GIRL INTERRUPTED

open starter.

good company and a ripe bottle of red wine summarized a friday evening.

she didn’t drink much nor acquired the thirst for alcohol, but this was once in a while. this was a mandatory escape from problems festering. this was a slice of freedom, sitting atop a throne and watching the circle of life culminate, watching it prey upon the weak. hyunmi felt struggle in her bones, between her joints where it ached with every reaction, every shift. calcium matter chipped away at one another, burning. but it was so much more than physical fatigue.

it was exhaustion everywhere.

she feathered fingers through a fringe too long, trapping semi-dried ends between fingertips as she pretended to inspect their dilapidated state. “how’s life? i feel like i haven’t seen you in ages besides the small run-ins at idolized. but how’s everything? how are you? are you good?” and hyunmi poured red wine into a tall glass as she pestered, talking silence away, filling the void with hollow chatter.

heartbreak is hard to admit.

she’s got her pride and wears her self-confidence like a worn second skin. people like her do not wallow in misery or cry herself to sleep over men who kissed her softly and loved her tenderly. people like holly do not  attempt to find redemption and salvation (wretched forgiveness) in soft curves and softer lips, in broad shoulders and calloused fingers. people like holly simply do not allow themselves to let the heartache drown them every waking moment in life.

so why is it that she feels herself shaking, even as she feigns a smile against the rim of her wine glass? why is it she feels the need to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from confessing how heavy a heart broken actually feels in the hollow of her rib cage?

why is it she still misses him, still remembers as if it were yesterday? why, why why?

the answer is simple (a lesson learned hard, learned thrice now. shame on her): because broken girls like her had an addiction to danger, to playing with fire. a need to gamble with her heart with too high stakes and a whole soul and body to lose in between silk sheets and warm hands and gentle kisses. 

because broken girls like holly drown their sorrow in half-hearted smiles curved on rouge red lips and a bottle of red split between two. because broken girl to broken girl, holly recognizes a kindred spirit when she sees one.

heartache, heart anything, heart whatever--pretending is easy when in good, trusted company.

hyunmi, smart as she is was bound to catch on sooner or later. so holly chooses not to lie.

( ... )

A feminine voice cuts through the space and she whips her head around to catch a glimpse of the other female, her supposed partner for today. Lyra had only ever seen Holly in magazines and otherwise – this would be their first official meeting – but as she walks up to greet the other female with a grin, she could say for sure that the other female looked even better in person. “Holly? Hi, I’m Lyra. I’m looking forward to work with you!”

yoon seolhee belongs to the still image of a girl of three with rosy cheeks and a soft smile. she’s the black and white rendition of a little girl who saw the world in degrees of separation, filtered through layers and layers of rose colored glasses; a mess of distortion and sugarcoated words. yoon seolhee is (was) fragility and naivete all wrapped up in a small body not made for a world ruled by harsh critics and filled with spotlights and cameras.

holly belongs to the pages of magazines--front cover, ten page spreads, girl to not-quite woman in bold reds and skin-tight leather, eyes sultry and winged in charcoal black. she’s got the body on the threshold of forced transformation disguised as commercialism and marketable beauty. she’s a product of brand names and reputation, wearing money made of chiffon, silk, and diamonds. holly is girl-next-door gone wild--a living wet dream, even at the tender age of fifteen.

above all, holly belongs to the public--to love, to hate, and everything in between.

jobs like this one (called in weeks in advance, her name signed on dotted lines, and borne out of stern meetings with stiff higher-ups) is normal--practically routine.

rinse, wash, repeat. how boring.

yet, when she sets foot on set, holly’s ready--head-to-toe perfect in casual wear, her soon-to-be ex-manager right at her elbows. what she doesn’t expect is a slip of a girl--living innocence in the flesh--and a newly debut singer smiling at her. 

face smooth, holly executes a bow just a touch shy of ninety degrees. she’s aware of the convoluted necessity of hierarchy here--she’s a trainee (poised on the unpredictability of a potential debut in the future) respect is a given. but the trained gaze she keeps on lyra and a touch of a calculating smile curving her lips is reminiscent of her own self-assurance. they’re on set for a photoshoot and this has been her turf since she was a child. 

this is where she belongs--at her best and in her element.

( ✉️ → seolhee 🧡 ) LOOK HERE, CHILD. I TRIED TO CALL YOU. ( ✉️ → seolhee 🧡 ) yessss!!!! you know it 😘😘😘 ( ✉️ → seolhee 🧡 ) I bought one for you and for momma chae too though ( ✉️ → seolhee 🧡 ) She needs to be less of an oldie and i thought you’d look hot in the lingerie I found! ( ✉️ → seolhee 🧡 ) attached file

[ ✉ → holly unnie 🌿] hi umm so [ ✉ → holly unnie 🌿] did you get to see noah by chance when he was here for rehearsals? [ ✉ → holly unnie 🌿] because i didn’t. [ ✉ → holly unnie 🌿] and he hasn’t called me or talked to me since the beginning of his tour.

[ ✉ → daeun 🌻] didn’t see him around much during rehearsals actually--he was pretty much a ghost. here one second, gone the next. [ ✉ → daeun 🌻] but he looked a right mess [ ✉ → daeun 🌻] lover’s spat? trouble in paradise? 

[ ten minutes later. ]

holly should’ve known it'd be a nightmare to be out in public with sebastian. this man-child seemed to have an attention span of a gnat and wasn’t the best conversationalist to have around. but oddly enough, there’s no irritation beneath her words. no outward impatience at the small tug she makes at his sleeve. it’s endearing — the way he speaks his mind and is unafraid to be himself. like a child, who couldn’t be contained, giddiness written all over his face as flitting over all the selections ripe for the picking.

( ✉️ → ?? ) Guess whaaaat? ( ✉️ → ?? ) I bought something nice for myself. ( ✉️ → ?? ) I think it’s really cute but I’m not sure. ( ✉️ → ?? ) Reply when you have time plz ( ✉️ → ?? ) I seriously need your opinion on it :c

alright, maybe soy sauce wasn’t the secret ingredient.

jaekyung invited holly over when, at least a day ago, his mother had jokingly texted him— ‘jaekyung-ah, i watched an interview where one of the idols says you made him the best chocolate he’s ever tasted. but of course, that’s because he hasn’t tasted mine :)”— and, competitiveness at its finest, it bothered jaekyung the entire rest of the day until he found himself in the kitchen.

he’d been working for about six hours and popped out a couple batches before he decided his taste buds had burnt out completely, and so he’d decided to call a friend— it was a blessing when holly picked up and agreed to come over. she’s at jaekyung’s home most of the time anyway, so it’s not a big deal.

jaekyung’s mother undisputedly makes the best chocolates known to mankind. but jaekyung is determined to make the second best chocolates— or at the very least, tie with her. it’s what he does nowadays, especially since the rise of rookie idols have given him a much-welcomed, slower schedule to work with. 

by the time holly arrives, he’s tried throwing everything in his kitchen into his chocolate to figure out what it is that makes it perfect. bell peppers, cilantro, banana milk, sriracha— holly’s quite the lucky one that she only arrived to witness the latest of jaekyung’s attempts: soy sauce.

maybe just a little would do the trick? but jaekyung’s already losing hope when the consistency of the mix is thinner than he expected; he swats holly’s hand away when she reaches for a taste, throwing her a half-hearted glare.

“no. you get a taste when i am done only; this isn’t like brownie mixture.” queen elizabark pads by, and jaekyung picks her up round her midsection and plops her down onto holly’s lap. “hold her, you. and seriously! you can eat some when i’m done. there are the other batches that you can have a taste at— they’re not as good as my usual work since they’re experimental, but eat them. the banana milk flavor’s my favorite so far, but sriracha’s pretty good too. also, i’ll try armagnac right after this. maybe i’ll do that instead of vinegar.”

"do you really think i wouldn’t be able to sneak a taste when you’re not looking? you do know what you look like when you’re all distracted with your brain running a mile a minute, trying to think of recipes off the top of your gorgeous head to wow me, right? you’re cute when you’re like this, but i’ve always been told i have fast hands.” she retorts full of gusto and borderline challenging, but the scoff doesn’t reach her eyes. in her lap, queen elizabark butts her wet nose against the back of her hand and smiling wide, she lifts the beagle and turns her towards jaekyung. “your dad refuses to feed me, a starving woman. it’s sad, isn’t it? he takes such good care of you, but he won’t even let me have one measly lick--so stingy.”

laughing now, she puts queen elizabark back down when she starts to squirm and props her elbows back onto the counter, cheeks resting in her palms. “you know i only eat the best things. how dare you suggest i eat something not up to par as ‘your usual.’ i’m offended, jae.” and yet, she reaches right on over to the cooling rack for a nicely dusted chocolate truffle and takes a small bite. “mm, i’ll take all of the banana milk ones--they’re mine now!”

if the city were a body, holly imagines the streets are its veins; the people its blood. she imagines the heart pulsating with the hubbub of night life and groups of everyday soldiers marching to and from school and work. if the city had bones, she imagines she could hear the creak of its knees, the fracture of its shoulders, war-torn and heavy under the weight of meritocracy and its people’s greed. imagines the city crying at night underneath the rumble of car engines and distant blares of sirens, underneath the dragging footsteps of urban stragglers, underneath the plague of city light and white noise—alive and dead all at once. if the city had flesh, the people would’ve bled her dry. day in and day out. (a pitiful rinse-wash-repeat cycle.)

this is how she mourns those phantom deaths:

with a bottle of soju, two orders of odeng, and a skewer of tteokkochi half-eaten. every now and then, holly makes eye contact with the pojangmacha ahjussi, who tuts at her; one hand waving a stick of odeng at her like she’s a child, the other pointing at her bottle of soju as if to ask another? she only smiles—a peculiar mix of indulgence & exasperation—accepts the odeng and shakes her head when he tries to set another bottle of soju on her table. her murmurs of objection dissolves amidst a pair of drunken men squabbling two tables over and the shriek of the ahjumma accusing someone two tables over of not paying when he reaches for his wallet and finds it empty. she glances over at him only once, his apologetic voice making her pause. 

this is how she copes with pity:

a quick two-minute conversation done in whispers and subtle hand gestures (her request adhered to with a wave of the ahjussi’s hand at his wife—let him go. the agassi will pay for him). it’s only when the ahjumma drops his wrist and sidles to the front of the stall does holly address him; her voice a siren, her face obscured by the brim of her cap and late night shadows. perks of being seated in the best seat of the house--anonymity. come. sit.

holly’s never been able to pinpoint beginnings--only ever caring about whatever fills the in-between: late night heart-to-hearts accumulating over a bottle of vintage red, hour long rant sessions that dissolve into warm hugs and quiet laughter, comfortable silences, all soaked up by adrenaline and the night sky. 

with seri, things are never quite as complicated as she’d expected. it’s rare--her somewhat friendship with the younger girl igniting some kind of innate drive to coddle, to protect. somehow, all it ever really takes is a phone call or a blues-y moment and holly’s already on her way.

tonight, it goes like this:

the evening’s cold but her cheeks are warmed red by the glass of wine she’d had hours ago. they’re not far from home (for seri, she can’t never venture too far away. the dorm akin to a prison. mobs of fans with their trusty cameras her prison guards), just a couple of miles away where the high rises are a little less frequent and the streets a little less congested. she’s got a blanket out on the patch of grass she’d found while looking for a place to park inconspicuously and a cliched picnic basket filled with goodies sitting right at the center. 

eunchae was the most genuine with BEE most especially around holly who she saw as her sister. the younger female was there through everything— literally everything. all the happy and heartbreaking moments in her life, she experienced it with holly. she wasn’t scared to joke around and laugh a little too boisterously around her. holly was her person, she will forever be that. “you’re over exaggerating.” eunchae dramatically rolled her eyes as she turned her arm to caress holly’s hair affectionately. “this is her way of saying that she missed me. i can see right through her.” she explained to the camera, snuggling close to her. idolized was about showing the fans and the world a glimpse of their lives as idols and eunchae was giving them more than a glimpse of how she was with her bestest friend. 

“holly is my baby. she was my roommate and still technically is considering how much she stays over,” she showed off, wrapping her arms around holly and squeezing her tightly. “do i trust you? hmmm that depends what i trust you with. it’s a situational thing,” brown hues narrowed down on the other, raising her brow playfully as if it was an inside joke between them only for eunchae to burst out laughing. “my morning just got better. they laughing makes you live longer, let’s hope that’s because who else is gonna watch my BEE babies and my Honeys?” eunchae wasn’t usually this cheerful but maybe it was time for a change. she had just gotten the best news of her life that her grandmother was going to be okay so there was something to be happy again and plus, she’s going to perform soon— something she hasn’t done in a while. “it’s going to be a long day ahead, isn’t it?” she turned to holly. “let’s go the waiting room? i have to drop my things anyway.” 

"unnie, please, you’re embarrassing me,” she cringes at the effort to remain bubbly, her voice sweet as honey and dripping with over-the-top affection--though, not all of it is feigned. holly’s bond with eunchae has never been a fabrication nor was it built on the pretense of riding on her coattails or to sink her claws into her prestige and connections. no, with eunchae, holly has only ever been as vulnerable as her body would let her--soft and gentle, filled to the brim with the kind of warmth she has only ever felt when in good company. there’s something to be said about how effortless eunchae’s able to draw out her good side--the tiny part of her she often keeps locked away beneath a saccharine smile and feigned politeness. 

“it’s because it’s so lonely living all alone--i’m too used to clinging to you like an octopus. you know, the good ol’ training and debut days. it’s cold without you, chae,” the whine’s a touch exaggerated, but the press of her cheek against eunchae’s neck and the way her hands tighten around her arm speaks of wholehearted affection. stay, she says without so many words, stay with me, unnie.