if he saw, but it's been a few since his time in the service anyways. but also - fuck him ] i may be older the both of you, but my hearing isn't that bad. [ > he sits on the little space between in and out, half of his body slung in and the other half needing a second longer. ] 'course i know jazz - played in jazz band in high school. saxophone. [ > ant then, he slings his body in, watching as the door closes behind him. ] [ > there's a look of wonder of his face but he doesn't care. eyes passing over everything on the inside, he whistles a tone, somewhere between an f and a g. ] never would i have thought i'd be here, with you two. [ > an honest smile, directed at the two he's sharing a space with. it feels weird - but this isn't an alpha-male, guard your emotions-type of shit. his therapist had helped him work through a lot of that, so he's trying to be mindful, and not fall back into that. baby steps. ] just a retired soldier getting called back into some type of service, for something i know nothing about. i'll be relying on you both quite a bit, but know that you can rely on me for anything. [ > camaraderie is a slow build of shared experiences, earned trust, and developed loyalty - but it always starts somewhere. ] i'll always do my best for you both, i promise.
MARGOT
only by what, two years? ( / well color her surprised. guess what they say about first impressions are true, after all. sweet, and a band kid to boot? huh! ) still, my mistake. ( / margot's eyes slide over to bom anyway in unspoken mischief. maybe this deal's off the table, but for next time, count her in. ) ( / the machine hums electric beneath her hands, steady like a pulse, yet it feels like she's standing on the edge of a cliff ) ( / freefall has never felt so new, so real. ) and likewise. ( / her attention turns to the screen ) can't promise much other than a smooth ride to and fro, but it's a decent start. ( / back to the other two. ) y'all ready for this thing?
BOM
( / is "too sweet" a thing? something tells bom rhys will never get there, this equal parts comforting and cause for curiosity more than concern. margot's a treat in another way, probably has been as cool as she is since the second grade. with all three of them on board for dixieland alone, the uneasy feeling in her stomach lessens just a bit. ) ( / she hopes she can promise even half of what the other two have the offer in her own way, holding on for the ride, as snug as can be. her turf's moments away. ) if you are.
RHYS
as much as i'll ever be [ > he's impressed by the confidence in which margot navigates through the immensely complicated looking control panel, and he feels a little more relaxed by it in response. ] [ > a process keeps him sane, it keeps him focused. so when he feels like his soul is getting tugged out through his navel and shoved back into his head through his eyeballs, rhys tries to center himself by running through the facts of their mission: rittenhouse - big bad. more surveillance and scouting than actual engagement, but it never hurts to be prepared - ] [ > now, he just wants someone to confirm: holy shit, did they actually just time travel? ] that is the strangest sensation i have ever experienced in my life.
Jihoon hasn’t twitched in the slightest since they’ve started. “I haven’t hit the record button yet.”
Oh. Word? “Mother fuck -”
[ BEEP ]
“White boy filming, white boy filming, black boy rapping, black man -”
“Hey, shut the fuck up.” He swings the camera down, pairs of feet unknowingly on screen. Jihoon waves one hand, his head shaking along with it. “That’s not how we’re trying to be, dude.”
“You uh, want me to call you yellow or some shit?”
“Do I look white to you, genius?”
“Well I mean -”
“Tsk.” He lifts his camera up. “I’m just fucking with you.” They’re outside for the sun; half of them need it anyways.
Some more than others.
[ BEEP ]
50 KIBUMS WILL BE CHOSEN AT RANDOM
“Does this app look okay?”
“Put a FMK question. I wanna see if they know what they’re talking about.”
Click, click, click.
[ BEEP ]
——
“June.”
His legs are propped up on a beanbag, back on the floor, ankles crossed. Bedhead sells, coffee breath doesn’t. The mental list goes on and on, a routine thing he has to go through at 12 every afternoon on weekdays. Houses have a stench. Home has five kinds.
The camera is off.
He grabs the nearest bottle of water and pokes a hole into the cap with his pencil. Water streams when he squeezes the plastic, first into his mouth. Next at June’s arm, ankle, crotch. The flow remains at the last, constant for seconds on end until someone that’s not himself makes a peep.
Jihoon presses the red button on the DSLR then. Woozi opens his mouth. “Apply yourself, you fucking hot dog. Be what you eat. Live up to your name.” The water’s almost gone, wasted. Then again, this isn’t California. “Make Gordon Ramsay - well, something.”
JUNE
He reckons that whoever said sleep is only for the weak had no fucking clue how to multitask, because despite being deep into a power nap, the gears way deep inside his brain continue to spin themselves into a fury.
Quarter notes and halves, chords bouncing along the slip-slide of a working bridge. Words hanging on at the edge. Both being something to reach out forㅡeventually. He’s the last person on earth to have patience rivaling that of a saint, but there’s no way he’s pissing himself over this. Not this soon.
Is he?
It’s then that June opens his eyes to the sight of the bottle. Then to the denim of his jeans, damp to the touch.
“Dude.” He looks up, beyond incredulous. For fuck’s sake. “Hop off. I was finally getting somewhere.”
The peak of a Miami summer means humidity takes up more than half of what they’ve got left to breathe in, and the side effects are inescapable. Where even an A.C. on full blast holds little ground against the sheer force of nature that is adolescent lethargy.
He stretches out, arms then limbs, only careful to not knock the bass over. His sight wanders, first to the beady red dot pointed his way, and up to the photos clothespinned by the window, turned so only the back of each strip catches the glare from outside.
“Done already?” And because this is for an audience, he’s back to the camera, smug grin in tow: “Mr. Graphic Design Is My Passion must’ve learned his lesson from last time.”
JIHOON
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Jihoon crushes the bottle with one hand when it’s all empty, tossing it to the nearest trash can. Tossing it to June (play catch with me, asshole) before he gets up completely and zooms in on said guy’s face. “It’s four in the afternoon already.” The specks on aforementioned face do not exist in a way that terrifies, prompting him to want to turn off the camera out of ridiculously necessary admiration. What’s your skincare routine, bitch?
And then this bitch’s smile comes into focus, and so. Well. Fuck.
He closes the monitor and caps the lens with its lid, setting it on the worktable to pick up any following noise the device can but won’t catch. Documenting for commercial purposes ceases here.
Like a child, maybe, Jihoon scoffs in amusement at the sight of the dampened fabric on June’s person. Wonders if sitting down on an actual chair will distract from the fact that he may as well be considered one. Reality chooses to let the idea starve, the heels and balls of his feet alternating on stained carpet every now and then as he stands and rocks in place. In a peaceable silence, hands in his sweatshirt pocket, eyes nowhere. Mind on what happens during four in the afternoon, and after, and the next instance two weeks from this one.
It’s a good hour, this one. The sun’s perfect every time, whether daylight savings is in tow or not.
He finds his lips are pursed together when he stops thinking, unsure for almost a second that that’s what he was doing at all. Finds that they’re almost curved upwards. Hates it. And so he looks up. They’re at eye level this way, strife a stranger unwelcome in such a proximity.
But he’s not looking at him. Because this isn’t for an audience, and smug grins aren’t actually supposed to do more damage than good. They shouldn’t. Some bullshit like that. This is why you make the beats and not the lyrics, you fuckass.
(But yeah, you are.)
“Let’s… go eat,” Jihoon musters. Snaps out of it, finally. Call it an L, but it’s a lot better than dreaming to the point of being rendered speechless after you’ve seen what you’ve seen. To be fair he hadn’t been looking for too long anyways.
But he looked. And the camera doesn’t always catch everything, sure, but that’s the point sometimes. He’ll sit on this until he dies. Longsuffering doesn’t seem so bad in theory if there’s a reason or two for it all. This cursed joke of a manly vessel will know by the time he takes his last breath.
(Get a move on, genius.)
“Breakfast,” he clarifies at the door before heading out.
It’s left open.
JUNE
“Wait. Really?” Smug to stunned, by the flip of a card. Even his moods arrive dichotomouslyㅡsome two-for-one special that no one had asked for. But Jihoon’s single-handed exasperation? Worth every penny. It’s what’s held the group together for this long: collaboration, companionship, and the constant need to impress.
However that last one gets done.
June stays put, as if the weight of all that time continues to hold him down. The ghost of it. The landlord had mentioned this place hosting a couple of those. In the attic, guest bedroom closet. (Insert joke here. You know the one.) If that’s something to believe in, then by now he’s positive they’ve been long driven out. Bells and whistles at full volume is the first trick. An obnoxious gathering of creatives the second.
But that’s only by night. Still-dissolving heat is hard to work with, so they’ve slowed their pace. Tuned to a lower frequency. Down the hall there’s the sound of a cough. Low murmuring. The muffled hum of a synth. Silence hasn’t been heard of in months. Or they’ve just learned to live without it. Perspective can be tricky that way. Inconclusive. Fuzzy.
Motion, for what it’s worth, isn’t any of these things.
With every shift, it’s marked all too vividly. Heel, toe. Press of the carpet. Crescent of a smile. Faltering, flattened, by the sweep of a hand. Reasons not to turn away, maybe. Not ever? Not yet.
Slowly, June follows suit, stepping over the bottle as he trails after him.
The nook is starting to resemble a garbage dump by the day, but the greasy McDonald’s bag is spotted in an instant. Nice. In the wake of a looming deadline, you can’t be too picky.
“The lyrics should be done by tonight. Recording by tomorrow.” He flops down on the couch, burger in one hand, passing the bag over with the other. To think they’ve been in a position similar this one so many times. To think it used to be familiar.
But that’s not his thing, is it? Thinking, that is. Thinking like that.
“After that we’ll have…what.” A pause to take count.
“Two more songs?”
The light at the end of the tunnel just got brighter.
“Crazy.”
JIHOON
Yeah? (Re: an eyebrow raise. Unaffected, and not just seemingly so.)
Okay. (His hand knowingly shuffling into the greasy McDonald’s bag, him wishing napkins and oil weren’t the only thing left in there for real. Less for him either way, huh. Who the hell took the…)
OK, O.K., okay. (Sinking into the back of the couch with you.) Alright. (Coming back up, resting his elbows on his knees.) A good kind of crazy, yeah?
(A pause that punctuates the one he’d just had.) Really…
Jihoon runs his hand through his hair, tongue prodding the inside of his cheek. Clasps his hands together in the space between his thighs, toes digging into the carpet, heels lifted up and away. Bottom teeth tucking his upper lip, that smack of saliva and gut that sounds different to yourself than it does to anyone else who is not you. Focusing on these moments a breath and a blink too long, the balls of his feet debating between molding into the stained material just below his nerves or being forgotten completely when he mutters, “I want it to be.”
Phew. This sound except it’s more of a whistle, almost silent, prolonged. His tongue sticks out between his lips, licking a curved stripe from one corner to the other. Bitch idiot who made the run to Mickey D’s forgot the damn iced tea, coffee, milk, anything. Bitch idiot is sitting right next to you, miserable. Sandwich-free, with a guy eating his free sandwich. A friend. His biggest who, what, when, where, why, and how in the moment, having fewer words to say out loud at a time than this standalone sequence. The air feels pregnant, and giving how much his stomach’s been dropping with every passing second, God? He might as well be, too. But you already know that’s a funny way of thinking.
Whew.(!) Crazy.
And not the good kind.
“You don’t think that’s a bit much?” Can we be on the same page? Vague hand gestures. His l*ve language, for and at anyone worth flinching in place. “Producing fifteen tracks and passing it off as a mixtape…” is crazy, and so are you if I don’t get to make this point out loud. Are you with me? “Extended play, whatever.” Jihoon’s face is sandwiched by his hands, the tip of his tongue resting on his teeth, nothing more resting on the former.
You don’t have to be.
JUNE
Apparently he’s not the only transparent one in the room. (But no one ever is, don’t you know?) An expansive vocabulary would’ve lent him with the right word to pin it down: subdued. Dude’s real subtle, does it so well that it could work wonders as a party trick had they had a place to perform it. June, as clever as he thinks he is, knows too little and feels too much to not involve any of those three words, offering nothing more but a resounding “Huh” and the slump of his shoulders.
If anyone asks what he could be huffing and puffing at, it’s safe to say that even God himself hasn’t a damn clue. His lungs need air, so he takes it in. Breathes it out extra loud for the sake of performative exasperation. Being obviously aware of details that shouldn’t matter has never done anyone good in the long run. Not when they do nothing more but set your imagination forward that far.
“Wonder where the water could’ve come in handy, Hoon.” Complete with a knowing, tight-lipped smile for the full effect. Still, he reaches over the arm of the couch and rummaging around, finds an opened box of Capri-Suns. “Sugar’s just as good.” It’s a reversal of his ways that only lasts for the second it matters: knowing too much, feeling too little.
June doesn’t say anything else in the meantime. Jihoon’s question is the same one that’s made its way through all of their heads at one point, rhetorical or otherwise. His way of dealing with it has been to not to. At all.
"I don’t think that’s our call.” Twitter and Soundcloud people would take care of that for them, but it’s just as likely that he’s getting ahead of himself.
I’m with you, either way.
Backtracking: “We could’ve gone and made it twenty-five?” He furrows his brows, like he’s trying to find the point of what he’d just said too. So it’s one step backwards to his earlier sentiment, because it’s honest, but adds this time: “It’s your call though.”
Right. As always. But considering the size of Ryan’s ego, it’s a sentiment neither one will voice out loud.
He presses the receiver closer to his ear. “You forgot genius.” Genius, it is. Taking the concept of an interlude and turning it on its head. Ridiculous, it is. Intrusive. Sappy. Corny. Coming back around in full circle here, aren’t we?
‘Thursday, 5:15 P.M.’
It’s merely out of a bad habit that he hasn’t deleted a single item from his inbox. Reminders from practice, awkward, open-mouthed breathing before the hang-up, old love calls, new last-minute confessions from exes, whatever the sort. A bad habit that’s proved to be useful, nonetheless.
Outside, it’s yet to stop raining. Daffodils planted in the windowbox quiver, then bend under the weight of the rain. Downpour for what seems like hours. Hours to kill.
‘Long time no see.’
Tuesday
3:00 A.M. on the dot, and his thoughts continue to swim, part day-ghosts, part caffeine-spiked, sleep-deprived hallucinations that slip through the dark. No amount of oxygen intake can alleviate the lightheadedness, but by now it’s a familiar state.
Tucked deep into the corner of the room, the computer monitor is the only source of light, but his eyes droop to the bottle in front of him. Classic lemon lime, but cast under the eerie white glow, it looks more like radioactive piss than Gatorade. Sick.
A familiar shadow slips through and in, out. Quiet through the nose. Then: “We can pitch up this one.” He highlights just exactly where with a click of the mouse, yellow green.
June picks up his head. From this point of view, he only gets a slice of Jihoon’s silhouette.
“Well good fucking morning to you too.”
A second ago
Standing behind the van that’s packed to the brim, the engine rumbling in wait. In Woozi’s hands is the signature “CAUTION” sign that they’ve made a ceremonious gesture out of to stick it on the front door of their residence. Being torn between want and wanting is something that never seems to go away, even with the days that they feel like they’ve got it all. Mind deep in drought-stricken, star-studded California, sneakers planted on the baked driveway in front of a place that’s become home. Here and there, permanence found in neither space.
“You ready to go?”
There’s that pause, so familiar that it feels timed. In all fairness, with the likes of them, there’s no real way to ever know.
“Come on.”
Three weeks later
Real breakfast, for a change. Poached eggs, pulpy orange slices, diner booth bound with their second refills. In between bites of food and bleary-eyed refrain, they route and reroute the roads left to pass. Their point of destination is the farthest thing from a slow show. But then there’s the potential danger in a burnout. Mixtapes back to back to back hadn’t left enough room for so much as a blink of sleep, so it’s an opportunity.Temporary reprieve is better than none, even if it’s done in rotation between being in every other seat of the Camry and being at the wheel.
According to the GPS, it’s another two hundred and thirty one mile stretch. By now almost everyone had done their share of the driving. Almost.
This is when June feels a nudge at his elbow. Then foot. He catches Woozi’s eye faster than he can look away.
“June.” Only a syllable in and his name is already substitute for a demand. And again: “June.”
“I know.” A sigh. “I know.”
2016
NOW PLAYING: TRACK FOUR, FROM BLONDE.
“…Wait a minute. Fucking—”
“He beat us to it.”
“Ryan you goddamn moron.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”
Two summers prior
Almost is a fleeting concept. Continuously tip-toeing, hovering, shy from being solid. Distance as another face of emotion.
Lazing in the full swell of the heat on the front steps of their apartment has rendered them catlike, both in the lethargy and the sprout of whiskers.
“You need to fucking shave, Jose.”
It’s a new look prompts huffs of dry laughter all around, June’s own a wisp of its characteristic boom. Head propped up by his arm, his eyes blink slow, lidded heavy from the spell of the warm weather and the honeyed lemonade from that afternoon. Jihoon is perched a step above his own.
There’s a scoff, more disbelief than anything. “Bleach again?” June feels his fingers rake through his hair, which probably feels like grabbing fistfuls of straw. Pretty hurts, so they say.
Jihoon lets go, hands back in his lap. “You’re gonna go bald by the time you’re 25.”
There should be a follow up here. Something sardonic, a kick start to their typical slew of banter but then the sun finds the sweet spot over the staircase. Light hits the curve of his cheekbones, illuminates his side-profile, the parted ‘o’ of his mouth kissed bright gold. Saturated teen dream, one that makes June hold his breath and say nothing more other than a careful Yeah.
So last summer hasn’t been flushed out of his system, for what little promise it’s been worth. Almost, a face of a season that comes and goes. Like this not-so-long-lost feeling.
She has hours, what feels like forever or whatever the kids say. And this, on her person, isn’t a status check. At least not one for the boys. She runs through the five W’s in her head for the thirty-seventh time that evening: why, why, why, why, and oh god, why is this happening? If her breath is hitching in the midst of the dingy lighting and the drydown, it’s only because she’d undercalculated exactly how she could’ve shimmied out with the rest of them. But hey, he did ask for a minute anyway.
Gyeoul sucks in a breath for composure. She isn’t ready, but they’re already here. So be it. None of her thoughts are spoken out loud, nestled under her wing as she racks her brain for a necessary pause. In what though, this silence? The subject matter? “What are we talking about again?” she feigns, avoiding his gaze in favor of nothing, clipboard tucked over her stomach under sleeves rolled up at the ends, chin neither dipped nor poised.
SUNGWOO
There's something admirable about how she looks to be the last person to ever come undone. Even now, in between a pause and a thought he has no claim to, it's an outcome that has ceased to exist from the start. But that's expected. Maybe it's just how he wants it too.
He folds his arms. "The stream." His words fall light, casual, as if the topic holds the same weight as a question about the weather. As if a couple nights ago it hadn't been a case of a dangerously slippery slope.
Truth be told, it'd only been a matter of minute details: the delicate cut of a collarbone, the single mole on the neck, familiar in a way that'd brought a profound blur of deja vu before the silk-slip reveal of all else. But god, it sounds contrived even to his own ears.
"If it's any assurance, it's not going anywhere beyond that. With anyone."
GYEOUL
The slip of a smile at that is cruel, the smile not even being subtle even moreso. It’s quick to drop, however, tongue in cheek when she turns away and pretends to pick something off her sweater, eyes lingering in the direction towards the exit, her feet one step ahead of them. “as long as you’re not assuming that makes you a hero, Sungwoo.” The clipboard is tucked at her right hip, fingers still gripped on the ledge, lax. “it pays the bills.” She raises it, a flash of inventory in midair, her back still turned towards him. “I’m here for fun.” Some kind of sport, standing there and doing the mental gymnastics of just how capable these guys are to make it past semis, regionals just to have a taste knowing what it’s like to be close to nationals. That isn’t even the hard part of it all. She just wishes that were the point.
Oh well, huh? Not like she can ask him to forget. Reverse psychology would just make it weirder than it has to be, what with saying it’s fine if he does remember. It isn’t. But it also isn’t not.
She sniffles, arm dropping to her side again as she turns her head to face him, eyes trained on the air around him. It’s earnest. He could overdo it if he wanted to, as with just about everything else he does, but this time he doesn’t. Dare you actually think about that at home later tonight. She likes to separate work from... Well, whatever this is. “Too much free time on your hands for you to snoop around the outskirts of the web like that, hm?” She redirects her gaze at the net, this a mere glance before she turns around in full to hand him the keys to the gym. Gyeoul resumes her way out, alone.
“Work on your form.”
Sungwoo knowing about anything that goes on past these double doors in her life would only actually be mortifying if he still had a curfew.
SUNGWOO
Fickle, he thinks, though it's more observational in intent than it is straight up judgement. The offhand comment, however, prompts a raised brow. Putting on a show has its merits, no doubt, but there's little about this that's performative.
Surely she of all people would know.
"I get it." maybe not in the way that's remotely empathetic, but there's an inkling that anything involving pathos would be the last thing she cares for. It goes both ways, but that's not news to the either of them, is it now?
Between everything spoken, he fills in the spaces with what he's meant to see: where her eyes deliberately miss the mark, while his own stay on target. The lack of directness says enough; enough so that he doesn't press on.
Without much consideration: "Maybe," Sungwoo offers up easily, an opportunity for another jab from hers truly, to call the shots, or none of the above. "Not on purpose, though."
Tthe keys are caught with an open palm. For a moment, he does nothing, gaze trailing after her form, lanyard twisting over his fingers until it's just the wide space of gym, the net, and residual lingering.
Half under his breath, half not, and wholly meant for no one: "Can't say anything bad about yours."
