WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

for fuck’s sake, what is wrong with him if he likes her?

“got bored of your own bathroom?” he asks, eases his tie. he wanted to take a bath himself but he’ll be damned if she ever allows him to join her. 

kana paces the halls of the manor like a tiger in a cage, slender shoulders drawn taut, tense, her movement a prowl. her blood has gone from a boil to a simmer, a low-grade fury that seems impenetrable, impossible to assuage. that overwhelming fire of the night of the wedding has not abated, but reduced to the glowing ember and coal of a blacksmith’s fire, ready to melt down steel.  

her mother had told her once it was better to be steel than fire, to be refined and polished and still lethal. the allure of the blade akin to that of the wand, and more easily concealed, a weapon for stealth and in that regard the necessary tool of any noble young woman. but kana has never been one to listen to her mother, with her tight lipped expressions and permanently narrowed eyes, her hair pulled back as tightly controlled as her words, to the point kana’s sure it must be a constant ache against her scalp. an unnecessary pain for a cruel woman, perhaps fixated on her own sacrifices, perceived or actual.

kana has spent much of her life pointedly not being her mother, first for reasons of prepubescent rebellion and later out of staunch disagreement with her philosophy, morality, and general demeanor as a whole. so she becomes a furnace to melt the steel of her mother, to desecrate the polish and sheen, to tarnish. 

she wants to ruin. 

it’s the only control she has, the rampant path of destruction and rumor she has cultivated around herself, left in her wake. now that hyuk has been placed in her path, forced upon her like a shackle, she has decided to reframe it. to make him an offering, a sacrifice. she wants to ruin him. 

he grins at her when she leans back to examine her work, reluctantly pulling his hand away from her waist and stuffing it back into his jacket pocket. she tells him he’s good to go, and just like that, this single stolen moment is over in just a few minutes. mischievously he dallies, stretches it as long as he can, drawls in a way that lets his accent slip through, “are you sure you didn’t miss a spot on my lips? feels like i’m missing something.” 

“i’ll eagerly await it,” she tells him, ignores the way his eyes are sparkling and the way his cheek dimples. this is the very definition of a bad idea, starkly outlined in his contract and in her own as no, stop, police line do not cross. it’s so foolish, to think words and money can stop something that feels this big, when she looks at him. it’s all encompassing. and that scares her, if she’s being honest, but when is she ever? it’s easier, to hide behind excuses, to tell him, “stop,” even with a tilt of a fond grin on her lips, even with a reluctance to let her fingers drop from his shoulders. after a final pat she does, grabs his chin when he teases her, tilts his head side to side in rough movements. “looks fine,” she tells him with a hum, pushes his head to the side lightly with a grin,  teasing until the end. “go film your music video.” 

after that it’s a lot of waiting, fluttering around to touch up here and there, watching him sweat off half her hard work, take after take after take.the process never fails to startle her with the way he can give and give so much, a seemingly endless font of anger and energy and fury and fire. her chest aches and she realizes that she’s truly overestimated herself, to think she’d be capable of taking on this job without falling back into the thrall of him. she can feel it happening, as if frozen on the tracks in front of a speeding train, it barrels towards her, ready to flatten her and everything she’s worked for. 

there’s a break  in the filming to prepare for the next scene setting, and this one means more time spent with him than before, to paint wounds on his skin, break out the false blood, the prosthetic. it means sitting him down in a  proper chair this time, while half the staff takes a break for food, which means time spent alone together, which means danger. she steadies herself with a mouthful of water, pushes at his shoulder to direct him into the chair in front of her vanity set up before he can get any funny ideas. “you’re tired, yeah?” she notes, sweeps a towel over his face, patting at his neck, pauses. “i should just cleanse and start over maybe.” she mumbles, a faint grin sneaking out to add, “it’ll take a bit longer though. is that alright?”  she pauses, waits for his answer before she gets to work, taking off layers. 

“after this comeback ends, i’ll announce my early retirement. i’ve made more than enough to quit now while i’m ahead,” he continues, quietly, deciding selfishly, impulsively, he doesn’t care if anyone sees the way he curls his fingers gentle around her waist. in the end, even gun’s not sure if he’s joking or not. after seven years of running and running with no finish line in sight, quitting doesn’t sound so bad. especially not when sera’s there in front of him, hands light on his face, warm under his palm. but he’s always had two great loves in his life, and his career, his music, performing live on stage with bass rumbling beneath his feet is the other. to give that up would be his first death. but sometimes he feels as if to give sera up would be, too. 

gun might resent all this, she knows. gun might struggle under the weight of expectations and eyes on him. she knows that, too. but she knows, perhaps even better than he himself does, that he was born for this. there’s a reason for the screaming crowds and there’s a reason for the soaring reactions to his music. there’s a reason he’s making waves as the most notable of up and coming producers, a reason so many people are trying to work with him, wanting to collaborate or feature on his tracks. gun doesn’t realize it, somehow seems to think that it’s all a strange mistake, some cosmic strangeness that has pushed him up to these heights that he doesn’t deserve. 

but he does. 

“stop being so stubborn,” she laughs back at him, nudging a finger against the other’s hip once more, lips pursing as she feels the brush of a hand, through the pocket of his jacket. she bites at the inside of her cheek, though, when he continues. there’s a strained tension in her chest, even at the idea of it. “you know you can’t,” she chides him, as if even the mention of it had been nothing but a joke. it mostly had been, after all. she’d never ask him to give all this up on a whim, on the hope of something. “if you retire the whole world will have you under a microscope to figure out why,” its a catch-22, a dead end in a labyrinth. 

maybe it was a bad idea to request her, because with just one look his progress in forgetting has reset back to zero. he laughs when she pushes at his arm, but it aches more to know she’s right. he doesn’t want her to be. “why not? i say we can,” he says stupidly defiant, dropping his volume down enough that his words sound more like a rumble as he holds his eyes on hers, “they’ve got signal to sell that boyfriend fantasy now. who cares if a senior like me dates anymore?” many would, he knows. despite the many lyrics he’s penned detailing a tragic love much to realistically, and despite his rough image, many still would. he’s still an idol by name, after all. “we can just be more careful,” he adds unhelpfully. they tried to be careful before too, and where did that get them? “except for when you’re tying me up, of course,” he drawls quietly, grinning as he lifts his brows.   

his schedule is grueling, they’re overworking him to the point of cruelty, she thinks. it’s often like that. she knows as much as anyone, struggling her way through endless shifts, always exhaustively on the lookout for every tiny detail - and she’s not even the one on camera. of course, she’s not being paid like the one on camera either, despite the hours, but in the end there is a sense of familial camaraderie that grows between them in these contexts, the staff and the artists. when they’re good artists, anyway,  not bratty teens or big headed actors. she teases him lightly and grimaces at the reply, “gross, gun, they’re children. i’m basically raising them over there. they can’t even feed themselves, their entire food budget is ramen and clementines,” she points out, pinching his side lightly. it’s a slight, stolen moment, a fondness she imparts with the barest edge of cruelty. 

she likes him. she’s liked him since she met him, but it’s not any good for her, or for him. there’s jealousy that runs rampant in her veins anytime someone gets too close to him - and there are so many girls there, around him, doting on him, screaming for him. it’s the whole point of it, after all, the whole point of an idol is to be adored, and sera’s never been good at sharing. never been good at hiding, either. she wants a normal life, something simple and straightforward. being with gun is anything but that, just a wild and desperate roller coaster of stolen moments and explosive arguments and fiery desperation. “do  or do not, there is no try,” she drawls at him in her best yoda-approximation, scrunching her nose into a grin when he snorts incredulous at her tone. their pinkies lock and his hand is close and warm and she wants, in her heart, to press their palms together, to slide her lips over his knuckles, to pull him out of this busy and bustling room and to somewhere quiet. 

for now, he pretends he doesn’t. 

“good,” he says with a grin, “the more touch-ups the better, i think. shooting might end up taking several days, who knows?” his grin is unrelenting and he wants so desperately to open his eyes, wants to see the smile on her face up close like he hasn’t in what feels like forever. he’s asked the signal boys for selfies with her when they can, but it’s not the same on a phone screen, it’s different when he can feel the soft sweep of her fingers and hear the pout in her voice. so when she continues, he can’t help himself from sliding his lids up the second the pencil leaves his face and he feels her hands on his collar. 

he pauses for a beat, smiling when she comes into view just as he’d expected. glasses and ponytail and all, topped with raised brows that makes him snort, “of course, i’m including it just for you. i thought you’d like it.” his arms shift, intending to place his hands on her waist, but he knows it’s a bad idea, knows that his manager would call her away the second he see’s. instead, he reaches up to briefly brush his thumbs against the back of her hands before sliding them back into the pocket of his coat. “or, you know what’d be better? if we tried it outside of the shoot,” he teases, grin cheeky. 

sera is, honestly, really lucky she hadn’t just gotten fired.  sleeping with your clients, especially those mandated to the level of perceived celibacy and availability that a rookie idol was has always been strictly forbidden, the cardinal sin of any staff member. not just sleeping with him but dating him, that had been pushing her luck to a ludicrous degree. the fact they’d only transferred her had been a blessing, especially for a girl so new to the industry as she was. she had been given that time with signal, those years after their debut, to prove herself all over again. and she had, slowly progressing towards her own success, cultivating a reputation for a fresh take,  accessible styling,  and forward thinking. it had been enough to earn her a promotion and a spot on the concept design team, and now, it had been enough for them to acquiesce to gun’s truly stupid demands. 

she was happy to be here. she was happy to see him again. to work with him. “several days, hm?” she murmurs, fingertips patting against his cheek bones, lightly. “i’m pretty sure i’m only contracted for two at most. then it’s back to my baby boys.” she points out, cheek dimpling as she takes a sponge to pat a little more foundation beneath his eyes. “they like me a lot you know.” she adds helpfully, grins at him from behind long lashes, even if he can’t properly see her. “if you smudge this i’m going to be really mad at you, by the way,” she tells him, remembers how frustratingly eager to rub at his eyes he always has been. 

make sure he’s not imagining it. but there’s something pressed against his lid and, well, she asked not to, so he doesn’t. instead, he smiles. it’s small, tired, but it’s there and apparent even in his sleep roughened voice, “yeah, but that’s the point. they made me do it back then so of course i hated it, but now i’m personally making the choice to. and anyway, you always loved it.” he returns her quiet laugh with a hint of smugness. “can i at least open one eye? this doesn’t feel fair.”

and then, he locks his phone. he sets it aside and closes his eyes. sleep never comes on nights like this, and tonight’s no exception. he sighs, whispering sunwoo’s name so quietly it’s mostly just a breath. maybe he doesn’t want him to hear. when the youngest responds with a resounding snore, he smiles something small, fond, and slips out of their bed. his slippers softly drag against the floor on his way to kiwon’s room and he shivers in his thin, long-sleeve jj pajamas as the door slowly creaks open. he closes it lightly behind him before sliding in beside kiwon, arms naturally sliding around the other boy’s waist to steal warmth. comfort. jaesung sighs against the back of his neck, nuzzling there and shutting his eyes once more. he feels better, now, with the faint scent of orange blossoms and amber near him. “kiwon,” he mumbles gently, “are you awake?” 

kiwon can sleep like the dead at a moment’s notice. it’s easy, for someone who has been exhausted for so long. even before he entered training, busan had been home to a boy already sacrificing his life for the boards,  bending himself in half to fit the fluid lines of contemporary dance. the modernity and lyricism has suited the grace of his movement and the loose and elegant lines he had come to perfect, a distinct style all his own. one that he had been forced to unlearn when he’d made the switch into the training program at kjh, an act that had prompted his instructors to all but stage an intervention. kiwon, he can sleep like a champion. 

but he can wake up easy, too. blinks his eyes open at the softest whisper, squinting as the boy fits in against him. he remembers days in smaller dorms, shared rooms, floor futons folded out, squashed together between the racks of furniture. he remembers that dull and gnawing fear of failure that had clambered in his gut, and how easily jaesung had been able, even then, to soothe it away- or at least,  to goad him into a fight that would help him let off enough steam to sleep once more.  “i’m not your body pillow,” he tells him with a grumble, but the whole group is aware of his predispositions at this point, and kiwon of all of them isn’t one to complain. he tilts his head, blinking his eyes open to stare at the dim ceiling. the air is fresher here, and colder, and he shivers, curling his toes in the blankets. he fumbles around in the dark, snagging a throw blanket he’d kicked away at some point, yanking it back over them both. 

only, when he does hear a snap, his eyes dart to his fingers like he might’ve done it without his own knowing, and sami falls to the ground in an instant. when he sees her still breathing, he sighs out a quiet, shaky breath of relief. a breath he tries to hide with a scoff when he realizes what had happened, and he’s not sure what’s more infuriating, embarrassing. that he had been worried he might’ve killed her, or that he was too weak to fully freeze her and she noticed. his cheeks burn and he turns back around, doesn’t bother to help her back up. “fine,” he answers, trying to sound gruff and instead coming out tired, almost sulking, “we will rest if that will stop you from all this whining.” he closes his eyes to concentrate, pull himself back together, until he hears the trickling of water and points a hand northeast of them. “so pick yourself up, i hear moving water over this way,” he tells her, walking away without bothering to wait. 

sami’s breath catches in her chest. sometimes, she thinks goading him is her way of attempting suicide, removing her own agency in the hope of spurring her towards that blissful oblivion a little faster. she’s too much a coward to do it herself. that’s always been the secret- the greatest power and the strongest will to survive, both born of her own cowardice.  she shudders as he approaches her, all silk fury like the deep waters of the ocean, a current to catch her and drag her down. “every day.” she tells him on a strained whisper. she’s rigid still, and trembling, suspended above the earth that powers her. it’s a crutch, to need to be in contact with it. bare toes dangling above the ground now, locked in the stasis of his control. if she were a smarter girl she wouldn’t provoke him further. 

but she isn’t, and her desire to live is matched only with her desire to die, paradoxically expressed in her erratic behavior now. she shifts, fingers snapping to goad him, notices abruptly a strangeness to him. just as soon as she’s registered that look of panic, that expression of concern and of relief, she’s collapsing to the ground in a heap, groaning as she rolls onto her side, pulls her knees up preemptively in case he gets the idea to kick her while she’s down.it wouldn’t be the first time someone had. “weak son of a bitch,” she rasps back at him, her chest straining against the ache of her ribs now. she clears her throat and stays there, a moment, while he talks. looks up to see reddened cheeks and the way he turns away. 

“i don’t know whether or not i should be offended that you think i can fit into anything you own,” he replies, setting down the bottle and shrugging off the denim jacket layered over his hoodie. it feels a little too warm, now. he folds it haphazardly and sets it on the floor beside his feet, pinching at the front of the hoodie and pulling it forward to fan himself, to readjust it. he scoffs, jokes, glances over at her before he realizes what he’s doing and catches her eyes, “’little lion’ does sleep as nature intended, but i’m not giving you a free show.” he grins back something small before turning away, reaching for the bottle to finish it up.

harin is sort of, kind of, testing him. 

because maybe he’s cute, and maybe she likes the slant of his lips, and maybe she likes the rough drawl of his voice. and maybe, more importantly, most importantly, she’s lonely. she feels desperate, in a way, for some way to get back the feeling that she seems to have lost from herself. there’s been a hollowing, an emptying, a feeling of absence in the center of her, as if it’s all been scooped out and replaced with lead. 

so maybe she tries it out. maybe she gives a little go, just to see if he’s interested. she’s also, in fairness, exceptionally drunk and not necessarily not looking to go there. he’s pretty, after all. terribly so, with sharp canines and a wide grin, and he had, for at least a moment, put some feeling back inside her heart. so she’ll take it, if it’s offered, or demand it if it seems interest may be there. 

“anyway,” he says, cleaning off any remaining yogurt on his lips with a slide of his tongue, “you’re not getting away with just that one apple.” he reaches for kiwon’s plain bowl of yogurt and dips his spoon in it, holding it up next to kiwon’s mouth. “here, say ahh,” he sings, snickering, unable to keep a straight face as his eyes scrunch up. 

“true,” he admits, watching as the boy comes barreling down the mountain to brandish it at the camera men who are still setting up, a smile as wide as the ocean on his face. “i guess in the end sunwoo is just a big goof, happy or not.” he chuckles, tousling a hand through his hair. he sniffs slightly as he tugs at a tangle and makes his eyes water, frowning in reaction, at least until the other’s shoulder thumps into his, presence heavy beside him. 

jaesung is the kind of boy who takes up a lot of space. not because he’s tall, which he is, or because he’s broad shouldered, though he’s that as well. there’s just a lot of him, hard to contain in the space of a man. energy and enthusiasm and wit, a personality that spills out of the seams and swamps the people around him. that’s why they’d pushed him the way they had, back then, why they’d had him forefront, bold and brash enough to sacrifice his dignity for a few laughs on variety. that was also, perhaps, why they’d taken such time into crafting kiwon into something he wasn’t. kiwon as he is now hadn’t had a place in the early years of atlas, hadn’t had a skill set to show off; the dancing so restrained and sharp, the movements powerful, the styling rough and manly. all things that, traditionally speaking, kiwon is not. now he’ll fight to the death to point out being manly isn’t reduced to six packs and gruff grumbles, but that’s not the way to sell a product, either. now, at least he has the luxury of subverting expectations in the way he’d have liked to do from the start. 

“yeah, mostly,” he answers turning his head back around, and he’s not sure why he’s sharing so much with this girl. not sure, also, why he stays leaning forward. tilting his head slightly in reaction to the slide of her fingers. he absently turns the bottle between his two hands, keeping them occupied before he lets them wander elsewhere, “it’s a very luxurious van, to be fair. vintage, if you will.” meaning, old, patched up, an embarrassment to ride around in, so he often opts not to anyway. “it holds all my necessities, a small suitcase of clothes, my laptop, one very fluffy pillow and a blanket,” he continues, snorting mostly to himself, at his own expense at how dreadful his situation really is when he lays it all out like this, “anything else, i had to throw out. i didn’t have much else anyway.”  

“oh of course, a lion, silly me,” she drawls,  “you know male lions are lazy and just sit around in the grasses of the savannah while the women do all the work, right? is that why you got evicted, did your lady lion stop paying rent?” she drawls, grinning a little bit as she walks her fingers idly over his skin, humming to herself. “is the puppy meant to be me?” she complains, nose scrunching, “i don’t look like a puppy.” she sighs, puffing her cheeks out and cocking her head to the side with a grumble. “pick something better. like a bear. or a fox.” she demands, flicking her fingers against his cheek before she moves to grab the water, beginning to drain it in big gulps, eager to slake thirst and absolve herself of the taste of the alcohol. 

she likes this boy. with his stupid pink hair and the way his grin slants unstoppable over his lips no matter what she says to him, no matter what she’s doing. the troubled way his eyes look fixed on the green bottle in his hands, the way he turns it between them in idle circles. his head tilts forward under the stroke of her fingers and she’s emboldened by that, tangling them into the strands of his hair to drag her nails lightly against his scalp, playing out patterns there. it’s something her mother had done when she was a child, toying with her hair, and it’s an absent movement she finds comforting in herself. maybe she wants to comfort him, after what he’d done for her. an eye for an eye, but in a kinder way. 

“well i can only hope you won’t miss it too much tonight,” she decides with a laugh, but it sounds bleak even through the haze of alcohol that clouds her senses and her judgement. “and drink your fucking dinner,” she points out, yawns widely with her arms stretching high over her head. “or eat your breakfast. i don’t know.” she scratches her hand back through her own hair this time, thoughtfully pulling strands into disarray, but she looks a mess already, eyeliner smudged in raccoon rings around her eyes.