TALK TALK

gimme just a little bit (more) little bit of (excess)

[versionloop]

heyyy howdy it's erika (s/h, 21+) this time with girlboss coder extraordinaire (debatable) miss shinohara reiko, filling in for the the disaster prodigy label. although as you'll see below, tipping much more into disaster than prodigy atm. you know how it goes — give this a like if you'd like to plot and i’ll make my way into your dms ♡ dc also available upon request!

QUICK FACTS

shinohara reiko, 22, 3rd year ui/ux design + compsci minor, staying at nuri hall. running on iced americanos, delusion, and 32 open tabs

from shizuoka → seoul on a scholarship that said "high potential". she took that personally.

only child to a couple of illustrators! enjoyed the aesthetics side of things (it’s in the bloodline, after all) but stumbled upon scratch one day and never looked back. started with animations, by middle school she was automating her homework and rewriting her school’s club website "for fun"

won a hackathon in her first year with seniors who now work for samsung/hyundai/lg/naver with unlimited pto and crazy signing bonuses. meanwhile she’s still here in yeonhwa… trying to fix a matchmaking algorithm that never meant to matchmake.

fullstack prodigy but she's a girlypop who ultimately chose frontend bc what are apps if they're not fun and pleasant to look at ✨ (we are shallow creatures after all…)

will hoard a sweet corn booth for 6 hours. will fight you if you unplug her charger. if you see her crying over figma, no you didn’t.

TALKTALK / 톡톡

yes, it’s a pun. talk talk meets knock knock meets 똑똑 (smart). she’s insufferable and she knows it

concept: connect local + intl students via language exchange. reality: launched like tinder, not duolingo. status: sunsetted. still cited in girls in tech korea panels.

said app that made her team win a hackathon during her first year, read more about the app here

campus backed them to prototype. they soft launched. people started using it in all ways but intended. catfishing, flirting, fake profiles... you name it

currently rebuilding it quietly as a v2.0 (safer, smarter, cuter!) while pretending it’s not a soft spot. doesn’t want to be a one-hit wonder. but also doesn’t want people to forget it was her.

(sidenote: also has a notes app full of new app ideas she’ll probably never build. it’s fine. she’s fine)

PERSONALITY & MANNERISMS

bc obvi u can read someone based on their birthchart.. scorpio sun, aquarius moon, capri rising (read: crashouts at least once a week)

heavy on the mbti!!!! intj architect queen 😎 altho on the cusp of t/f.. stoic until someone compliments her ui then it's OVER

once said "this button feels emotionally dishonest" in a team meeting and meant it. very matter of fact when speaking. will fight u with logic and pick out all the loopholes in your argument

swears she’s logical and pragmatic but panic buys multiple shades of fwee pudding pots when stressed

still gets drained by people but loves humans enough to build for them. makes excuses to leave the room, but also wants you to chase her down the hallway for advice

score oriented. gamifies everything. wears an oura ring to track her sleep schedule and gets pissy when her sleep score drops from 90 to 63 over two days (she insisted on finishing a design.. one more page.. it’s 4am.)

overcommits like it’s a sport. signs up for everything, helps everyone, picks up side projects she never finishes — not because she has time, but because it’s easier to be busy than to admit she’s stuck. gets praised for being productive. dog on fire meme in the inside

terrible posture. insists on using her osoi tote bag to carry her laptop + charger + headphones (still among other things...)

plotting-wise, i'm a huge brainstormer so more than happy to talk through whatever suits our muses best!! to get us started, i have a non-exhaustive potential plots page here — but feel free to share any and all ideas you have outside of these bc i'm all ears ♡

[stagedown]

red lights, dark rooms present, photography club - after yeonchella written for shinohara reiko (@versionloop)

agatha sits in the student government's meeting room. like always, she sat at the head of the table as if still commanding the now empty space. while the rest had already gone to enjoy their summer break, agatha's presence occupies the room as she stares down at her laptop, an email from the university's board of directors opened, read, yet unanswered.

what should've been an automatic and seamless assembly line of work to publish this year's yeonchella photos, the board suddenly decides that they want to showcase the photo physically because everything about yeonhwa needs to be grand.

she sighs, a heavy one at that, because not only did these old men change their mind at the last minute, they also requested for this to be done as soon as possible (meaning at the end of the week) and agatha's outline for how the rest of her week will pan out slowly crumbles.

she could ask sungmin, he's in the photography club, but he might already be busy and the ask is too last minute. what luck might she have if she visits their club room now?

shutting down her laptop, she slips it in her bag and heads to the club room anyways, hoping that she might find someone that would be able to help her. she reaches the room a few minutes later and knocks twice before opening the door, she peeks her head inside, wondering if anyone would still be here. what she didn't expect is to come face to face with reiko and she swears she saw flashbacks from days ago both good and bad.

"hey." she tries, stepping into the room slowly, she didn't bother introducing herself because she knows reiko and she's sure reiko knows her too. "i'm here to ask for a favour. do you have some time?"

[versionloop]

fragments of the nuri hall afterparty play inside her head like a glitchy, simmering vhs supercut: jumbled, out of order, unsure which scenes belonged to memory and which to wishful distortion: a slurred conversation with someone she's convinced was jeong hwaryun's evil twin trying to salt his reputation, the bass pounding behind wang shiyu's ever so knowing grin, the faint, sweet taste of jang minjae's lips against hers. but somehow, what sticks in the marrow is the strange, unshakable realisation that agatha zhou, too, was human.

reiko had always seen agatha from the surface. in their overlapping circles and brief intersections, it was her only vantage point to do so. pretty in a way that seemed almost weaponised, with that demure tilt of the head that made people think they knew her. shinohara reiko had the eye to peel the gloss from a smile, to see the cracks beneath the lacquer. though it felt unkind to judge on that alone, so maybe, just maybe, there's always been a quiet intuition that she wasn't all that different. not like her, but not so separate either.

nuri hall had gone a long way toward proving it.

she's lost in the slow drag of loading photos off her digicam, fingers hovering, scrolling through frames soaked in the neon glow of yeonchella. the memories bleed through like double exposure: laughter pressed against her ear, the sticky warmth of someone's ring-clad hand in hers — until the present interrupts. the knock on the door cuts through the quiet, sharp and unexpected, and reiko glances over her shoulder before turning back, schooling her lips into a smile.

"depends," she finally responds, brow arched in lazy challenge. "did your secretary send you here?" ahn sungha's name doesn't pass her lips, but the implication is sharp enough. she leans back in her chair, one foot hooked over the rung. "if he did, tell him to book something into my google calendar. he knows my school email."

a pause, the realisation sliding in that maybe she'd let the words cut a bit too deep. a tilt of the mouth into something almost kind. maybe she'll let agatha try again. "otherwise, buy me a cream bread and maybe i'll consider. i charge by the hour."

[lxckystrike]

contrary to his aversion to them in an academic setting, jinyoung does believe in numbers. like anyone remotely involved in modern sports, he’s aware of ‘moneyball’ and the broader applications of sports analytics — VORP, WAR, xG, xA, insert any combination of alphabet letters here — and figures there must be some modicum of truth to them. that being said, he has his qualms about their applicability in football in particular. perhaps he’s some sort of purist, romantic, or straight up just dense about this; but he just doesn’t think his sport is akin to something like baseball where roles and outcomes are so much more narrowly defined. there’s an element of fluidity, dynamism, and spontaneity that he believes renders all these stats and figures irrelevant in the heat of the match.

what they’re doing now isn’t exactly related to that. less in-game statistics, and more targeted to the actual human body and concrete metrics on performance and recovery. and while he still has his doubts, he frankly has had such a vicious and toxic history with his own body and injuries, that he’s willing to give whatever this mysterious contraption is a brief moment to prove its value. maybe finally something could tell him what the fuck is wrong with him and how he might be able to fix it.

except these types of issues are not the ones he’s expecting to hear about, even though he realizes she’s just messing with him. he has no clue what she’s really saying about his measurements (like what exactly is an HRV, and why does it sound like some sort of disease?), but doesn’t know if he’s ever been roasted so… quantitatively before. it’s strangely insulting, but at least fresh.

“oh, i see,” he exclaims, as if he’s been enlightened by the second coming of buddha, who happens to take the form of a twenty-something year old japanese girl reading off a tablet. “so your data is suggesting that i’m a ‘statistical outlier’ of a headcase?” he asks as if it’s the first time he’s been accused of such a thing; it quite clearly is not. “but did you really need all this data to figure that out? next time, just ask.” in a paradoxical way, he can sometimes be his own biggest hater.

“maybe it’s your device that’s off. why would i be overstimulated? it’s just fifteen pushups. and i’m not allergic to all feedback… maybe try giving me positive feedback for a change,” he says with a haughty grin.

he’s not always this talkative. but the rules of the game right now are such that he needs to squeeze in all of his quips, grumblings, and retorts into a few seconds at a time, which really is like a game of tetris on extra hard mode given the velocity at which such things fill his mind.

“yes m’aam,” he mutters to himself before obliging — fifteen squats this time. technically, he loses count in the process, but figures he’s done enough reps, somewhere in the ballpark of fifteen, and she doesn’t seem to correct him. a few more seconds of excruciating silence before he has to burst at the seams to complain.

“so what’s next? can you read off my mbti prognosis? personal color works too. ive always wanted to know that.”

[versionloop]

there's a light, clinical satisfaction in watching him work. not the kind his teammates might feel tracking power and form, but the way her mind ticks through columns of numbers, the neat swell of data points she'll feed into the algorithm later. his pace variations, recovery time, the subtle drop in output after that one weekend he swore he didn't drink — all of it another sliver of behavioural texture. she's not just keeping him around for the hours logged, though admittedly those pad her grant reports to hopeful investors.

reiko keeps him because his patterns force her algorithm to adapt. he's a perfect anomaly: too unpredictable to be useless, too consistent to discard.

"funny," she acknowledges without looking up, "for someone who doesn’t believe in numbers, you sure have a knack for supplying me with interesting ones." the tablet hums under her thumb, data points cascading like rain. "and yes," she adds, glancing at him over the rim of the device, "i did need all this data to call you a statistical outlier of a headcase. otherwise it's just baseless slander. now it's science."

she scrolls through the latest set. "huh," a low whistle slipping out, as if it's a casual observation and not the closest she's come to sounding impressed all afternoon.

he's still catching his breath from the squats, but the recovery line is already bending back toward baseline faster than it should. most testers flatten into predictable curves after a couple of weeks, jinyoung throws the model off every other set. too quick on the rebound, too stubborn to flag the prompts, too willing to push past the point where her code says a human should stop.

her mouth curves into a sly grin. "captain yoon jinyoung, everyone. yeonhwa's pride and joy." she slips into a quick fangirl voice, hand pressed to her chest in mock reverence. the act cracks with a twitch of her mouth. "seriously, numbers are clean. fastest rebound from all your historical second sets since we started. let's see if we can maintain this for the remaining ones."

she strolls over to the equipment rack, snags a resistance band, and flicks it his way. it arcs just beyond his fingertips, dares him to catch it before it reaches the ground. "don't let it get into your head. your fan club would riot if you got complacent. when's the next pep rally anyway? think you'd let me claim a signed jersey? clearly, i'm a huge fan." there's a glint in her eye, sharp and deliberate, the kind that says she knows him well enough to bet he'll snap back — and he does, every single time.

his jab only sharpens her amusement that it tightens her lips into a smirk, the kind reserved for yoon jinyoung when he thinks he's being clever. "god, don't get me started with personal colour. i've had a wireframe in my backlog for ages." she lets the confession hang just long enough to register before clipping it off with a tilt of her head, stepping closer. "does that mean you're down for another round of testing? if you wanted to spend more time with me, you could've just said so." jerking her chin toward the taped-off space near the wall, she nods again, "banded lateral shuffles. twenty each way. clean steps, no cheating."

her gaze hooks his for a beat before she steps back, tablet ready. and like a slip of honesty she didn't quite mean, or maybe just to see how it lands, the words escape her almost sincerely, "good work." the faintest upturn at the corner of her mouth lingers, a quiet nod to his earlier plea. then she waits, watching for the exact moment the numbers confirm what she already knows — that the promise of one more rare, reluctant approval will make him push harder than he needs to.

[entropicue]

"None of what you just said were real words, so you know." Shiyu points out, putting as much effort as she needs into keeping her expression from screwing up completely at the mention. Has to point it out though, for posterity.

Instead her eyes narrow in jest consideration, drawn out hum like she's not well pleased that the food is edible, let alone to anyone else's palate but her own. Not that she usually strikes out on a stir fry, but more that she cooks off of feel rather than confine herself to measurements off of some recipe page. To absolutely nobody's surprise.

"It's kind of not meant to have it at all." Shiyu concedes, lowering the pan onto a coaster on the counter. It's particularly weighty at a low angle, a little unwieldy. "Sichuan pepper oil is the traditional option, and there's like four chilis in there somewhere." With seeds, she doesn't warn. Simply tips the pan to one side by the handle and watches the ingredients tumble back, forth, and the oil sputtering angrily from the disturbance. "It's still a little firey, I think."

She'll take a surprisingly pleasant amount of gochugaru over the alternative, that much is true. Remains to be seen how it plays at room temperature. For now there's nothing to do but wait for thermodynamics to do its part. Shiyu leans with her back to the counter, bends her arms before she lifts up to perch on top of it. Legs crossed next to the wok, elbow resting on her knee, cheek in an open palm.

In the background, Justin Timberlake picks up on the third verse of Give It To Me. The 2007 Shock Value album on shuffle, only the greatest ever made.

"But hey, they might be looking for both. Study buddies in abundance, but people with single housing, well—" Shiyu circles back, regarding Reiko with brows ticked up, a little suggestive of something entirely unfounded. "And you're completely noble in all these interactions, then? Never double back to a profile just in case they turn out to be hot?"

[versionloop]

if she had enough bottles of hot 6ix within her system, reiko might have launched into the usual sermon about user intent and platform misuse — the slippery slope between study buddy exchanges and your kindergarten classmate's awkward pre-tiktok fame selca showing up in some stranger's profile picture.

instead, she's leaned against the counter now, chopsticks balanced between her fingers, letting the spice prickle faintly at the back of her throat with a slow, inevitable burn. the kitchen smells like heat made tangible, all numbing spice and the faint sweetness of something caramelising against metal. "okay, you undersold it. it's definitely got a kick." she hooks another rice cake strip from the pan, careful. oil clings red to its surface, catching in the overhead light. she gives it a perfunctory blow, then bites, just enough to taste without committing to more. "warmer, though. less like my tongue's getting tasered."

she lingers on the taste a moment longer, though it's clearly the question that's been gnawing at her more than the heat. there's a pause, just long enough to make it unclear whether she’s considering the flavour or her answer, before she lets it tip either way. "depends on your definition of noble," reiko draws the words out, like she's feeling for their edges. "if it's late enough and i'm bored enough, maybe i'll give it a look in the name of... firsthand field research. purely for data integrity." her mouth twists, the corner tipping upward in reluctant concession.

"same way some finance bros are half hot. you can't tell if it's the suit factor or the lighting, so the only smart thing to do is clock a double take. either way, the magic's gone the second they show up in a patagonia vest. instant devaluation." she waves her chopsticks once, as if that settles the matter. the gesture is sharp, almost judicial, as if she's just rendered a verdict that will not be appealed.

her free hand then taps idly against the counter, an offbeat to timberlake's smug delivery in the background. it's not that she's fully sold on the pivot — it's a hypothetical she'd only entertain with someone like shiyu anyway, and she's too prideful to rescind all her soapbox speeches and passive aggressive bulletin posts reminding that no, talktalk is not supposed to double as a dating app. "i do have a working algorithm. it would be a shame to let that go to waste," a shrug, deliberate in its laziness, her gaze sliding back toward the pan like hunger's already winning. "but like, capitalising on lonely international students doesn't sound very ethical." her eyes dart quickly towards her friend, a quiet signal that they both should know better. "unless some terms and conditions and a tick box legally absolves me, then...?"

[blvebeary]

even the fiery and exhaustion-inducing sun beating down on her cannot stop the pure glee that courses through her body as she listens to reiko speak. (of course, there’s also annoyance in finding out just how many women get stuck in the trap of a perpetual manchild, but that is another issue.) she resists the urge to giggle, pushing it down, and leaning over to glance at reiko's screen. she hums softly, a sign of appreciation to her friend's hard work piecing together all the connections. though she's not sure it can be heard over the hustle and bustle of the crowd.

moments ago, she had been bored (and tired) out of her mind, searching for something, anything interesting that she could feature on aulait. and now she has what could be a premier story. (in a couple of hours, she'll take this statement back, but for now, seolran feels confident that the situation is juicy enough.) “i’ve seen his ex around, and that’s how i know she’s too good for him. but i don’t know really recognize the new girl.” her gaze flickers back to the pair, eyes squinting as though it would help her get a more thorough look.

she subtly shakes her head, lips twisting downwards into a slight grimace. truly, she wishes for the best for his ex and this new girl whose heart he will most likely break in a couple of weeks. meeting her friend's gaze, she begins to speak, tone repulsed. “you’re right, though. he thinks he’s being strategic, but anyone with working eyes can tell he’s just using her to make his ex jealous.”

she lets out another scoff, discreetly giving the male one final look before turns her nose up at him (literally and figuratively.) “men would rather play with the feelings of other women than take accountability for their mistakes in a relationship. it’s so… just, gross.” she pauses, expression brightening as though she had an amazing idea. “wait… should we try submitting this to aulait?” seolran questions, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear mischievously. (as though she wasn’t the owner behind the account.) “i feel like cha wouldn’t be afraid to put him on blast, and maybe it’ll get this new girl to dump him and convince his ex to not to take him back again.”

[versionloop]

the line moves slow, sticky with heat and sunscreen and the vague scent of tteokbokki drifting from some food stall up ahead. condensation slips down the side of the plastic cup in her left hand, cold enough to leave her fingers damp, while her right scrolls lazily through the phone screen until the tangle of arrows and colour-coded names pops back up. the straw clicks softly against ice as she takes a sip, eyes flicking past the crowd again toward the couple a few heads away. "gross is an understatement," she grimaces, the expression gone as quickly as it comes. "actually, i take it back. calling it strategic is giving him way too much credit, as if he has brains to plan beyond the next thirty seconds."

she isn't sure when her brain decided this was worth the effort. somewhere between the ex's tight smile at the booth and the new girl's anxious fingers adjusting her hair for the fourth time, probably. it was the sort of drama that looked made for the front page: viral bait on a slow day, easy to digest in thirty seconds or less. but reiko had watched enough of these end badly to know the angles were always off. someone ended up branded bitter. or desperate. or both. sometimes they were just blurred into silence, conveniently cropped out of the narrative to make room for a redemption arc he hadn't earned. and the worst part was, it stuck — not because it was true, but because people liked when stories were easy.

"hm, if we send something through," she ponders, slowly, like the suggestion still tastes off in her mouth, "we'll have to make sure we make it all about him. not them. something like... men weaponising ambiguity. or doing that thing where they act like they're already forgiven, so no one calls them out in the first place." she glances at seolran with a look that isn't quite convinced, but the reservation in her voice is contained enough not to puncture her friend's excitement either. "maybe something about how fast he moved on, or how he didn't even wait for the dust to settle before rerunning the same play with someone new."

in the grand scheme of things it's a petty thing, really, but shinohara reiko is stubborn enough to consider it one worth getting right. there's a half-shouted call telling the line to move forward again and her knee-high boots comply, not quite looking at seolran as she adds, "you're better at phrasing it. how should we frame it so both girls get to walk away clean?" a pause. on instinct, she adjusts her grip on the phone, thumb already hovering over the notes app like she’s bracing for dictation. "or at least, not like enemies." she doesn't say it outright, but it thrums beneath the noise, the crowd, and the bass-boosted hum folding together: the consequences of letting the wrong version take root were messier, and harder to undo.

[versionloop]

a look into shinohara reiko’s spotify: august monthly prompt

her latest summer playlist titled my coming of age film, aptly named after her caffeine-induced delusions wondering what it would be like if her life was turned into a coming of age a24 film set across her many summers, preferably directed by celine song or the daniels. her dream cast include yagi rikako as herself, yoon dowoon as whatever his acting chops and budget can muster, and cameos from teo yoo and michelle yeoh playing vaguely symbolic mentor figures.

THE WIRE / HAIM

opening montage. sharp cuts, quick glances. a pile of laundry, a half-eaten kimbap roll, a muted lecture on a laptop screen. she's brushing her teeth while checking her inbox, checking her reflection while checking out. all to the beat of someone leaving, someone staying, and someone becoming.

LAY ALL YOUR LOVE ON ME / ABBA

formative experience of watching mamma mia! (2008) at twelve years old. fast forward ten years later and she's on all fours in the nuri hall rec room, karaoke machine on full blast, fully convinced she's amanda seyfried while reenacting the entire routine with wang shiyu as dominic cooper.

MATSURI / Fujii Kaze + 青と夏 / Mrs. GREEN APPLE + 踊り子 / Vaundy

hot girl japan summer! throwback to 2022 famima runs with her cousins and trudging through cicada season with six umbrellas and three vitamin jelly pouches. soundtracked the walk to the fireworks festival where she lost her left sandal and still got roped into taking group photos for tourists.

BUZZ / NIKI

something about yelling bro, if you like her just go and fucking tell her at the top of the lungs that makes it incredibly cathartic, almost on par with screaming fuck you elon from the nuri hall rooftop at 3am after vscode throws its 15th error and she's one cup of shitty gs25 coffee away from god.

DAYS GONE BY / Day6

headlined her personal highlight reel at the 2024 incheon pentaport rock festival, the first time she saw them live after fulfilling her military wife duties. she was convinced she made eye contact with yoon dowoon during the second chorus but really, he was probably just squinting at the fog machine.

THE CHAIN / Fleetwood Mac

owes her american roommate from language school her entire life for introducing her to rumours. fell into an almost identical will they won't they with someone from the same class not long after, and possibly scared them into transferring to kaist after ghosting them for two weeks and responding to their five-paragraph apology with this exact song. correlation, not causation.

ONLY YOU / The Flying Pickets

grew up sleeping under a wall of takeshi kaneshiro posters: every era and haircut, house of flying daggers (2004) included. rewatched fallen angels (1995) on the plane ride back to incheon after a four-hour delay, soggy tomato pasta, and an existential spiral about what to do post-graduation.

SUPERCUT / Lorde

last golden hour of summer. she's running by the han river, music blasting, wind in her face and salt on her lips. clips flash like film spliced too quickly — shared earbuds, convenience store lights, a glance across a crowded room. it's everything she thought it would be, and not at all.

[lxckystrike]

at first, he hated the idea. to be fair, he hates most ideas; but this one in particular felt like a massive waste of time when he first hears about it. wearable? like sure, if he were trying to count his steps or calories… but then why wouldn’t he just go buy an apple watch or something? and how exactly was some ‘wearable’ going to make him run faster or play better or recover better? his suspicions are only magnified when the very first beta version that gets anonymously delivered to his locker tells him his body age is 69… you couldn’t make this shit up if you tried.

well somehow, jinyoung sticks with the program. not fully by choice, per say. the athletic directors tell him that his participation is ‘strongly encouraged’ (read: ‘please fucking do this’) because of some ‘interdisciplinary initiative’ that the university is pushing, and somehow his team’s social budget is contingent upon it. sounds like a stretch, but whatever.

admittedly, his willingness to participate does increase over time. one, he watches some clip online about haaland ‘biohacking’. two, it’s honestly impressive how these coding wizards tip-tap away on their little laptops and can somehow produce things (setting aside whether these ‘things’ are working or useful to him). and three… he eventually gets to meet the creator in person, and honestly? she was pretty and had a bit of competitive flair, which he appreciated. he was also fully expecting some geeky dude with a chopped haircut, questionable hygiene, and an inability to converse in any language other than ‘computer,’ so yeah — truly a pleasant surprise.

now on the downside, their sessions weren’t all that easy. like sure, in terms of actual physical intensity, they were a walk in the park compared to actual practices and workouts. but something about it made him feel a bit like a lab rat, and his bad case of athlete’s ego makes it feel like his feet are held to the fire as he repeatedly has to do things on command (despite having lived that way almost every day of his life).

it’s as if she’s rubbing salt on that wound when she has to bring up the japan-korea match. a hand goes to his waist as he shoots her a slightly peeved look despite the tight lipped grin on his lips. “yeah, okay. whatever. should’ve placed the bet if you had so much faith in your team.” ‘also it’s because i didn’t play,’ are the words are at the tip of this tongue, but he feels like that’s too much sore loser energy. it’s also what his greatest critics rally around — if he plays, overrated; if he doesn’t, then soft, washed, and injury prone; the new holy trinity) — and he refuses to fuel the fire.

so instead, he has no choice but to drop to the ground. yes, he badly wants to yap, but last time he did that, she made him re-do all the reps because apparently talking too much interferes with your heart rate. and so he shuts his mouth and gives her fifteen before popping up on his feet, eyebrow raised as his eyes flip and forth between her face and the tablet in her hands. after what he decides is an ample amount of silence, he opens his mouth at last. “alright, what earth shattering discovery about the human physiology do you have for me today? more sleep is good for performance? exercise makes the heart rate go up? genius, truly.” he wants to fake clap too, but refrains from the act, as that would definitely fuck up the heart rate metrics.

[versionloop]

"stop moving."

it comes out flat, precise, barely more than breath — but somehow still slices through his theatrics with surgical disdain. her stylus hovers above the screen like a scalpel, paused mid-flick, as the resting heart rate graph stutters into another jagged peak.

"trying to get your baseline," she says candidly, "not record your stand-up debut. wait, do you have that in your portfolio already?"

his heart rate graph jumps again. predictable.

she doesn't bother looking up this time. she already knows the expression he's making. a grin that's part challenge, part adolescent test of boundaries, like a kid prodding a loose tooth just to see if it still hurts. jinyoung had learned early on that she wasn't impressed by titles, and he'd been poking at the fact ever since — not maliciously, or so she'd like to believe, just with the competitive attention span of someone who was used to being taken seriously, even when he wasn't trying. especially then.

their arrangement wasn't official by any means — she wasn't on the payroll, and he wasn't particularly cooperative. but he kept showing up, and so did she. the prototype had started as a heart rate visualiser stitched together from public SDKs and borrowed code, but somewhere between deadlines and feature creep it had grown teeth. now it parsed recovery metrics: blood oxygen, pulse variability, breath cadence — and mapped them to effort spikes, trying to predict optimal load intervals for short bursts.

the idea was to eventually sync it to training plans, flag anomalies before overexertion set in, maybe even identify microfatigue before it landed players on the bench. not revolutionary, but useful. and, in the hands of someone like jinyoung, potentially precise. at least once he stopped talking long enough for her to get a clear read.

"today's finding," she announces, as if delivering actual news, "is that chronic sarcasm increases cortisol levels in test subjects with inflated self-perception, resulting in elevated heart rates and erratic breath cadence. might explain your recovery lag." a pause. she finally lifts her head, brow quirked with just enough distaste to count. "you'd be an excellent case study if you weren't also such a statistical outlier."

she's only half-joking. the data he throws off doesn't map neatly to the rest of her sample set. too conditioned, too irregular, too stubborn. but it's that stubbornness that’s useful — the refusal to coast, even when he's annoyed, even when the whole thing feels beneath him. it's probably why he listens, in his way. why he doesn't argue when she makes him start again from zero.

her gaze returns to the screen. the waveforms steady. finally. "there, still within range. your heart isn’t broken after all." she angles the tablet toward him with a small, pointed tilt. less sharing, more like showing someone the wreckage of their boosted ego. "unlike your pride, presumably." she taps in the next set now, stylus brisk. "your HRV tanked after minute two, mild spike somewhere in the middle. odd pattern, none of the other test subjects respond like that. either you're uniquely overstimulated or chronically allergic to feedback."

eyes drop to the floor, where he's still planted as if they're in intermission. "fifteen squats now."

[entropicue]

CARRY OUT / @versionloop

Shiyu keeps fidgeting with the volume control on the speaker all through what was supposed to be quick dinner prep— conspicuous stomping down the hall when the volume knob spins a little to far clockwise, teetering on the edge of disrespect. The common rooms are deceptively empty this time of evening, early night by some measure, perhaps owing to the kitchen policy she's elected to ignore. All quiet by 10pm or something equally inane.

She simply needs to get this stir fry out of her system before there's any hope for catching up. Reiko's a good sport, fingers tapping away on her laptop keyboard while Shiyu puts some effort toward not leaving her own behind on the chopping board. They can spend an evening just like this— have done so in the past.

More than a little work goes into cleaning and dicing the mountain of vegetables, even for the two of them, cutting the rice cakes into thin strips, approximating replacement for regional seasonings until Reiko has to plod back over to the screen. Her mom would turn up her nose at this bastardized version, a Kunming girl still in spirit, but Shiyu has fewer objections to adaptation. Whatever works. The smell that rises from the pan when she rakes the chopsticks through is a good enough sign to get excited.

"It's good you're not breaking your back helping out." She teases over her shoulder to Reiko, mingling sarcasm with fondness. Such a hardworking girl in a field of study Shiyu would charitably label as unrewarding. But they've been over this, extensively.

Hip leaning on the counter, she picks the pan up by the handle and one mittened hand on the side. Oil still sizzling, the pin prick splatter has her shoulders jumping, breath sitting high in her throat with laughter. "Since you're working so hard— want a taste test?"

[versionloop]

if asked to chart the precise chain of events that led to her slouching like a gremlin on the communal b612 kitchen bench two hours to midnight — laptop open, hair still damp from the world's fastest shower, posture on the brink of biomechanical failure — reiko wouldn't even bother with excuses. some fates arrive preordained. wang shiyu was less a friend and more of a mirror thrown into her orbit: a raging, unlicensed menace of a bilingual powerhouse once they'd both rolled their tongues around a shared second language, and discovered just how far wit and charm could carry them in a country that wasn’t home.

you're going to get scoliosis, shiyu had mentioned once in a dimly lit 3AM bathroom, hovering with that angelic smile of hers, poking her between the shoulder blades with a touch that foreshadowed just how often they'd end up folded into each other's days. she'd added something about breath and alignment and unlocking her heart chakra from a week-long bali retreat, but all reiko had taken from it was the disturbing realisation that, when both of them stood fully upright, side by side in the mirror, they were the exact same height. long dark hair, soft brows, matching expressions like they'd just been slightly inconvenienced by god. terrifying, really.

"too busy saving the world," she comments, doesn't bother looking up. "and killing trees while at it. it's all about balance, isn't it? net zero absolution." a few more clacks on her keyboard, then a dry exhale. "trying to figure out what kind of blocker would repel all the usual suspects, these people breeze through the terms and conditions if they're only looking to smash." she shrugs. "you know, the ones with a lab coat in their profile pic, just here for study buddies in their bio, but have do you live alone? as their opening line. zero braincells to register that hongdae guy's a caricature and not an exemplar. do better."

she clicks to run the updated build and slides off the bench in one fluid motion, crossing over to the counter just as shiyu offers the pan. "mhm, i live to serve." fingers grab a pair of mismatched chopsticks from the utensil cup, picks out one of the thinner rice cake strips, blowing on it before taking a bite. "oh, that's strong," not that she's complaining, ready meals and instant ramyun flowing through her bloodstream. "but good, really good. is it meant to have this much gochugaru? my brain's telling me i'm supposed to expect a chilli spice, but the peppery spice is… surprisingly pleasant."

[weakkness]

“yes, descartes!” jeongmin exclaims, almost too excited that she gave way for exactly what he wanted to say. “i wasn’t going to hit you with that, actually—” he turns back to look at her as he begins to explain, his finger, much like the meme, raised naturally as he finally feels confident in what he’s talking about. “he believed in mind-body dualism. he said bodies were essentially machines, and animals were basically automata, that’s like, old time-y for robot, because he couldn’t prove they were actually conscious. but humans were. and, no matter what, a machine could never replicate the mind. that’s kind of where you come in, no?” he wants to keep going, but that’s enough kindness he can afford reiko, especially in their state. 

it’s weird, though he feels some sort of satisfaction talking about what he’s passionate about to someone that’s not on the same program as him, while also trying to tie the concepts he’s familiar with with what he remembers she specializes on, their friendship, if they can even call it that, relies entirely on the clash of their ideals. the constant disagreeing just for the sake of disagreeing, too different to ever understand each other, to not even bother to try.

jeongmin doesn’t even bother to sit down before firing back at her. sure, he was wrong and the worksheet had the red marks to prove it, but he wasn’t going to let it be an opening for her to judge him like he forgot that two plus two makes four. “i thought it made more sense to define the general behavior first,” he says, eyes fixated on the page, pen tapping near the quantifier as if it might defend itself. “if all the foxes hunt, then obviously some of them do. i didn’t think i needed to walk it backwards. it wasn’t a guess. i just assumed the existence was implied.” he slightly adjusts the way the worksheet sits on the table, like the angle might justify his answer. “i wasn’t wrong about the form, just... early with it.”

finally, there it is. the hesitant acceptance that he lost. barely an admission, just one more tally mark on her side in the mental board where he keeps their score.

taking a seat, he grabs her worksheet in a way an old man in a seventies movie might hold a newspaper. eyes squinting as his pen trails over her answer with deliberate nods before looking back at his own. “yours almost worked,” he starts, almost displeased. “but you put the negation in the wrong place.” placing her worksheet down next to his, he points at the quantifier. “you negated the existence of some x that satisfies P, instead of distributing it properly across the domain,” he adds, tapping her answer again with the back of his pen. “so instead of saying ‘nothing meets the condition,’ you ended up saying ‘something definitely doesn’t.’”

he doesn’t look at her when he says it, his eyes instead double-checking his own sheet again. “the logic’s there, but the phrasing boxed it in.” he looks up at her, somewhat excited to catch the look on her face as it clicks in her head. “an unfortunate mistake, really.”

[versionloop]

offer a carrot to a horse and it will follow you off a cliff, eyes wide, heart steady. she doesn't interrupt. not because he's right — god, no — but because she's always found it fascinating, the way some people unravel when they care too much. how excitement loosens their grip on restraint. she's seen it in her teammates pitching wireframes at 3am, in classmates pulling two all-nighters just to animate the perfect onboarding flow on a figma presentation. she recognises it in herself, too. buried in bug reports, high off a new layout system, talking to no one and everyone about whether purple should be the default accessibility flag.

but comfort isn't meant to last. it never is. and this is eun jeongmin, after all. that name alone feels like a built-in eject button. she presses it without hesitation.

her fingers drag a slow crease into the side of his worksheet, not enough to damage, just enough to annoy. "not the case in theoretical logic, unfortunately." the words land flat, clinical. "you can reason your way into anything with language, it's flexible enough to let you pretend. but symbols don't really care about intention. they tend to be less... forgiving." she shrugs, as if to say it's not personal. just abiding by the rules of the game. there's a ghost of a smile that appears when he concedes something aloud — however minor, however smug, but she swallows it down before it can become anything visible. she's next up to be wrong, and she's fully aware of it.

when he makes his point in that typically clean, airtight way, she goes quiet for a beat too long. reiko's reaction time has always been a little fast and a little loud, too combustible for her own good. answers first, assumptions loaded, evidence a distant second. "fine, that's fair. i skipped a step." her voice is flat, but not defensive. "sloppy framing on my part. probably ran out of time or something. forty questions over ninety minutes is a bit cruel." she doesn't need to thank him, but the silence comes close.

oddly enough, it doesn't quite taste like loss. not today.

she scribbles something into the margin of her own notes, then tilts her head without giving him a proper look. "have you thought about what you're writing for the midterm essay?" she asks, offhand, almost like a decoy. "no, i'm not going to touch on the same topic just to compete with you. i've got some pride." her pen stalls mid-sentence. eyes finally glance over, sharp beneath the pretence of disinterest. "that thing you said earlier, about machines and the mind. that falls under modal logic, doesn't it? possibility over provability," she recalls from their second week, when the professor rattled through kripke semantics like everyone had already done the readings. a shift in tone now that she's entering familiar territory, albeit from a different angle. "but if we can simulate intelligence well enough to pass for conscious, does it even matter if it's 'real'? or just real enough?"

it's not digging. merely a question, curiosity folded into formality. but it feels easier than saying, you're impossible and irritating, and i think i like you better when you're like this. invested. alive. human.

and besides, she's already shown her own hand once tonight.

[moncoeurseo]

diamonds + pearls starring: shinohara reiko (@versionloop) and han seoyun in ‘did we just create the lookbook of the summer?’

“i’ll sound biased right now, and i know that, but dressing for the summer is sooooooo hardddddddd.”

the irritated groan comes underneath a pile of clothing, one seoyun completely buried underneath it. she grunted now, shoving the clothes off of her as if they grew legs and decided to sit on top of her, and not that the floor was so covered in clothes that she had no choice put to make her own tomb of short-shorts and bandeau tops.

it was the thursday night, before yeonchella officially kicked off, and seoyun had invited reiko to her dorm so they could find the best fits for the festival together; more specifically for dpr live’s set the following night. while seoyun didn’t hate hotter weather at all, but she found it a bit easier to dress when it’s cooler thanks to years and years in canada. she loved every season but summer weather-wise, to be honest. 

she didn't want to wear an outfit she'd worn prior this season, but at the same time she had so many amazing summer looks that she can't blame herself if she did become an outfit-repeater just for yeonchella… would anyone even notice? (who is she kidding, someone would totally notice and even if they didn't, herself knowing is enough to bother her.)

ugh, sue her. she was a long sleeves and boots girl.

she sits up finally, sitting cross-legged now to look across the room up at reiko. “have you had any luck with anything yet? i’m still trying to figure out color combinations over here…” she pushes a sock away from her with an annoyed sigh. damn her fashion-forward mind which didn't allow her to go outside in a basic outfit.

[versionloop]

seoul summer brings with it a humidity like no other, that even eighteen years in shizuoka can't train a girl to survive. it settles heavy — in your scalp, behind your knees, between your shoulder blades. and now she was expected to marinate in it, shoulder to shoulder in a snaking queue of drunk university students for three straight days, slathering on a photo-ready smile and pretending it was a good time. (yes, she's aware she had a choice. no, that's not the point.)

to add seoyun into the equation initially doesn't seem like much of a relief. her friend's immediate outcry is less complaint than testament to the crisis at hand — both girls tragically foreign to the swampy ways of south korean summers, but only one with the gall to look editorial in spite of it. reiko's never met anyone with as precise a filter for colour and cut, so it was a no-brainer that han seoyun's become her go-to unofficial styling hotline.

"you say that like you don't look good in everything," reiko insists, peeling a hair tie off her wrist. "i get what they mean when they say summer's unforgiving though. there's just nowhere to hide."

she tugs her duffel bag closer, packed in a jaded fit of agitation two nights ago and starts pulling out things she vaguely remembers throwing in. a campus tee, yeonhwa bold across the chest in cracked lettering against a washed-out emerald green, soft from too many rounds in the nuri hall laundry. "hm, i was saving this for day three. everyone's gonna be in campus colours for the finale, right?" a tilt of her head, curious.

then a soft gasp, slightly theatrical but real. "oh, right." she holds up a white crochet two-piece like it's come back to haunt her. an ode to last summer and a brief obsession with slow fashion, all thanks to a sunbae from the design department who kept posting yarn haul vlogs on her instagram stories until her algorithm's caved in. her hands stretch the skirt against her thighs, squinting down at it like it might suddenly grow a few more inches. "never finished this part, though. i guess it's still... a suggestion of a skirt. not sure whether yeonchella's ready for asscheek couture."

shoulders slumping, she's already looking defeated. "i'm not risking a fistfight with security for a cute outfit, but i'm also not risking a heatstroke. do you think it'll look clunky if i layer something under it, or should i just give up on this entirely?"

[veritastrap]

despite the tense atmosphere, yerim maintains her composure — though inside, she can very well feel her blood boiling. she detests the way reiko makes her react, the way she well and truly just pisses her off. had they met in any other circumstance, yerim imagines they would get along, maybe even be friends. they seem to have enough people in common, yerim notes with a quick glance over reiko’s water bottle, placed neatly next to her pencil case behind the plexiglass. but instead, they were stuck in a petty rivalry over a library table, an eternal battle no one seems to be winning — especially not the tired librarian in front of them. 

she ignores reiko’s jab at her and refuses to look her way, instead the polite smile intended for the librarian remains plastered on her face. though judging by the unimpressed look on his face, yerim gets an inkling that he could care less what either of them say to him. his tired eyes meet hers, as if silently pleading for peace. 

“no matter who did what first,” the librarian interjects, and his tone suggests he truly does not care who started it. “you can have your items back.” a pause as he busies himself, grabbing the flask and the pencil case, placing them both on the counter. “but i’m going to have to ask you both to leave now. the table in question has been taken, and the two of you have caused enough of a disturbance for today.” he looks between the both of them, giving them a tired, exasperated look. “consider this an informal warning. you’ll be welcome back again tomorrow.” 

yerim’s eyes widen slightly, her polite smile faltering for a heartbeat, before she regains her usual composure, though her smile has wilted, giving way to a thin, unreadable line. a warning? informal as it might be, getting warnings for her behavior is just not something choi yerim does. eager to exit the situation as soon as possible, she takes her pencil case, flashing a final, exaggerated smile at the librarian. 

“well, thank you for returning my item. further signage would indeed be appreciated.”

and with that, she turns on her heels, maintaining a steady stride towards the library exit. she’s fairly certain reiko is right behind her, seeing as they both had just been kicked out.

“this is all your fault, you know,” she grumbles once outside, without checking to see if reiko was even there first.

[versionloop]

place them side by side and to the untrained eye, shinohara reiko and choi yerim might as well be cut from the same cloth. neat grades, quiet yet pointed reputations, a tendency to answer too quickly in class. but tilt the lens just slightly and the fabric frays — reiko's all razor-edged rebellion and controlled spite, while yerim wears perfection like pressed linen, clean and crisp and trying too hard not to wrinkle. like oil and water, they sit next to each other only to repel.

reiko's mouth quirks. not quite a smile, more like irritation dressed in polite restraint. she rolls her eyes at the saccharine voice yerim uses with the librarian, the kind of faux sweetness that always leaves a bitter aftertaste. her flask makes a muffled clunk against the counter as she lifts it, not forgetting to mutter a polite thank you to the man that's probably aged five years over the last five minutes, then bears the unfortunate honour of having to trail behind yerim out the sejong library doors.

there's a beat of silence, too short to feel like peace, before yerim throws the first stone without even checking if anyone's close enough to catch it.

the girl lets out a dry breath, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. "oh sure, because i have the godlike ability to reach into your tote bag, extract your overpriced pencil case, and position it squarely on the desk without ever making physical contact." there's a sharp adjustment to her grip on her flask, as though it might keep her from saying worse. "for god's sake, yerim. i may be unhinged, but telekinesis isn't in my skillset."

she's already halfway down the steps when she remembers why she came to the library in the first place. the sting of being kicked out dulls beneath a sharper urgency: she still hasn't printed her case study mockups for her interface strategies for responsive systems course, and the deadline's tomorrow. nuri hall's printer, once again, is useless. it's been coughing out faded syllabi and half-rendered PDFs all week, and reiko's far too tired to sweet talk a resident advisor into fixing it.

"you're at gaeum, aren't you?" she asks, rather out of the blue, turning just enough to catch yerim's profile. there's a shift in her demeanour that's almost practical, bargaining instinct masking the desperation. "here's a deal. let me into your study room, let me print a few things. and you can have the desk tomorrow. full custody."

[versionloop]

the antiseptic hush of geum gym always smelled the same — sweat and detergent and something vaguely citrus that never quite masked either. third floor, padded flooring, industrial air still too cold even nearing the brink of august. reiko had been here twice this week already, thanks to two student athletes on speed dial and a flimsy borrowed access code she wasn't supposed to still be using, sticking out like a sore thumb in her untied sneakers and spaghetti-strap tank that did nothing to disguise the fact that she didn't belong here.

once to update the app after it refused to sync with the watch, another to test the recovery delay after professor myung flagged her heart rate graph as "statistically meaningless". it was never meant to impress, nor survive past final grading. merely a glorified wireframe she threw together to tick the innovation requirement on her elective. but then the professor scribbled has potential in the margin like it was a prophecy, and one of the assistant coaches asked if he could install it on the whole team next season. luckily for her, shinohara reiko was nothing if not obsessive, plus yoon jinyoung makes a good test subject: high profile, hyper-conditioned, marginally annoying.

so here they are again, third session unofficial, third bullet point sparkly on the projects section of her resumé.

he was sharp in the way athletes often were. body faster than brain, but the brain still keeping up. and it helped that he seemed to enjoy being told what to do. the app tracked cardiovascular recovery lag, the invisible gap between performance and rest. most wearables measured the first half, hers was trying to measure the after. how fast the body recalibrated once the work was done. useful, supposedly, for conditioning. or at least that's how she'd pitched it, once she realised people were actually listening. she wasn't sure it made sense outside her own head yet. the math's still bent in weird directions at low exertion — but jinyoung, for better or worse, fit the bill.

"did you catch the finals last weekend? one-zero. first goal for japan on minute eight. kind of awkward for you, huh." reiko looks up from her screen, stylus making neat taps against the side of her tablet. "maybe i should’ve gone through with that bet we almost made. then you’d have to buy me a coffee and admit defeat in front of the whole team." her tone is mild, but the corners of her mouth tug, just barely. the kind of expression that didn't need to be seen to land.

she passes him the watch, screen already lit, synced to the session id. "okay." stylus tapping once more, deliberate now. "we’re testing how long it takes for your vitals to normalise after short sets. fifteen push ups. no breaks."

TRIAL RUN with @lxckystrike

[versionloop]

a look into shinohara reiko's unsent voice messages: july monthly prompt

[voicemail transcript 1/3] to: お母さん recorded: 02:11 am

"hi, okaasan. it's me again. i know, i haven't been good about calling lately. i've just been... caught up. the semester's ending and everything feels like it's moving too fast and too slow at the same time. i've been spending most evenings at the library. you'd hate the vending machine lines — and guess what, they don't even have corn potage.

i've been thinking a lot about how people keep themselves going here. everyone's got a method. there's a girl in my coding class who cries in the bathroom before every test, then comes out like nothing happened. i guess my version of that is pretending to be busy enough that i forget i'm tired. cliché, i know. i've got a few friends too, not many, but the kind who remember that i get my yuptteok with sundae and extra glass noodles, and don't ask questions when i walk out of olive young with three new eyeshadow palettes. don't worry, i saved one for you.

i started running. i blame strava. of course i had fomo, everyone's been uploading their perfect 5ks with "easy pace" captions and route maps. so i downloaded it and now i log everything. even the bad runs. it's stupidly satisfying watching the numbers go up, although my legs definitely hate me for it.

sometimes i think i'm only here because i'm too scared to stop. like if i slow down, everything i've built so far, this version of myself, will collapse. and i don't know if i'd be able to rebuild her again. but you don't have to worry. i still eat properly. i even got a new pack of those star-shaped acne patches you sent me. they look ridiculous, but they help. like little pieces of armour. i know that sounds silly."

———

[voicemail transcript 2/3] to: お母さん recorded: 01:38 am

"do you remember when i used to take apart the old microwave because i thought i could make it better? i probably ruined it, huh. you didn't say anything, though. you just let me try.

that's what the app felt like in the beginning. like something small i could fix if i kept adjusting the pieces. things moved quickly, though. yuna and chaekyung-unnie are graduating soon. they got offers from big companies — samsung, hyundai, all the safe bets. everyone's growing up, i guess. choosing smart, secure things.

meanwhile, i stayed. maybe that makes me foolish, or maybe it just matters more to me. i don't want to let it go. i built something with my hands. i saw people connect through it, even if it went wrong. and i keep thinking, if i can fix it, maybe it could become something better. something that lasts.

i haven't called in a while. sorry about that. i keep telling myself i'll wait until i have good news, but nothing's really finished. sometimes i wonder if i should give up too. apply for UX internships and junior dev jobs like everyone else. get a fancy office ID card and learn to laugh at all the dad jokes they make at team lunches.

but then i remember what it felt like the first time someone messaged me just to say thank you. that it made their first week here less lonely. and while it only worked for a moment, i like to believe maybe that's enough to keep trying."

———

[voicemail transcript 3/3] to: お母さん recorded: 12:53 am

"i wish you could see me when no one else does. i think i'm softer then. less guarded. i sit by the window in the library with my headphones in, pretending the world is paused. sometimes i draw again, just little things. lines, faces, buildings i see through the window on my bus ride home. it reminds me of when we used to draw together at your studio after school, remember? your lines were always gentler than mine. i wonder if i inherited the restlessness from otousan instead.

i still don't go out much unless someone asks. crowds tire me out, and i'm not really made for the kind of loudness seoul thrives on. but there’s a café near campus that makes sakura lattes in spring. it's quiet. i go there when i can't hear myself think. that's probably my version of solstice.

i know i'm not always easy to understand. especially when i talk about code and wireframes and logic like they're people i live with. but i think… what i really want is to make things that speak when i can't. that help someone feel less alone. isn't that kind of like the way you used to tell stories through your illustrations? i think about that a lot.

anyway, i'm still figuring it out. who i am when no one's looking. who i want to be. but i'm trying. i really am. and i hope — no, i think you’d be proud."

[legalbrat]

"wow," minseong exhales, dragging the word out like it might ground him. "liabilities. that's cute. you're right — you don't have friends. you collect case studies with attachment issues. hey, you know what i heard, by the way? park minjoon is holding auditions for biggest pain in the ass on the planet. maybe you should apply. you two would make perfect co-dependents. i see the way you debate him." a pause. the intrusive thought surfaces like a middle finger through courtroom decorum. "you guys aren't fucking, are you?"

he falls into step beside her like he hadn't just been verbally dragged down three flights of logic, banana kicks, and her usual terrifying ability to surgically remove his ego with a single sentence. crocs and all. "one," he says — in that same courtroom cadence he uses during moot trials when he knows the case is unwinnable but still has to pretend the law is somehow on his side. "i don't need an intervention. the state of massachusetts wasted millions of taxpayer dollars just to find her not guilty. that's not obsession, that's what's called vindication." he wets his bottom lip, the telltale sign of an incoming monologue, like he’s preparing to filibuster this conversation into the grave.

unfortunately for anyone unlucky enough to ever be involved, minseong's diehard commitment to true crime had rubbed off onto reiko, which meant she came well-equipped (as usual) to debate these topics with him for hours. the pair had just recently staggered out of a marathon three-hour debate over the erin patterson verdict. minjae had thrown in the towel after ten minutes and fallen asleep on the couch, wisely so, looking far more peaceful once he was no longer subject to listen to their relentless barrage of "try to tell me i'm wrong" and "you’re missing the key detail"s.

the elevator door closes behind them after some time, the hallway of the first floor a stark graveyard compared to the beehive it is during normal, functioning human hours. on paper, an app developer and a law student make about as much sense as expired milk and espresso. asynchronous by design — and by choice — though neither of them would ever admit that out loud.

he lets out a slow, humorless chuckle, the kind that says yeah, you got me, but also don’t get used to this. "assign me, huh? sounds like a subpoena." he crosses his arms, leaning back like he’s settling in for a long, tedious session — which, of course, he secretly loves. "fine. i’ll sift through your 'facts' and clean up your 'legal fluff.'" his tone is flat, but the corner of his mouth twitches upward, betraying a smirk. "and no deadline. not yet. you know how much lawyers cost by the hour, right? think your royalties from your app can afford it?"

[versionloop]

she scoffs, sharp. something flattens behind her eyes, a flicker of annoyance at how her friend would even dare make such a ridiculous extrapolation. "please. i might be clinically drawn to chaos, but even i have standards. and taste," she replies, features still caught in the cross between disdain and disbelief. "we all know that the only man i'd settle for is yoon dowoon. the moment he hands me that nda, it's over for all of you." it lands plain, unhurried. like every other outrageous thing she lets slip, with the same bone-dry cadence that makes it impossible to discern if she's joking — which, of course, she is. for the most part.

when they reach the dim stretch of seating by the window, reiko drops into the chair like her body's remembered how tired it is. the kind of tired that pools behind the knees, catching just slightly in the joints. her tote slumps beside her in a soft collapse, zipper dragged half open, revealing the corner of a flattened worksheet and a carousel of lip stains tucked into a mesh pouch. "no friend rates, huh? shame. i thought we had something special." her elbow bumps his as she pulls out her laptop. a touch light enough to dismiss, but not quite accidental. "how about this, a bag of banana kicks and one ediya drink of your choice. what unit do lawyers bill in now anyway? minutes, arguments?" she arches a brow. "trust me, it's a good deal. take it or leave it."

the screen flares to life with the faint whirr of the fan kicking in. her fingers hover over the trackpad, clicking into a blank document. "okay, here's what we've got." the girl leans forward, elbows to the table, hands steepled as if hosting a very exclusive, very serious board meeting. "i bought three tubs of banana pudding yesterday. nothing left today. and no, i didn't forget. i have receipts in my camera roll. timestamped. location-tagged. irrefutable." her phone unlocks with a practiced flick, screen angled toward him just long enough to glimpse the blurry photographic proof: fridge shelf, dorm room, date stamp, geo-tag. "minjae and i shared one last night, so that's one accounted for. you can go ask him too. i'm sure he'll attest to it." she doesn't linger on the proof. just sets the phone down, as if the rest writes itself.

"while i was walking out of my room this morning, i saw an empty container in the communal sink. and get this, it wasn't even rinsed." her mouth pulls into a grimace, the visual image still lodged in her head. all sticky residue and gluey scrape of leftover pudding, clinging against cheap plastic. "pretty sure i heard a bunch of second years loitering by the hallway around midnight, too," she continues, peeling a corner of her stickered laptop as if the gesture might unearth another clue. "so unless i blacked out and consumed two full tubs in my sleep, which, while not entirely out of character, seems logistically improbable, we're looking at a theft." one tap of her finger against the tabletop, crisp as a gavel. she looks at minseong then with a flat sort of expectation.

"now do your bit. build me a case or whatever. or at least tell me who i can legally yell at."

[dearparadigm]

“reiko–” sungmin chuckles good-naturedly, finding just a hint of amusement in the awkward shuffling she does when trying to settle in his car. he instinctively steps toward her side of the vehicle, only to be rejected before he could even cross the front bumper. he immediately backs up, hands raised in a placating gesture. “glad to see you’ve got it covered. but seriously, tell me if something’s wrong, okay?”

with that settled, now it was a matter of where to go. although reiko’s words are blunt, he knows she’s right. thinking about abstract terms like ‘leisure’ is a lot more stressful than he’s willing to admit, considering that’s part of what he’s studying. “smarter. unexpected. right,” he repeats, as if that’ll magically manifest the perfect picture. he stretches his arms out, hands on the wheel, but shows no indication of wanting to leave the parking lot just yet. after a beat of silence, his hands drop into his lap, and his eyes flutter shut in thought. he’s got nothing for now, but reiko doesn’t need to know that… yet.

“it’s hard to remember the hidden gems when you’ve been in the city for so long, honestly. my parents aren’t the sort of people who do things like camping, or… really, anything traditional families do, i guess. mostly fancy restaurants and high-end shopping and whatnot.” sungmin’s gaze follows the distant skyline as he soaks in her questions, “my mom likes seaside resorts, but we’re kinda landlocked here, and i’m not sure how you’d feel about an impromptu overnight stay.”

the warm breeze of the lazy summer air combs through his hair, strands tickling the back of his neck. his play with earth! 0.03 cd now sits in his hand, its muted pink disc reminding him of a flower’s petals. “wait,” he sits up quickly, “wangsong lake! we should be in peak lotus season, so i bet it’s gorgeous over there by now! we could even take one of the rail bikes over to cover different areas.”

sungmin’s vigor is renewed, and before reiko can comment further, his fingers are flying over his phone screen to look up daily rates. “i’ve been to uiwang a couple times, and it’s way calmer since it’s just outside the city. i think it’s exactly what we’re looking for.” few trains, smaller buildings, and a lot of greenery: everything that seoul is, uiwang isn’t. it’s perfect.

[versionloop]

she's settled now, or at least doing a convincing job of it. knee tucked up against the dash, fingers looping lazily through the camera strap still slung around her neck and letting it rest on the dip of her lap. the car's cooled down just enough to be bearable, the kind of mid-july air that clings but doesn't choke. outside, the trees shimmer with that washed-out, liminal tint, all pale greens and sunburnt shadows, while inside, reiko presses her shoulder into the seat like she's resigned herself to staying.

"wangsong lake?" she repeats. not in a dismissive manner, just mildly thrown. the name's unfamiliar in a way that makes her reach for her phone, typing it in with the ease of someone used to checking everything twice. she tilts the screen toward him briefly, thumb scrolling past lotus blooms and quiet blue water, before setting it down again. "that actually looks kind of nice," reiko admits simply, and this time she means it. no raised brow, no punchline following after.

there's something gentle in the way sungmin's described it, a carefulness that makes her pause. not because she doubts him — though she could pull a joke or two about it, if she wanted to — but because it feels like he's trying. to give her something good, even if it's small. and maybe that shouldn't surprise her, knowing the sungmin that lingered after meetings to help untangle lighting cables, who handed her a spare lens cloth without being asked. it was always like that with him. never loud, never urgent. just a slow offering of time, until she found herself taking it.

"the rail bikes are a nice touch. framed right, you could say something about the rhythm of change, or continuity in motion." her voice is thoughtful now, steady in the way she slips into when ideas start to arrange themselves. "you know how leisure doesn't necessarily have to be still? sometimes, it's really just about moving without urgency." she could already picture it: the blur of spokes against mountain green, wide shots that stretch into gradients of sky, a few shots mid-laugh with the breeze tugging at their sleeves. capturing the illusion of pause, of being held gently in transit.

reiko lets the quiet stretch for a second longer before reaching over with a quick nudge to his arm. "c'mon," a prod, soft but insistent. "unless you want this car commandeered by someone with three learner's permits and no hand-eye coordination, you better start driving."

[ololiuhkui]

greetings from yeonchella #5, with @versionloop

reiko walks into view like a ray of light searing through a gray sky. the weekend had been packed and was starting to take its toll on yuri. when she first hears of a last minute party happening in the rec center, she’s walking out of the woodz set, feeling every second of yeonchella weighing on her body and dreading a hungover monday at her internship. it’s a hard sell.

but a lot can happen in the walk from the tracks to her dorm, apparently. the noise is the first thing that registers when she approaches the building, echoes ricocheting off the cavernous structure and gushing out the main entrance like a torrent. a waft of a strong chemical smell hits her nose, the combination of chlorine and alcohol nearly coming across as clinical from where she stands. she thinks about her bed once more but lets peer pressure run its course, never finding it particularly hard to allow herself to be steered into an obviously bad decision.

that is when she needs to see reiko the most, and there she is – angelic, the singular good omen to reassure her the night isn’t about to turn out half as bad as it promises. yuri believes reiko's path only crosses hers when she needs it the most, and that could be why they don't try to circumvent fate with wordly conveniences. settling a day to hang out feels like scheduling an appointment when it comes to her, it would only rob their chance encounters of their particular mysticism. yuri’s smile is wide and warm as she closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around the girl as if trying to revert all the time spent apart.

“what’s been up with you?” she says after establishing how much she misses reiko and how great she looks. it’s a ritual they follow every time they meet, lamenting never having time to meet and fantasizing about a perfect life where their schedules would fall into sync. she pushes out her lower lip when she pulls back from the hug, hands running down reiko’s arms to close around her fingers. “i kept hoping i’d run into you the entire weekend, i was beginning to lose hope.”

[versionloop]

yuri walks into view like the kind of sign reiko used to believe in. cosmically timed, unnervingly convenient, quietly uncanny. rewind the tape back to orientation week, pulled into the same sun-drenched icebreaker and stuck close ever since, orbiting each other like passing comets. always a little busy, a little out of sync, but somehow showing up just when the other needed the reminder that things could be good. and tonight, reiko needs exactly that.

because the day hadn't gone the way she wanted it to. seolran had vanished somewhere in the shuffle before the woodz set, one moment standing beside her, the next swallowed by the crowd. reiko held her ground anyway, until some guy started a full-on debate on whether woodz counted as real music. instead, she argued, and lost fifteen precious minutes of her life she'd never get back. she doesn't even remember how she ended up here, chlorine-slick and vaguely overdressed, like she'd subconsciously dressed for the off-chance of locking eyes with someone she wasn't quite ready to see again.

the other girl's warmth hits instantly and reiko lets herself sink into it, easy. she hums at the compliment and replies in kind, fingers loosely curled around yuri's like she hasn’t been spending the past half hour scrolling through terrible festival photos. "god, you know me," she chuckles, casual. "always here and there and everywhere. when i tell you my gcals is full, i really mean it. even to the hour." the kind of laugh that follows is too rehearsed to be real, but not fake enough to raise alarms.

they make a pretty picture, anyway. reiko's fully aware of it: the light catching the edge of her cheekbone, the low thrum of bass vibrating in the background, the weight of yuri's hands still in hers. if she thinks too hard about how infrequent these moments are, how they only really meet when things are good, or trying to be — she'll start wanting something she doesn't have the time to miss. so instead she angles herself forward, tilting her head toward the exit like it just occurred to her.

"hey, don't you think it's starting to get a little boring in here?" a pause, the glint of a smile barely held back. "looks like they've run out of hwachae again, but i feel like i could do something a bit stronger. you reckon the campus gs25 has green grape in stock?"

[100stroke]

his face pulls into a grin, slow and unguarded, a haze settling in his eyes as they fixate on her, like she's cast some quiet spell he has no defense against. his lips twitch, betraying any effort at composure. "'m not drunk," he insists, clearly and undeniably drunk.

but he can't help it, drunk or sober. four years passed in a blur, all of them threaded with reiko's presence. every swim meet, she was there. he always noticed even from far away, the way she'd hold her breath just before the starting beep, as if she were diving in alongside him. and he'd be there, at daawn, catching a bus with her to some town, just so she wouldn't go alone to a coding competition he couldn't even begin to understand the rules of. it all just became natural. an extension of him that has grown quietly, gradually — until one day, he's looking back and realizing she's always been there.

"well, i'd still do everything exactly the same as today. and you couldn't stop me," he says, words more like a vow than an objection, his face holding no trace of anger, just warmth.

then he notices her hand: just a small movement, barely there, but it sends a tremor through him, subtle and electric. his own hand shifts closer, hesitance evident at first, fingers brushing hers with the kind of tenderness that teeters towards reverence. somewhere between reaching out and holding back, like he's afraid touching her too fully might break everything.

and maybe he dares break it, whatever fragile and uncertain thing this is between them. with no calculation to it or rehearsed charm; just instinct, desire. that unspoken thing finally demanding its feeding. the proximity between them shifts from familiar to dangerous. his hand finds her face—his fingers sliding along the curve of her jaw, tilting her head to face him, steady. her breath fans across his skin and he can feel the faintest flutter of her eyelashes, as if they were brushing against his cheek. his thumb grazes her lower lip, slow and lingering, before slipping down to rest under her chin, holding her there, steadying her.

"reiko," he murmurs, voice low, nearing a whisper. "stop saying nonsense."

and then he kisses her — hard.

it’s messy. drunk. desperate. he presses her back against something solid, doesn’t care what. his hand grips her jaw, the other leaves her hand to sit at her waist, pulling her in like he’s starving. and she tastes like heat and alcohol and something he’s craved for years without ever realizing. minjae presses her back, teeth grazing her bottom lip, hips dangerously close.

everything tilts, dangerously off balance.

that’s what makes it feel so good.

[versionloop]

jang minjae is a stupid, stubborn kind of constant. the kind that circles back even when he shouldn't, although she doesn't ask. he's always been like that: dependable in ways that frustrate her, gentle in moments that shouldn't warrant that kind of softness. tonight is no different. he stays, even as the night frays at the edges. despite her evasions and brittle kind of pride, unsure of what to do with someone who never leaves when things fall apart.

so reiko lets herself be kissed.

no second guessing, no sharp edges to catch on. just the soft give of her lips meeting his, caught somewhere between instinct and impulse. the railing is at her spine, cool against the stretch of skin where the top has ridden up, but it's a dull, distant thing compared to the warmth from the press of his chest against hers. his taste is sweet and clumsy, all heat and hungry with the sting of almosts that remained idle for too long.

fingers move without thought. they skim the line of his arms, rise slowly over the slope of his shoulders, until they've threaded into his hair. reiko draws him close with a kind of familiarity that shouldn't exist, tilting her head to meet him in the middle. she kisses him like she's trying to forget: the wasted time, the half-swallowed apologies, the splintered thought that maybe she'd been more trouble than worth tonight. her lips part in answer, not quite surrender as much as permission. somewhere in the middle of it, minjae anchors her in the way he always, somehow, does.

her breath catches when she pulls away, not by hesitation but to draw in air that suddenly feels too thin. laughter folds at the edge of her exhale, small and startled. she rests her forehead against his cheek, eyes narrowed just slightly, before it slips out dry and familiar, "you're ridiculous, jang minjae." there's the faintest curve to her lips, a flicker of fondness she rarely lets stay. and for once, she doesn't bother chasing it off.

then, she leans in again, slower this time, and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth. it lands warmer than intention, blurred around the seams of what she'd never admit out loud. "come on," she murmurs, barely pulling back, words warm against his jaw. "i need another drink if i'm going to keep pretending i'm not mad at you."

but still, she lingers close, tethered by the same liquor laced gravity that's held her all night. her hands don't fall away. there's something greedy in the way she stays, as if leaving this closeness too soon might undo whatever fragile thing they've sewn back together. if they never make it to the makeshift bar, she thinks, it wouldn't be the worst thing. pretending was easy with him. easier than walking away, and much easier than telling the truth.