SeulRene Oneshot
Irene
You couldn’t even look at her when she said it. You’ve had your reservations for weeks now when she stopped addressing your little endearments, or when despite her energy diffusing the room with enthusiasm and passion on times you had to pull an all-nighter to practice routines and choreographed songs you still had your doubts on its truthfulness, her truthfulness. She has always been a terrible liar. She becomes fidgety and she cannot look at you straight in the eye. You’ve caught her multiple times in this situation and you laugh it off with Wendy or Yeri or Joy, whoever wasn’t her accomplice. Except right now there’s nothing else in the world you wish for but for this to be one of her lies and you wish you could laugh about this after but none of the girls are around and she’s looking at you piercingly. The three-year age gap, which remains the only thing that is intact and unharmed before this moment, suddenly dissolves. You taste bitterness in your mouth: a biological reaction of your body to stress as bile rises up to your throat. Your eyes are glued to the floor but you feel hers on you boring a hole somewhere because you swear something hurts but you just don’t know where.
“I said I love you.” She says as if you didn’t hear it the first time.
You search for your resilience and you still can’t bear to look at her. How long can you keep this up? You’re the older one, damn it.
“You don’t have to say anything, Juhyun.” She said this begrudgingly and you feel your face burn as your head jerks up so that your face levels with hers. You’ve never heard her call you by your name before and coming from her lips it sounded foreign and gratuitous.
“Get your shit together, Seulgi. Damn it!” You feel your own mouth betray you. For someone who had never cursed before, you witness the words roll off your tongue so very easily but the apologetic look on your face after can’t fool anyone, especially her. Your aberrant outburst only warrants curiosity which means more questions needing proper answers.
“I love you.” She steps closer and you let her. She holds your hand and you don’t tell her to stop. She puts your palm on her cheek and you find comfort in the warmth of it. You feel her other hand on the small of your back and her fingers slowly and expertly caress it and you most definitely did not dare stop her because a small fire had started in the pit of your chest and somehow it felt as if you had to dig deeper in your lungs to breathe as you remember them unhinge the moment you felt her skin on yours.
“I love you.” Again, she says it but this time it’s accompanied by a diminutive hint of a laugh and it’s not a mocking one but somehow you understood it was relief or something that resembled a second’s worth of respite from the fire in your heart that has started to grow and every nerve in your body seems unable to send information to your brain because this is definitely not a laughing matter. Air escapes her mouth and you feel it travel across your aching heart.
You move your hand and allow both of them to traverse the length of her arms towards her shoulders. You’re in the position of steadying her, of snapping her back to reality and extinguishing the wildfires with boulders of ice. At this point you hadn’t realized that the fire is too big and the extreme coldness you expected will put it out had almost immediately melted. They never taught you this in training.
Finally you stop her and your heart ached when she pulled away. This is such a play of tug of war, in between the two of you hangs a heart. You’re still to decide whose it is.
“I can’t,” you tell her. “You know I can’t.”
You regret the distance that is slowly building between you and her and yet she’s still standing in front of you with her dejected stance, her thin lips. Your arms drop to your side and you no longer feel her fingers on your back. Coldness had already invaded your palms. But you are the older one and you need to be the one to settle this however it pains her.
“You can’t what?”
“love you,” you fake resiliency and somehow she buys it because the next thing you hear is a door closing and another one banging nearby. You look at her neatly made bed and make your way towards it and search for her scent on her pillows. You press one around your arms forcefully and you release your grief in tears that stain her pillowcase. Tonight she will wonder why her pillow is on your bed but she will blame Wendy for it. You clutch it to your chest and feel your insides burning still. You might as well ignite as you begin to live in the thought of impossibly losing her when you never even had her to begin with. Or that she gave you a chance and you wasted it in just two words that when formed differently, would have made the biggest difference.
Seulgi
To you, the stage is a whole different world. The air is different up there, lighter and almost without gravity. Each time you step on the set and flatten your dancing shoes on the cold marble you are transformed and here, you can be anything you want to be. You still think about her of course. You live together for god’s sake and you share a room together and every single day at home you are laboring a palpable burden whenever you meet her glances, or when you need to be near her in the training rooms because your choreography is designed to showcase a queerness in every touch of hand to a shoulder, hers to yours. In contrast, on that stage you are designed to be closest to her and here everybody lies for the sake of fan service. So you oblige and show them what they want to see. You put your arm around her waist in liberty and fling your arms around her without the fear of being judged. If only they would ask you to kiss her here. This stage is your leverage and you don’t care if it seems like taking advantage of her. It’s your job to be near her and though it may be of personal gain to only you, you don’t hear her complaining backstage anyway. You can fiddle with her fingers and interlace it with yours and so long as there is a camera tailing you, you hug her from behind. And anyway, you have resorted to fan fiction to tell you the happy ending version of your Irene situation so every chance you get, you try to become irresistible to her.
“We came back as mature women.” You were telling the camera crew covering you for a scheduled broadcast and from your peripherals you see a portion of a patina green dress and strands of red hair. Wendy takes the spot next to you. Irene stands close behind. The camera was still rolling so you give them your sweetest smile and hope that they hurt their teeth with it.
Then it happened.
After the talk, the almost kiss, and the almost being together, you stormed out of the bedroom that you share together and out of the dorm and to wherever your feet brought you. You never shed a tear because in your chest were unfiltered breaths demanding to be released and not the grief that people usually collect after a rejection. You let out a sigh, your deepest and biggest yet and that was it. It was not a moment to cry about because you haven’t given up. It was actually fiery anger that filled your chest after as you remember feeling the steam settle somewhere in your abdomen as she let you use her hand to cup your face and you distinctly remember recognizing her scent at once as if it were second nature. You were raging mad that she did not stop you the first time but then stop you the moment you started believing she wants you too.
You remember that moment and onstage as you receive your 4’th consecutive win, you explode. You still have a job to finish on that stage where not too long ago you held her waist next to yours and you smiled for the world to see, really see, how close you two are. You see Yeri crying too, obviously for an entirely different reason, as you walk around the stage in an attempt to distance yourself because the tears are inexorable at this point. Wendy comforts her and your chest feels heavier and it’s as if a hand sprouted and did an uppercut punch towards your air passage because truthfully, you’re envious of Wendy and Yeri and it’s very immature at best but you can care less that the world is seeing this version of you so casually.
You are unable to sing your parts without sounding pathetic so you pace around the stage even further. The patina green dress occupies your peripherals. She’s looking cautiously at you now and you are fully aware of it. After singing her part you watch her, in your drenched and strained vision, watch you and it pained you even more when she didn’t walk to you. Wendy had already sung her high riff on the bridge, and you are still pacing relentlessly, using the dry portion of your hands to wipe your eyes. It was when she watched you do your bit of the last chorus but you found yourself incapable that Irene started walking towards you
사랑한 시간보다 더 오래 이별하는 중인걸
“ I’m going through heartache longer than the times we loved ”
She grabs your arm and playfully taps your butt but you push her away gently. You momentarily reject her attempt at genuine closeness because suddenly, and onstage, you feel the grief settling somewhere in your chest and it hurt like hell. She stood next to you and you managed to calm a little successfully ending the encore without committing any more damage. Backstage you continue crying. Wendy comes to your aid and you feel more grateful towards her because it seems Wendy’s the only person in between you and Irene who is able to bridge the gap without meaning to.
In front of the camera, you tell them you cried because you did not expect to win. The other members back you up and Irene’s scent intoxicates you because all this time she’s standing next to you.
Your beloved stage had betrayed you and on it you had stamped the first moment of your grief. You wonder what world is left that has not witnessed your truth and would gladly welcome your pretend happy-ever-afters. You wonder, more importantly, if that world had Irene in it.
----
This was inspired by this: http://youtu.be/2qn7ji1MmsU
