pump your veins.

saturating the background is the caustic burn of quiet. personal, subjective. he brands the moment with the spherical silence that drowns, a stomach deep ocean that soaks with too much salinity. in the waves, the water scorches with its carried kerosene. he’s all drenched yet ablaze. he isn’t certain as to what singes more: the fact that he spoke or the fact that the man answers.

           this feels almost like a black and white film playing in reverse.                                                     ( a masterpiece of cinematography. )

in this piece of script, he’s still pulled downwards, ankles tied to anchors. allusion to a night that might or might not bode well: cryptic to the core that there’s no way to foresee.

but between his teeth is the grenade pin, and the explosion has occurred seconds ago. it’s too late to step back now, when his skin has corroded from all the flames. rippling in the flesh: the reminder of a day filled with a carousel of static dreams. sometimes nightmares. sometimes nullified.

men from around the world – solar was a part of global projects. fear is instilled with ease.

                                did not expect the man to talk at all.

This might be the day he’s lulled into sempiternal sleep---or ephemeral. The question remains; which would he prefer?

Everything moves in slow motion. In the corner of his eye, he can see a hand sliding slightly to the right, but that’s it. Nothing further, there are no advances yet. Ah, this could be one of those who like talking about mindless blubber before actually coming to any type of conclusion? Unfortunately so. Youngkwang happens to be patience engraved in mankind, yet he doesn’t like wasting time. How does this go hand in hand? Answer is simple---it doesn’t. He tastes another bittersweet sip, lets it sit on his tongue until it’s lukewarm. What awful fucking whisky.

Interruption, it happens quicker than he can register himself. “Now, kid, look---” This time, his head turns, his eyes are brought to a sunlit complex which is all to serious and somber for what seems like a youth; younger than someone of rich caliber should be. There’s no emotion in his voice, no attempt to sound polite. Instead, weary eyes are stuck looking at the edge of the male’s sleeve, without thinking he moves forward. He corrects it, it’s just a tad crinkled. “I do not care for men from Montreal, or anywhere else. Nor, unfortunately, do I have the time for your antics. I do appreciate the attempt to sound like a mysterious character from far-away lands---but I’d appreciate it enormously if you could come a little closer and tell me what you want.” It’s sloppy, not properly sought out. He hasn’t calculated the words on beforehand (a mistake on his behalf).

he’s only five when he gets his finest taste of hell: it isn’t a touch, isn’t a breeze, rather he’s submerged in its fire, exists within its burn. he’s too young to understand what actually happens, though, each time his stepfather takes him by the hand and leads him to his room when no one is at home; too innocent to understand why he can’t tell anyone. he’s too young to understand why he’s covered in such horrid, ugly bruises after a few hours of pain, or what it means when he runs into his stepbrother’s arms while his mother ignores the situation with such a precise and practiced manner that it’s almost elegant.

and even though it’s been going on for so long, she still claims that she loves him, always has, always will. that the hurt, she says, is out of love.

yet minkyu is much too young to understand much beyond the comfort of his brother’s arms and the soft lull of his words that pull him to sleep after. today is no different, it seems, except that his father has chosen to start the process while someone is home – he’s left minkyu a shaking mess, his posture small, his figure frail. the bruises have started to darken as he finds himself in that familiar comfort of his brother’s embrace, unsure of why he cries, of why he grips onto his brother’s shirt as though without it he might fall. murmurs spill like water, faded sounds that splash around him.

“They’re cowards, Min. Don’t worry, you won’t have to be scared anymore.” His fingers curl against his palms, forming tight fists. His teeth bite together, jaw tensing up. He slowly lets go of his stepbrother, as carefully as possible. Broken bones and broken souls. Soon, the little boy might break into a thousand pieces. No more. No more. Too many times has he watched those big, wondrous eyes look at him with despair and confusion. Youngkwang rises, hurries into the kitchen. There’s a knife in his hand now.

there’s a steady procession of people moving in and out of her line of sight, each one glittering beneath crystal lights. familiar faces she couldn’t put a name to, like puzzle pieces that never quite fit. her cheeks hurt from having been pulled into a taut smile for the past hour, throat running dry from the seemingly endless cascade of greetings and aimless exchanges that were requisite for evenings such as these.

but it isn’t all bad. the galas often bring with it some of the city’s more colorful figures, people she wouldn’t have met in any other capacity, painting surrealist pictures in her head and filling it with daydreams enough to last her for months on end. “mercado de sonora, that’s the name. it’s where you can get your salad ingredients and cast a spell on someone– for more or less the same price.” says the elderly woman with peacock feathers in her hair. emerald greens and gold, swaying each time she motions her head. she’s a regular to these events, though haneul has never seen her watch any of the ballets.

“love potions are common. not that you would need one, dear. besides, they are very dangerous concoctions.” a thin, bejeweled finger reaches for her cheeks and the ballerina flinches involuntarily, eliciting laughter from the elderly woman. “dangerous?” haneul repeats, her gaze briefly moving to one particular person in their circle. once, twice. surreptitiously. quickly turning away each time she thinks he’s caught her. why would it matter if he did? they weren’t strangers, though it might seem that way.

they weren’t strangers, but was he still the same person from before?

months can blur into each other and it’s easy for her to forget time when each day is spent inside the theatre. the mornings, evenings– most hours in between. how long has it been? her hands may have forgotten what it was like to hold him close, but she remembers everything else. the good things. always the good things. his voice, the way he’d look at her– how it felt being around him. safe, despite the words they had left each other with. time. she wonders just how much it has changed things between them. it has certainly changed her.

At some point he finds himself discussing the illegal weapon trade that has increased at an alarming rate in China. He doesn’t smile, rather keeping a stoic expression with stale nods; his brows are even burrowed. Beneath the surface, he’s smiling. Surely, he does like the fact that he can influence something to the point of people in his country chattering about it. The man speaks of how they are plotting against the Democratic Republic of Korea, his blood appears to be rushing with such excitement over the topic that it spills over into him spitting saliva at everyone he’s directing this speech towards. It’s his cue to leave.

Correcting the seam of his vest, straightening the sleeve of his tuxedo. The dim lights aren’t helping with his unwillingness to shake any more hands, everyone looks so dark and sickly under the crystal crowns which embed the faux-Michelangelo painted ceiling. A sloppily detailed angel shoots from one end of the hall to the other. His eyes lower once again, but this time to something completely else. The skies open, heavens resurrect behind opaque clouds and ash grey rain. Skies that are always changing, developing. Today, she looks the same as her fragile self, but with a much unsuited stiff posture.

He doesn’t even try to look away, not in the slightest. She’s much more human than she is, she actually cares about all this (even if he’s very good at acting like he does). He does remember her face being rounder in the past, softer. They grow up so fast---she’s rightfully in that age when you morph into another being. Is she something else? Studying her movements, he deems it that his presence is somewhat of a fire alarm going off over the slightest of smoke. He doesn’t try to make his way to her. There’s only two ways this can go. She’ll ignore him, go on about her night and act like it never happened. Eyes didn’t meet, souls didn’t catch each other’s disease.

Rightfully so (but he has a feeling this isn’t the way it’s going to be---these skies have a strong mind, stronger than they appear [pale pastel blues]).

The way that Youngkwang walked out of his life simply left too many things unresolved, and for someone with persistent abandonment issues it was a terrible, terrible thing to do. But he was given no say in the matter. No amount of phone calls, even knocks on the door would amount up to anything, because all he received was silence. Endless, endless silence, because Youngkwang has always been a creature of patience and self control. Eventually there was no choice for him left but to give up. His time was up.

So it is his last thought that Youngkwang would show up in his untidy apartment so suddenly, entirely uninvited after so much time has gone past already. The creaking door already pulls at his consciousness, luring him out of his sleep, and then the shifting of the mattress. The familiar voice is all he needs to finally wake up but he thinks it has to be a dream, a hallucination of sorts. A weakness of his fractured mind longing for things he has already lost forever. But then something pulls at his mind, again, and he sits up and jerks back as he takes in the tall, broad figure looming at the end of his bed, his imagination jumping into conclusions before his tired eyes properly focus and he recognises that face.

While hasn’t been here much because of Joon’s unwillingness to show it off (and if he’s going to be honest he can understand why---Youngkwang’s place isn’t exactly modest), he does remember the feeling of the walls closing in on him. Maybe it’s just because he’s generally a tall man, or because he associates the place with another soul’s anxiety. Empathy is far from his strongest senses, but with Joon he does recognize it vaguely. Maybe. His fingers dip into the sheets, the other hand reaching into the breast pocket of a deep navy dress shirt. He skillfully reaches two fingers into a packet to bring out a cigarette and a zippo lighter. While he does place the cigarette in between his lips, he doesn’t light it, not yet. The amount of common courtesy he possesses is shown at this moment.