mad city

woo taeyong, first year, hyeon mu. dorm room 205, swim team member. i just want to quietly live my life.

[sgnolivia]

120 bpm

relaxed hands grip a phone too loose, and in another life she worries about dropping it, but in this one she uploads a picture onto instagram, reads the eleven best uses for a bobby-pin, sends eunha a text about the temptation of skipping out on detention. 

an empty attention span guides her to her detention room, and she steps inside before tucking her phone away. 

she looks up, fully expecting to be chastised for showing up fifteen minutes late for two hours of thinking about her poor choices, or whatever it was her professor had said that morning, and frowns when that isn’t the case. 

instead, a boy sits at a desk, staring at her with wide eyes, and seunghee realizes she’s the lost one, not her professor, “hey do you know where room 305 is?” she asks, and shifts on her feet. 

ten seconds pass. fifteen. twenty. still, no answer. 

seunghee squints, “are you, like, mute or something? that’s cool, can you just write down the directions?” she even starts signing as she speaks, waiting for some sort of reaction aside from a general state of discomfort. “or, are you just super uncomfortable?” 

[yfxty-blog]

taeyong is stuck in his classroom an hour after classes have been dismissed because he’s still working on the material they were going through in class. normally, he packs off to the library to muddle his head over the problems but today, the instructor had stayed behind for a couple of minutes to run through the concept with him again. the instructor’s long gone by now but taeyong’s far too immersed in the topic at hand to pack up and then head along to the library for a seat or something. in any case, the worse that happens is that someone comes in and shoves him out of his seat. it’s not that big of a deal, anymore. 

he’ll suck it up, and the inevitable sarcastic commentary about him being a poor sack of shit, before he packs up to go back to the dorms to continue studying. that’s life in sunhwa for him: work his ass off studying and then maybe run into some horrible encounters that he won’t tell his mom or sister about because they would get upset unnecessarily. it’s not their fault he chose to take on a scholarship in a snobby elite, upper crust of society school. he’s in the midst of puzzling out a revision question when someone walks into the classroom and he stares at her.

the answer doesn’t slide off of his tongue like it should. a simple ‘no’ might’ve sent her on her way; she doesn’t seem like the confrontational type. she even starts doing what looks like some kind of sign language, like she thinks taeyong can’t speak. do they even take mute students in sunhwa? at least, yongha can communicate to other people and hear them with his aids. a mute student wouldn’t be able to speak no matter what kind of aid tools, right? “this isn’t 305,” he mutters tensely and tears off a scrap of paper from his notepad. it’s not like he can afford to give her the whole damned piece. he scribbles a rough map of the directions from what he can remember and he slides it across his desk towards her.

[yfxty-blog]

pride and prejudice

[cnxsato-deactivated20161230]

dang, what kind of summary is that? four pages… that’s like an essay. ( — he leans back, attempts to focus on the stage. for strangers and friends alike, song wangja is the last person you’d expect to hear a complaint from. never one to intentionally inflict burdens, never the type to vent. a boy that finds comfort when he’s swallowed by shadows rendered by others’ spotlights, loves his voice that melts into a shallow grave when he whispers, embraces an appearance no one looks back to see. even now, he occupies an aisle seat on the far left and towards the back. earlier, he hadn’t dared to switch on a screen until it’d already died, music volume kept just above audible. encounters with bystanders like he are rare in this school, and when they happen the difference between their natural shyness and his forced introversion becomes so sharp it stings. once he starts talking, it’s hard to stop. especially when there’s nothing else to do. )

hope it doesn’t have to be in english. ( — a dumb statement, only identified as so after it leaves his lips. they’ve written assignments in english before, but they’ve never spanned over two paragraphs. they can’t possibly be expected to write four pages of it. once the headphones are out his ears are engulfed in english, words he wishes he didn’t understand bearing some resemblance to phrases written in their notebooks the day prior. ) what’s happened so far? you’ve been watching, right? ( — truthfully, he doesn’t know what the other has been up to. he doesn’t seem to be the type to fool around like majority of their classmates though, doesn’t talk much either. their initial reply had been short, but it’s one of the few things he’s heard from him. a pleasant surprise that had encouraged the rest. )

[yfxty-blog]

( * he worries at the hem of his blazer as he listens to wangja talk, because why is the guy even keeping up the conversation? doesn’t he know what kind of a loser taeyong is supposed to be in the school? doesn’t wangja care about being seen talking to an outcast? nonetheless, wangja talks and taeyong listens. it’s just statements first, but then it becomes questions and now he has to reply. he doesn’t even know the answers to those questions, he’s been watching, yeah, but that doesn’t mean he understands anything. ) looks like some kind of romance thing. ( * he offers, grasping at straws, not wanting to ignore wangja and not give the guy a response. it’s probably okay not to initiate conversation, but purposefully withholding a response seems like the kind of thing that’ll get him in trouble. )

( * his hands are wet with sweat and he smoothes them over his slacks, but it doesn’t take away the discomfort of sitting next to someone with a huge reputation even within a school of elite people. ) no one has died yet. ( * he adds, because he’s noticed a horrible trend in all of the english literature they’ve been studying. at least one person dies every book or play they read about and that’s an awfully morbid thing. maybe that’s what english writers are all about; death and tragic romances. or something. it’s not like he reads korean books either so he has no basis for comparison. it just seems like an important thing to mention. )

[yfxty-blog]

tower of babel

[yfxyongha-blog]

Yongha had dreaded this day, dreamed nightmares about it, yet he had never been able to bring himself to form an emergency plan if someone were to actually know. There’s no carefully chosen words he could use, or firm actions he could take – he was harshly dumped in the cold, dark sea with no land in sight. He could, technically, leave it at that. Yes, I’m faking a hearing impairment, so what? But that wouldn’t make any sense, nor would it secure the fact that Taeyong wouldn’t talk. Still he didn’t want to have this conversation, and he reached to tug at the sheets and kind of wrap them around his tall, seated frame. He felt so naked and so, so vulnerable, and the only solution he had was to hide: if only in the fabric he desired to fully cocoon himself in.

”I’m serious.” His voice deep and low, none of that usual optimism or cheeriness to his words. He only put on that facade of eternal bliss to not make people question him, his motives or his actions – but now that some of that was to unravel, he wasn’t going to bother saving face. He couldn’t save himself from this. “Words travel fast and far, and they will if you end up telling someone… anyone.” The first year kept from gritting his teeth, even as he could feel the muscles in his jaws tense. His roommate couldn’t possibly know his panic, his blinding fear, but Yongha had to get him to understand that he couldn’t tell anyone. No matter what, this would stay in their dorm. Forever. 

His hands were hidden in the fist-full of sheet that he had wrapped them in, but underneath his knuckles were white and tense. Yongha wasn’t ready for this, but luckily this sense of life-and-death kicked in to steer him through this trying ordeal. If word of this reached the board he’d be finished. And if that happened, his father… the first year didn’t even know his father well enough to know how he’d react, only that whatever ought to follow couldn’t be anything but unpleasant. “Can I please have your word that you won’t tell anyone?” He locked eyes with Taeyong, every inch of his body as pleading as his voice was. The other, quite literally, held his future in his hands, and Yongha could only hope that he’d be merciful enough to just leave it. 

“My future will be ruined if this comes out.” And that, if anything, wasn’t an overstatement. 

[yfxty-blog]

the atmosphere in the dorm room is one that taeyong’s never been in before and thinks would be great if he could get out of. yongha is staring at him with the most uncharacteristic expression ever. he’s never seen his classmate look so anxious and on edge; yongha’s pretty well known even in first year for his bright personality. they don’t share classes, but taeyong’s heard enough from people around the school and he’s observed on his own when they do interact. it used to feel like yongha was on a different level: popular with people, smart and effortlessly going through life. despite them being the same age, taeyong used to feel as though he’d look up to yongha existing on a different plane.

this — whatever this is — makes yongha feel a little more relatable. so the stars in the sky can fall and land on earth, taeyong can reach his hands out and touch if he tries. ironically, yongha’s defensiveness and ‘cornered animal’ vibes make him easier to approach than before. taeyong knows how it feels to be there, to have to build up walls against everyone else to protect yourself. he knows what it feels like to be scared and terrified. all his life he’s been constantly in this fight-or-flight setting. taeyong might not understand why yongha is so afraid, but he can empathise with the feeling itself and he nods.

“i promise i won’t tell anyone but like i said, i don’t really have anyone to tell,” he puts it out there. like it isn’t already obvious to his year mate that taeyong’s pretty much been ostracised and singled out as an outcast in sunhwa because of his circumstances. he’s curious though and that spark, that little bit of connection between them, because of shared emotions and similar experiences, makes him ask the question he would normally have shelved. “why are you doing it anyway?” he can’t think of any benefit to faking a hearing impairment; it’s not like they give yongha more time on tests or any special privileges.

[chokxyf-blog]

THE TIME WHEN Haneul was just as awful as the rest of them  — in the past with @yfxty​ 

He’s patient, good at contemplating and observing. Haneul only lets his anger take over when he’s not fully in control, blinded by other things. But beneath his fake gentleness and easy smiles he is not a good person. Although, in the large canvas of All - who is?

It catches his attention like a bird flying in the sky, really far away. You think you see it but you are not sure, and so he starts to watch the sky quietly waiting for it to happen again. First, he found out his name,  Woo Taeyong. Just casually eavesdropping on the guys talking shit about some students. Taeyong’s name often popped up as the kid who doesn’t belong, he shouldn’t be there taking up space - wasting space.  

Between studying like he was doomed, surviving his quest for Cheong Ryong, licking the floors Kim Jinwoo walks on and trying to act like your average hard working teenager, Haneul needs a hobby. Something he can dedicate himself to, for his own benefit this time. No, not something; someone. 

Woo Taeyong, so quiet. So squirmish. So out of place all the time. 

He’s patient, watching at first - one month, was it? Yes, close to it - how he was always alone reading at the library, or how he talked to a handful of people, if that much, really. The whole thing just seems too good to be true. Haneul feels like he just found his sweet reward after putting up with so much crap from everyone at this school. He is suffering, you know? When is he gonna get his chance to feel in control too? Woo Taeyong might just give him this chance. 

Haneul waits by the door outside the Library, spinning a blue pen between his fingers. He waits until Woo Taeyong gets out alone - Haneul smiles at that - and he puts on his best gentle face, skipping a step or two to catch up with his dongsaeng. 

“Excuse me…” He taps the boy on the shoulder, showing the pen. “Sorry, I think you dropped this?” 

[yfxty-blog]

the lines are always obvious. from the moment they sent men in well tailored suits to come tell him about the scholarship to the fitted suiting for his school blazer and down to the brand name luxury items on display at every turn in this hell hole. the students here don’t use stationery from neighbourhood snack stores that sell at a couple hundred won or even the pricier chain store stationery that he remembers people cooing over in middle school. he stands apart from his dollar store notepads and his overly patched up backpack next to their kate spade stationery, mont blanc fountain pens and mcm backpacks.

everyone else is poised from the coiffed ends of their hair to the shined tips of their custom order, italian made shoes. they hold themselves differently in the way they walk and talk, like they’ve taken classes in how to defuse the bomb that is social conversation and interaction. it’s nothing like the brisk business of the wet market next to the little hole that his family had lived in. there are different moods for every occasion and taeyong has no idea how to function like the rest of them. he’s heard the seniors belittling him; hell, they’ve come to him up to his face and done exactly what the other kids used to but worse.

but if there’s anything he’s been great at doing all his life, it’s been to endure. endure the displeased adults and their unending demands. endure the teachers who thought he had a shitty personality and shittier grades. endure the kids who just wouldn’t fucking stop messing with him. endure the fact that he could only ever talk to his mom or his sister right, but they were never around to be there. so when there’s a tap on his shoulder and a friendly voice, he turns around and he’s wary and he’s ready. he’s going to endure the rest of his three years at sunhwa, just like he’s already put himself through everything else.

“that’s not mine,” he bites back the desire to point out that anyone of his upbringing wouldn’t even be able to afford a pen like that but there’s no point. taeyong clutches onto his library materials to his chest like they’ll work as shields for him; they never really have. the students here can afford to ask their parents to donate a brand new library to the school. he doesn’t run off yet because there’s no point in running away when there’s nowhere to go.

[yfxjae-blog]

jeonghan had about two other hobbies aside from ice skating and dancing, and those were a) pretending that everyone younger than them was ‘theirs’ and b) socialising. well, to an extent. see, whenever they heard wind of a new student or the latest first years came flooding in, jae couldn’t help but smile subtly and begin writing up a list of ways to welcome them. they also restock their tissues, because god know’s settling into sunhwa is a task that brings out the emotional side of everyone. jae knows. they’ve seen almost every student sob to their hearts content for whatever reason.

woo taeyong was never an exception - jae couldn’t help but go very googly eyes at the adorable first year and his habit of shying away from any form of social interaction. it reminded them of themself in first year, tucked away in a shell of rejecting any help and staying stubborn to their introverted personality. who knows how jae became one of the most sought after poster boys of their age group and now spoke weekly at summits about equality or modelling, it was kind of a mystery to themself more than anyone else.

this is why they may or may not have spent the past few months trying to get the brown haired male to warm up not only to the elite school life, but to jae as well. 

after spending the past two hours trying to compose a jazz piece for music in the piano rooms, jae was returning to their dorm to catch up on the most recent haikyuu episode and eat some lame excuse for a dinner like chicken caesar salad sans anything actually nice, until they hear the familiar whisper of a neighbour as they round a corner.

“taeyong-ah! oh goodness, what’re you doing with all of those books on your own?! let me help!” jae dropped their backpack next to the wall parallel to their door and rushed to help their dongsaeng. 

“what a coincidence it is to see you out here!” jae knew they were neighbours - in fact, it kind of made him more determined to break the walnut from his shell - but of course they needed some form of a conversation starter to gain his attention.

[yfxty-blog]

taeyong’s been to temples a couple of times. his mom is mildly religious and she likes to bring the both of them (his sister and he) to the temples to pray during holidays. it’s about the only time she gets a break and he supposes temples are great places to go to when you’re dirt poor and want to pray to the gods for stuff. he’s not that religious himself, honestly, but he likes accompanying his family and people try not to judge you when they’re in a ‘holy’ place. the one stand out thing about temples he remembers is the really loud gong that sounded pretty scary to him. the first time he’d heard it as a kid it felt as though some god was about to descend down upon him and maybe whip his ass for being a ‘rude boy’. the association has never really gone away and he hates the gonging sound.

brains are really cool stuff too, they can replicate that exact sound and feeling in your mind whenever you come across something that reminds you of it. so, that’s pretty much what’s going through taeyong’s head as he hears yoon jeonghan-sunbaenim’s voice. a deafening gonging noise that doesn’t stop replaying as the third year approaches him the way he imagined a god would if they wanted to come at you and beat you up. he’s not sure if it’s a good or bad thing that the sunbae doesn’t want to squash him like a bug. he’s pretty familiar with aggression from others but it’s the overwhelming nice and friendly that’s got taeyong nervous from head to toe. it’s a general but not inaccurate observation when he says: no one is nice to him unless they want things from him.

“hello sunbaenim,” he greets politely because damn if he gives the guy a reason to hold a grudge and want him expelled from the school. he bows as 90 degrees as a person can afford to with a stack of books and he clings onto his library resources tightly. you don’t take help from people, you don’t owe anything to people. a poor person literally can’t afford to have debts. and it’s obviously not a coincidence to anyone with any eyes that that they’d meet outside their dorm rooms since they’re neighbours but the timing is always eerily right. “i can carry the books, it’s just a few more steps,” he mumbles and hugs them to his chest. what does yoon jeonghan-sunbae want anyway?

[yfxty-blog]

sober companions

[yfxyang-blog]

in two words, she’s fucked. in four words, she’s at least still conscious.

the first semester has taken its toll on her, and yang caves. it’s not a complicated story: for a few months, yang says no. but now with summer break at the bend and her itinerary for a short stay at home settled, yang sees no reason why she should refuse again. so she says yes to aegi’s invitation, says yes to the first drink handed to her as she makes her way inside, says yes to the multiple drinks that follow, says yes to some second-year girl who has sensed yang’s creeping nausea and offers to accompany her to a trip to the bathroom.

after that, yang doesn’t know. a medley of colors, sounds, and smells surround her and she feels enveloped by a warm energy as a steady beat ushers her from the center of the dark room to the door. she pushes down on the handle, and now she’s clambering outside and dry heaving over the steel railing. behind her, the bass thumps deep into her ears. somewhere in that dazed brain of hers, yang thinks of aegi, but the thought is vague at best—what exactly about aegi?—and it soon leaves as fragmented as it came. all she’s left with is regret and the slow burn of the alcohol sitting in the pit of her stomach. yang decides with a sharp exhale that she is going back while she still has some shred of dignity left.

of course, she’s forgotten one small detail—to get around curfew, yang had told her dorm prefect she’d be staying the night at her mother’s. but now she’s in a cab headed back to the school, and it’s not until she’s made it past the gates and onto campus grounds that it dawns on her. she’s made a terrible mistake. the nausea comes back in full force. she has nowhere to stay for the night, and her phone (running on an impressive four percent battery) shows the time: thirty minutes before curfew. yang can’t help but scoff at that (am i so pathetic that i can’t stay out past) before the urge to vomit runs its course through her yet again, and she finds herself stumbling towards the nearest bin.

hands clasping its edges, her mind goes blank as she fills the bin. the pits. this is the pits. “ugh…”

[yfxty-blog]

he’s contemplating what to do when she makes the first move. well, not towards him or anything but yang moves with startling clarity towards the nearest bin around them. he averts his eyes while she proceeds to throw up the contents of her entire body, perhaps. it sounds quite intense and from where he’s standing there’s a smell. if taeyong offers to help, he might not necessarily actually be useful. he’s never had to deal with extremely drunk people before besides during part-time jobs when he came across them, but his jobs have never made him obligated to help. his mom’s constant refrain of ‘don’t stare, taeyong’ and a tight hand around his wrist always made him wonder.

maybe his dad was a dead beat drunk and she always told him not to interfere because she hated seeing men that reminded her of him. it’s not like taeyong would have any idea anyway, his mom never talked about dad and neither did his older sister. it was kind of like the guy had been wiped from them and he doesn’t remember anything too, so it’s best to leave things as they are or something. taeyong shifts his weight uneasily and drags his wandering mind back to the situation at hand. he has several options, a) ignore yang and go back to his dorm before he gets caught out after curfew, or b) help yang back to her dorm as quickly as possible before he gets caught out after curfew, or c) help yang and probably end up out after curfew.

leaving her to fend for herself seemed like a really shitty thing to do, especially since she’d probably get into huge trouble if they found her out of her dorm and drunk out of her mind. there’s also an equal chance he’ll get into trouble if he’s caught out after curfew but he thinks of his mom’s disappointed face if she knew he’d left a vulnerable girl out on her own and he steels himself to approach her. man up, woo taeyong, he thinks to himself and heads for the bin with a hand over his mouth. drunk girls are manageable; the smell of vomit is intolerable. they’ll end up both vomiting all the way back to the dorms.

“umm, hey, it’s almost curfew. you should get back to the dorms,” he hovers near to yang and he hesitates to touch her to actually get her back to her dorm. besides his mom and sister, he’s not the physical interaction sort of guy. is it a good idea to poke her in the shoulder or not? taeyong decides to nudge her on the arm, just in case she’s too drunk to notice him even if he did say something to her.

[strawberry-milktea]

김치볶음밥 만들기 (How to Make Kimchi Fried Rice)

[yfxty-blog]

tower of babel

[yfxyongha-blog]

One leg was hanging off the edge of the bed with his foot rested flat against the floor, arms wrapped around a pillow in a tight embrace and his sleeping face turned towards the wall. He always slept as long as humanely possible on school days, carefully calculating the minimum time he’d need to get ready and head out. Not only so as to not clash with his roommate, but mostly because he returned to his dorm long after midnight every other night. He didn’t get much sleep, and that was probably the only downside to his nightly escapades. Luckily he didn’t have to study the way most other students did, but life at Sunhwa was still stressful enough. Deep down he knew that he couldn’t keep this up until he graduated, let alone during the entirety of his first year, but that thought was pushed out as soon as it occurred. Yongha needed to live in a denial a bit longer, for his own sanity’s sake.

Unfortunately his roommate wasn’t the most quiet once he woke up, and the first year knew exactly why. But he couldn’t really call him out on it without blowing his secret, so Yongha would stay in bed for an hour or so each morning – alternating between pretending to be asleep and some short naps here and there. He was coming to after one of said naps when he heard the other talk, and through his newly awakened state his instinct was to snort. “What about the internet? There’s English everywhere…” He mumbled sleepily, preparing to relax yet again when time seemingly stood still. Yongha could hear his heart beat loudly in his ears and he slowly opened his eyes, staring at the wall in what ought to be disbelief. It took a minute before the severity of the situation finally dawned on him, and it wasn’t until he carefully reached out to stroke slender fingers over his naked ear that he suddenly forgot how to breathe. 

In a split second he turned around, twisting the sheets around his body in the process and leaned on his elbow while looking directly at his roommate. Fuck. By now his heart wasn’t merely beating, it was hammering in his chest. It was painful, but it kept him alert. The hardest thing to deal with was the paralyzing panic that kept him from neither move nor talk. All he could do was stare, regrettably glance at the hearing aids on his nightstand and then return to stare some more. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “I…” Yongha croaked before clearing his throat, forcing himself to sit up straight on the edge of his bed. He couldn’t form a coherent sentence to save his life, and it seemed impossible to breathe new air to his lungs. Everything within was pounding in a deafening symphony. He didn’t know what to do, he truly and honestly had no idea how to make this undone. Finally he spoke, in such a small and scared voice that he didn’t even recognize it once it hung in the air. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

[yfxty-blog]

ableism tw

he startles when he hears yongha’s sleepy voice drifting across the room towards him and he almost falls on his butt, because the dude was sleeping just five seconds ago maybe. taeyong doesn’t ogle at yongha’s morning routine or anything, mostly because it feels rude to stare at a disabled person. he tries to finish up whatever he needs to do in the morning as soon as possible before slipping out of the dorm quietly while his roommate is in the bathroom. so he has no idea when yongha actually puts in his hearing aids; taeyong can’t remember ever talking to the guy in the morning.

this is probably one of the rare few times his roommate has initiated morning conversation with him and he tries to make their dorm life together as smooth as possible, so he turns around slowly to respond. he’s trying to buy himself some time to figure out a response when he notices the hearing aids on the table by yongha’s bedside. he pauses for a long moment, blinking rapidly at the sight, with his brain buffering to process what was going on. wait a minute, yongha didn’t have his hearing aids in. and he had a hearing impairment. and taeyong had been muttering pretty softly to himself. 

he’s not the smartest kid in the year and he’s pretty certain the school didn’t give him a scholarship for being one of the brainy kids, but 1+1 still adds up in his head and he sort of ogles yongha openly as his roommate stares back at him. there’s a sea of emotions across yongha’s face in the silence of the room before he talks and then 1+1 suddenly doesn’t really make sense. so yongha can hear, but then why is he using a hearing aid? and why on earth would he want to keep it from people?

“who am i going to tell?” taeyong says instead of asking the questions that are burning at the back of his mind. it’s the truth, though. at the most, he’ll tell his mom or his sister but he doesn’t exactly have anyone else to volunteer the information to in sunhwa, does he? 

[yfxty-blog]

just a spoonful of sugar

@yfyeeun

all of his muscles feel sore and overused. if it wasn’t for sheer willpower and determination, taeyong is quite sure he’s about to be a pile of mush on the floor by the poolside. he swings his equipment bag onto his bag, filled with his rinsed swim boxers, goggles, towel and other necessities for practice. he doesn’t really like being in his own clothes and out of the school uniform, but it’s after school hours and there’s no real need to change back into his uniform. it’ll just wear the one suit out faster than it would if he just mans up. so he’s in a really thin, overused hoodie with a couple of sewing patches on them and a pair of short pants. 

time for the usual perilous trek back to the dorm and avoiding the sunbae from the room next door if he wants to live. there’s a whole mountain of assignments from the school day and it’ll probably be the wee hours of the morning by the time he finally finishes them. taeyong feels around in his pocket and finds his cellphone, a crusty flip phone that his mom told him to bring along to school so that she could contact him easily. it would be a good idea to just give her a call and check in with her too. he checks his call log and the last time he’d given her a call was a couple of days ago, one of the last few outgoing calls on his phone.

noona would be bugging him for not contacting her either. she has a relatively newer phone, a touch screen, but it’s an older model compared to the ones that all his schoolmates in sunhwa flaunt. she was supposed to be studying for her college entrance examinations but she texted him whenever her friends weren’t entertaining her to ask him if there were any drama-like developments in his friend circle lately. taeyong didn’t have the heart to tell her that he wasn’t fitting in and not in the geum jandi kind of way either, so he’d relate some hearsay that was going around to her.

not that anyone told it to him. they just tended to talk about it around him since they thought he was an outcast and wouldn’t tell anyone. he’s crafting a short text to his sister when he pauses and feels an ominous sort of presence around him.

[yfxty-blog]

multiple vehicle collision

@yfyerim

silence.

resistance and he pushes against it. flexing and releasing tension. the cool, gentle caress of water on his skin.

it’s one way to judge him, to hold him up to scrutiny and make sure he doesn’t just crumble. it’s another method to ensure that he’s worthy, isn’t it? but when he’s down in the water, in the pool, it doesn’t feel like that. the world becomes a vacuum and nothing else can penetrate through water resistance to touch him. he’s alone in his mind and thoughts, the other end of the olympic size lap pool his singular goal. it’s oddly stress relieving despite the fact that most of the time, when he’s in the pool, it’s for swim practice and when he breaks through the surface he can hear voices yelling and criticising. 

after months of going through drills and intense training, he can clear half the distance of the lap underwater and that’s what he does as he kicks off the wall of the pool. legs propelling him forward, he marks the exact half of the lap and pushes himself to bypass it even as his lungs burn with a lack of oxygen. the constant refrains of the coach and the seniors loop in his head. he lasts for three kicks past the halfway mark before he pushes for the surface, gasping quickly and plunging back into the silence to finish the lap. technically, it’s after practice hours already and he should be getting his ass back to his dorm or to the library to study. but he’s been told to stay back to work on himself since he lacks compared to his classmates who’ve probably been learning how to swim professionally since they were kids.

he hits the end of the lap and he surges up to grab the waterproof timer, reflexively hitting the stop button. his lap time has gotten a bit better with each attempt, but he’s as of yet still slower. it’s frustrating how they’ve all got years of head starts on him but there’s no slack to be cut in a school as competitive as sunhwa. his breath comes heavy as he takes a short break, resetting the timer. that’s when he notices the senior standing around the pool and there are loud splashes as he struggles to hoist himself out. taeyong recognises her because she’s conspicuous, almost always late to practice and often lingering behind on her own. maybe after hours lap time is supposed to be just for her.

“i’m sorry, sunbaenim,” is his go-to thing to say whenever he encounters them in an awkward situation. which is what their current situation is: extremely awkward. he’s standing in his swimming boxers and he was probably just recently occupying the pool she meant to use exclusively. except, he makes it about a hundred times more awkward by slipping on a puddle of pool water right in front of her and faceplanting into the ground at her feet.

[yfxty-blog]

pride and prejudice

[cnxsato-deactivated20161230]

( — the play would be interesting (there’s already at least three people drifting). fifteen percent is plenty of battery for an ipod (it hadn’t been enough). their instructor wouldn’t possibly check their attendance at the end (so much for optimism). only ten minutes have passed since he’s sat down and all three presumptions have already been proven wrong, in turn, all the interest he’d come with has already gone and is nowhere to be found. pride and prejudice; he knows nothing about the story unraveling before them, but the title alone seems suitable for sunhwa. on one end it’s in designer bags and upturned noses, foul language and yacht parties. on the other it’s modesty and leers, scholarships and inferiority complexes. from his perch he likes to think he fits neither trope, though he’s sure there’s at least one person in this hall that would argue otherwise. either way, it hardly matters. )

( — it takes one too many seconds of longing for life from a blackened screen, too many presses ignored from the power button, for the device to be pocketed. a hand covers boredom as he yawns. a glance to their instructor in the front row begs for a scowl. ) i can’t believe we have to sit through the whole thing. ( — he mumbles prose to no one, yet half expects an answer. one look to his right and that fifty sinks to a zero. it’s always the same boy placed by his side in his smallest times of need. always available, never delivering, perhaps imaginary. madness or reality, he confides in it a notch above a whisper. ) do you remember how long the summary has to be?

[yfxty-blog]

( * he should be paying attention to what’s going on on the stage. he really should, but the play is in english and that’s not his best subject. at all. he loses thread of the story every couple of sentences and the body language of the actors isn’t exactly helping to keep him engaged. it’s going to suck when he has to go look up the play in the school library in korean to either read the book or check naver for a run down of what it’s about. then he has to write about the play in a foreign language and he’s pretty sure their instructor had said something about linguistic nuances, foreign context and lots of other things that had just blown his mind out of the water. seriously? he’s halfway through zoning out when he hears a quiet voice speaking to him, addressing him, and he feels a stone sink in his stomach. )

( * his eyes dart to where song wangja is seated, but he doesn’t dare to actually turn his head to look. his hands are balled up together on his lap and he hopes that it’s not him the other male is speaking to. conversations with the students here have been every sort of intimidating he never knew existed back in his hometown. ) 4 pages. ( * he replies when it’s apparent it’s him and shifts in his seat. not answering is about nerve wrecking as answering. both options make him feel like he might throw up on his sneakers, scuffed to hell, and he hopes his year mate won’t continue talking to him. the fleeting thought that offending wangja means offending his older sister too comes to the fore of his thoughts and taeyong has to control the urge to shrivel up, then crawl into a hole. this is a 100% lose-lose situation. )

[yfxty-blog]

where’d you go, winnie?

@deanxyf

it was in the hallways, taeyong recalls to himself as he hoists his backpack up higher on his shoulder. the harsh impact of his books against his back while he runs is just a second thought while he dashes through the immense sprawling corridors of sunhwa. the school is too damned big to be practical. it’s thrice, maybe almost four times, as big as his old middle school was and there’s so much space he has no idea what the hell they even do with it. he struggles to pick out which exact hallway it was when all of them are so polished to impeccable standards.

he ends up in one that feels somewhat right and he looks around for the tiny little charm that’s always been by his side. during one of his classes, taeyong had reached inside of his backpack to squeeze it for comfort to find that his lucky winnie the pooh charm was gone. careful recounting of his memory led him back to this exact spot and he scans the floors for the yellow-brown doll. it should stick out like a sore thumb against the floor tiles but there’s no winnie in sight. out of paranoia, he throws his backpack on the floor and rustles through it one more time.

maybe winnie is inside his bag and he’s just overreacting. it could’ve shuffled to a different spot of his pack and he’d just panicked for nothing. there’s an anxiety rising in his chest and filling him up because he’d checked plenty of times in class before coming over and there was no winnie. it has to be here, otherwise his next phone call to noona might be one full of sick apologies and horrible regrets. she was the one who gave it to him back when he was a kid and couldn’t manage all the twisted gut feelings, despite winning it from the convenience store dollar machine. 

taeyong’s crouched next to the trash can in the hallway, desperate, and he thinks he might just flip the damn bin apart to check for winnie in case someone threw it away. he barely notices when someone else turns up within the vicinity.

[yfxty-blog]

sober companions

@yfxyang

saturday evening finds taeyong on the way back to campus after exploring a little bit of seoul city itself. he should’ve been studying for his finals and he had been, earlier in the morning, but by late in the afternoon his concentration was shot. if nothing was going into his brain and his motivation was gone, he might as well take a break anyway, right? so he’d gone out into the neighbouring areas around the school to explore. pohang itself wasn’t as though it was hugely undeveloped or a lesser place than seoul. taeyong simply lived in a smaller part that was closer knit, less metropolitan than everywhere in seoul felt like it was.

he’s got his hands shoved into the pocket of the sturdy windbreaker his mother bought him several years back. he remembers receiving it back then and wondering why it was a little oversized. mom had just told him to stuff up the extra space with more layers. then the years had past and he’d started shooting up a little and each time he pulled on the windbreaker, he prayed he wouldn’t grow out of it. he’s a lot smaller than plenty of the guys in sunhwa, height and physique wise, but if it means he didn’t need to change his wardrobe as many times then taeyong doesn’t mind as much. sort of.

it’s on the school grounds that he notices her. he’s not the best in school or taking tests but he’s excellent at remembering people, faces, and names. all the better to avoid them with. this time he can make out one of the girls from his year, lin yang. she’s one of the foreigners, although he didn’t expect it at all because she looked exactly like any other korean. maybe she had eyes a little bigger than average but she looked korean. and she stands out right now, though, because taeyong has seen plenty of drunk people in his life and she looks exactly like the uncles outside family restaurants in the evening back home.

he stands a few steps away from her, frozen, unsure of what to do. those drunk uncles usually had sober people accompanying them. lin yang is absolutely alone right now, besides the fact that he’s standing here. is he supposed to do something or is it more polite to leave someone to process their shameful drunkenness on their own?

[yfxty-blog]

tower of babel

@yfxyongha

it’s 6:49am in the morning and taeyong is seriously considering just going back to bed because it is 6:49am in the morning. but as things are, it is a school morning and he has to pull his ass out of bed or risk messing up the weird sort of routine he has with his roommate. he tends to wake up earlier than yongha does and then he’ll shower, washing up, not having to worry about being noisy because his roommate has a hearing impairment and won’t be woken up by him being a colossally clumsy elephant in the bathroom.

when he’s done around five minutes to 7am, he’ll be dressed in the uniform he ironed straight on his own the night before. if it’s been two days, he’ll have washed it and if it hasn’t been then he’s just wearing it again over an inner shirt. he only has the one uniform because even the uniforms to an elite school cause a shit ton of money. the scholarship had given him a bunch of money to settle the stuff he needed for the school semester and he wasn’t about to waste cash he could give to his mother on another fancy outfit. he’s crouched over his ratty backpack, packing his stuff for the day’s classes in.

his last glance at his roommate had placed yongha not quite up yet, hearing aids still out, so he mumbles to himself as he gets ready.

“birds of a flock feather together,” he recites, trying to improve his english. his classmates are leaps and bounds ahead of him while he’s struggling with basic phrases and spelling. he’s already been held back in class multiple times with the instructor telling him that he’s lagging behind the others far too much, that he needs to improve a lot more to be able to get decent grades if he wants to pass for the semester. it’s frustrating and he wants to vent his frustrations somewhere, but there’s no outlet in a school where everyone is literally perfect. “fuck, was it that? who the hell even needs to learn english anyway? i’m not going to talk to any foreigners.”

[yfxty-blog]

unsolicited advice

@yfxjungah

it’s ridiculous, in taeyong’s opinion, that club activities continue to go on despite the fact that the finals for the semester are just about coming up. he usually heads for swim practice with just his bag full of gear, because he likes compartmentalising the different parts of his life. however, with finals season coming up, the usual time he spends zoning out before swim practice is precious time too. he gets changed into his swimming boxers, slaps on his swim cap and dangles his goggles around his neck first but then he waits around the pool before all the members have arrived with a textbook and a highlighter in hand.

he avoids the places where the other members of the swim team normally gather to chatter before practice starts and he tries to focus on the text in front of him. the leap between middle school and sunhwa has been vast, the assumed knowledge from before and what he does know probably the distance between pohang and seoul. goddamned fucking far. he’s been struggling to just pass in all his classes so far and he’s only been surviving by the skin of his teeth. the words in his english textbook now are an alien language and he can’t shape them in his mouth. plenty of his classmates are well-travelled and speak english fairly well, having interacted with foreigners before.

hell, taeyong’s never even seen a real foreigner in the flesh until he came to seoul and got scared six inches out of his skin when he came across a black person. they were really as dark as the pictures made them out to be, no photo editing or anything. his textbook doesn’t help because it’s almost entirely in english and there aren’t any korean translations; any korean on the book is 98% his ugly chicken scrawl as his instructor had breezed through the class at a rapid pace he couldn’t catch up with. he’s busy trying to decipher one of his own chicken scrawls when he hears someone’s voice a little too near to where he’s crouched himself and he looks up, eyes alert.

[yfxty-blog]

anthropophobia, difficulty: maximum

@yfxjae

finals season.

taeyong doesn’t think he’s seen the natural light of day beyond the glaring white led lights they have in the library since he ended class a couple of hours ago. he’d skipped a proper full dinner to opt for a more portable piece of bread and a carton of milk on his way to the campus library. the approaching end of the semester meant that more people were going to be studying and he didn’t want to end up without a table or having to share with people if the individual cubicles were taken up.

fast forward to now, where he’s got a stack of extra materials piled up in his arms along with his assigned textbooks in his backpack. it’s a sturdy old thing that he’s been lugging around since elementary school and has stitches on it, which he’s been trying to hide. everyone in sunhwa either has really luxury brand name bags or bags with brand names that he doesn’t even know how to pronounce. fact is, he doesn’t know which countries they come from. you could offer him a million bucks, but he’d fail at guessing what language that bag brand name is supposed to be.

he’s almost to his dorm room, which is both a relief and a paralysing experience every single time. on one hand, entering his dorm and being able to relax a little more than being out on campus grounds makes him feel he’s able to pull the stick out of his ass. on the other hand, being near to his dorm room increases the chances of him being within proximity of a certain yoon jeonghan-sunbaenim who scares the guts out of him. the guy reminds him of the adults from back in his neighbourhood in pohang who used to pinch his cheeks and smack his butt, all while yelling at him to be more outgoing.

he’s within the last few meters of his dorm room and it’s so close to a senior-less encounter when he spots a familiar silhouette. taeyong mutters a soft ‘oh shit’ that he hopes no one hears and tries to speed up, sticking as close to the walls as he can.

[yfxty-blog]

pride and prejudice

@yfxsong

( * he folds his arms cross his abdomen and tucks his legs half underneath the seat that he’s occupying in the school’s massive auditorium. his crisp uniform still feels stiff on his shoulders even after months of wearing the same one over and over again, glancing around him, he knows his is a lot more worn and used than the ones of his classmates. it makes him shift his weight in his seat uncomfortably because most of them are the upper crust of the elite and he hasn’t adjusted to the idea of a silly kid like him walking amongst them. his grades aren’t even that great and neither is he the best swimmer on the team, so he’s not sure why he was offered the opportunity. he worries about the reason why the school chose him every day, because what god giveth, god can taketh away. )

( * they’re in the auditorium for a performance by the drama club students of a foreign play called ‘pride and prejudice’, although he has never heard of it or read about it before. the students around him are either buzzing about the play itself or their own conversations and he tries not to stand out, sinking deeper into his seat self-consciously. all of the students at sunhwa consistently remind him of their social class differences, their accessibility to things like that are stuff he’s never even dreamt of. he gnaws on the inside of his cheek and resists the urge to tap his foot restlessly. on his left, he recognises the younger brother of a really popular senior in the school. the guy’s name isn’t hard to remember, when it’s something as outstanding as song wangja. taeyong’s heard of song aegi-sunbaenim and he feels himself stiffen, he’s never really interacted with wangja before. he doesn’t mess with either sibling. )