burn like stars

lee haesol !

he stares at the beautifully carved yunhwa flower sitting on the table in front of him, eyes cast upwards to the sky as he thinks about what he should write. haesol isn’t a particularly superstitious person, nor does he seem himself as particularly worthy of being granted good luck by a fairy, but since there aren’t any repercussions to casting his line, he figures why not? he could use all the good luck he can get.

his mind is full of confessions and wishes that he wants to get off of his chest, so he sits for a few minutes longer, marinating in indecision. okay haesol, just write down something, anything. he grips the permanent marker between his fingers, the plastic practically threatening to crack at any time from the pressure.

he takes in a deep breath and, finally, puts ink down to wood.

i would like to start feeling more comfortable in my own skin. i want to be confident and happy with myself. both of my selves, he adds in his mind.

the existence of dal, haesol’s alter ego when performing with crux, is both freeing and restricting. on the one hand, he gets to be everything that he’s ever wanted to be as dal. he gets to be haughty, bombastic. he gets to sing and scream at the very top of his lungs, dress in ways that would earn haesol the most judgmental, disapproving stares from all the elders in town. on the other hand, dal makes an utter fool of haesol and reminds him that he’s simple, boring, and entirely unremarkable.

he shouldn’t be so hard on himself, he supposes as he gets up from his seat and looks for a free tree to hang up his wish. he has himself to thank for getting into a good university and landing a stable job. he also has plenty of friends who love him and know him as just haesol.

so why is he so unhappy?

at that moment, he reaches for the same tree branch as someone else and their hands touch briefly. haesol retracts his own and exclaims, “i’m so sorry about that. please, go ahead.” he pauses after getting a look at the strangers face, a distant memory tugging at his mind. 

“Teacher time. Nice.” she yawned again. “No it’s alright. I just worked a bit late at the inn last night. We had some last minute people come in without booking. It was a mess.” she sighed, remembering the stressful events of not twelve hours prior. 

Jinah waved her hand  in front of her face, waving off his polite offer. “No, no. It’s alright.” She closed the door of her apartment behind him before walking into her kitchen and turning on her kettle. “I still don’t have much since I just moved here, but please make yourself at home. I’ll go get dressed.” She offered her first smile of the day, although it was small. Haesol was so polite to her since she first arrived in Yunhwa, how could she not show a little kindness to this person. She already had trouble at the inn with some people thinking her to be rude due to her lack of expression.

“oh jeez, that sounds like such a pain,” haesol remarks with a sympathetic frown. he tilts his head in question. “what were they even there for so last minute? tourists who got lost and needed a place to stay for the night, i’m guessing?”

he makes his way into jinah’s apartment upon her insistence, glancing around the vicinity before following her towards the kitchen and taking a seat at the dining table. “oh no, it’s not a problem at all. don’t worry at all about it. i remember when i first moved here. i was in the same boat as you.”

      ⌜ ➞ ⌟ ✦ * ·  ˚   semmi would be lying if she said she didn’t know exactly what she was doing when it came to dodging serious topics. she had become a pro at it since moving to the little beachside town. everyone had to be held at a distance to some degree, even haesol. he was her first in the town and vice versa, so they had bonded quickly over being new to a strange place. even with their history she still found it difficult to let down her guard completely.

a hand flew to lay over her chest as she feigned offense to his dismissal of moo’s graduation, a running joke she used to escape any serious conversation as she was able to confuse and entertain haesol enough that he would usually surrender. today he seemed to have different thoughts. “apparent graduation?” she sputtered, side eyeing him with a look of disbelief. “your god son has graduated top of his class and there’s something more important than that? i highly doubt it.” 

when it comes to dodging the question, haesol has certainly met his match with semmi. she puts his avoidance techniques to absolute shame, though to be honest he didn’t have much to brag about to begin with anyways. part of him wonders if she ever worked for the nis; she’s certainly a master of getting what she wants from a conversation. then again he should also just stop entertaining her topics which are so obviously bait, but he can’t help it when it’s just so funny.

“okay, first of all,” he splutters in equal parts amusement and annoyance, “i’m by no means dismissing the academic achievement of our dear moo—” wait, what is he saying. moo is a cat. no, haesol, stay on the subject, “second of all, god son? did i completely miss the memo? since when did you name me the godfather of your cat? we should have had a party—

(...)

as soon as it was up to her waist, she opened her eyes. water. lots of it. behind her, in front of her, to her sides. everywhere. no sign of her friend. staring at her now completely wet cardigan, she began to process what had just happened. “haesol!” she yelled out for him, sounding a bit more panicky than she intended. “i’m doing it! look, i’m doing it!” she took one careful, and rather slow, turn around to wave to him, yet he was… running away? “hey, where are you going? come back here! lee haesol, you traitor! don’t you have any shame?”

when he’s about a dozen or two meters away, it occurs to haesol that maybe he needs to work on... well, a lot of things about his life. lee haesol, whose favorite characters happen to always be the quintessential hero—courageous, unwavering, admirable—and whose personality and present actions seem to be the very opposite of all of that.

he slows down before coming to a completely halt, just a little winded, and shuts his eyes as he processes the last minute or so. oh, he’s a fool, there’s no doubt about that. “you know, i think i may have overreacted a little,” he says to goeun, a sheepish laugh escaping between breaths. “then again when don’t i?” 

he snorts, exasperated with himself. he would just like one! (1)! day where he processes thing like a reasonable, sensible person! he finally turns around and confesses, “i didn’t start running away because of the beach or like something i saw in the water, by the way. i—”

where he expects to see goeun, he sees a lot of a sand. his mouth is open midsentence, and he looks around the vicinity and finds more sand still, a few seagulls staring questioningly back at him, but not a single goeun. he’s so flabbergasted, he just stands in place, stock still. panic really does a number to his singular brain cell, doesn’t it? he hadn’t even realized she wasn’t following after him this whole time.

(...)

“i mean, i know you must be busy and everything, which i get but… it’s been some days… several of them, actually. i’ve been feeling pretty worried lately. have you been okay?” it’s the polite question to ask, and the one he dares to ask because otherwise he doubts he would be able to start this conversation by asking him if the sex was so bad he doesn’t even want to look at him anymore.

he prays that ize doesnʼt try to follow after him, so of course as fate would have it, he does. he has a shattering moment of deja vu as he continues on his determined path to the gift shop—thinks about how ize would do exactly this whenever haesol, far too excited to be the first one to show him all the sights that there are to be seen in yunhwa, carted him all around the small town. itʼs almost exactly the same; his heartbeat is skipping the same way it always does around him, his hands are embarrassingly clammy, he canʼt stop wanting to look back at him. almost.

he somehow makes it to the gift shop but is slow on the uptake and realizes that he's run himself into a corner. defeated, he turns around and faces ize but avoids his gaze, the postcard rack standing next to them suddenly the most interesting thing in the room.

he considers flat out lying to him for a fleeting moment and telling him that yes his phone is broken sorry completely missed all your messages and calls, but the thought kicks him in the gut and he immediately decides against it.

“no, i... my phone is fine,” he confesses slowly, staring at a bright yellow postcard embossed with yunhwa flowers, ize just there in his peripheral vision. “iʼm sorry, i know you’ve been texting me but between preparing my students for midterms and practice with crux and visiting my family... itʼs hard to keep track of time.” it isnʼt a lie, but he feels like absolute shit for not being completely honest. he really has been busy, but not busy enough that he couldnʼt spare a moment to reply back. that’s not to say he didn’t try. he just never knew what he wanted to say, the blinking text cursor mocking his loss for words.

he wants to look at him so badly. he’s missed him—it’s completely undeniable. so, he decides, just one peek shouldn’t hurt.

heʼs so beautiful is his first thought. wow, iʼm actually the worst person alive is his second.

“iʼm sorry,” haesol says again, voice so small it almost gets lost even in the quiet of the gift shop. he feels his face flushing with both fluster and guilt, so he turns away again, dazed, as if he stared into the sun for too long. “i just—”

think that maybe i rushed things and pulled you into something iʼm not ready for.

have all these feelings for you that i donʼt really completely understand yet and need time to process.

donʼt think iʼm good enough for you.

(...)

nari let out a slow exhale through her nose, looking down at the sand, extending a foot to dig into it. how did everything end up coming back to her father. she slumped forward as if the weight of her sadness was settling down to roost between her shoulders. shaking her head slightly, she adjusted the guitar in her lap, gripping the neck again and began to play a few notes trying to find something to play through her mental rolodex of songs. she sighed lightly, finding herself coming up empty, before turning to the source of the voice again. “any requests?” she called out again, drumming her fingers lightly on the body of the guitar again. she wasn’t sure what possessed her to ask that- it was half a joke, in all honesty. but it was better than dwelling on the image of her father in a hospital bed. 

he almost doesn’t expect the guitarist to respond back and is inexplicably touched when they do after a long moment. part of him feels bad though, wonders if maybe he might have interrupted a private moment. god knows he can feel pretty self conscious when someone catches him off guard in the middle of a jam.

“of course,” he calls back. he opens his mouth, about to ask what song she was playing, but then thinks that he would be overstaying his welcome if he were to spark up a conversation now. instead, he tries for something more finite. “sorry if i startled you, by the way.” that should give the mysterious guitarist a chance to disengage if she wants to.

he lies back down onto the sand, now starting to overthink something else entirely. was it rude for him to say something to her? or worse, did he make her feel unsafe? it is pretty late at night, and it sounds like she’s alone. man, he sure would like to be able to do a single (1) thing without thinking it down all the way to its bones, but would he really be himself if he didn’t? he snorts bitterly—how incredibly unfortunate that a good chunk of what he designates as his identity is his mind’s never ending nervous inner dialogue.

his mind starts to wander back to what he was originally thinking about: the existence of dal, the absolute disconnect between himself as haesol and himself as dal. to be honest, he doesn’t really see dal as himself. it’s like he’s just a completely different person who happens to inhabit the same body whenever haesol steps onto the stage, and yeah it’s fun when he’s around but it’s also just... strange. it’s like watching himself from a third person point of view. he’s never quite known how to reconcile the two, and whether or not he should even go through the trouble to do so. they’re coexisting well enough, you know, besides the existential crisis he’s having about them on the beach in the middle of the night.

sunny’s skating home from work, it’s not too late – just after noon and the sun is still high in the sky. she’s being impulsive today, not really knowing what else to do with her time besides give haesol a call to bother him. the sound of wheels against pavement is prevalent as she pushes herself around the corner of the street. a guitar is hung over her shoulder, eager to be played for the first time since she’d bought it at a cute music store in busan a few days ago. 

“hey, so,” she starts, breathing somewhat heavily into the receiving end of the phone. “i don’t know if you’re busy but i… did a thing… by a thing, i mean i bought a guitar. it was super pretty and i felt like i needed to have it. but i’d feel bad if it just collected dust. wanna teach me a few things?” sunny kicks up her skateboard, stopping in front of a familiar house and walking up to the door. “you really don’t have much say since i’m standing outside and i won’t leave until i’ve had a lesson.” ( @yhhaesol​ )

it’s finally one of haesol’s few off days and he’s lazing about in the living room, just jamming on his acoustic guitar in hopes of coming up with a catchy riff for a new song. he’s really only half awake though, and his eyes are slowly sliding shut, but just as he’s about to fall asleep completely, his phone buzzes. he blinks himself awake and slides the answer button, greeted by the sound of sunny’s voice on the other end and the distinct sound of air whipping around her.

“oh my god, congratulations on your first guitar!” he exclaims into the phone with a laugh. “once you buy one you kind of get the itch to just keep buying more.” he thinks about his own small collection and tries not to think about the fortune it’s cost him. 

in the past few weeks, haesol has come to the groundbreaking realization that he is exceptionally good at running away from his problems. so great, in fact, that he ought to consider becoming a marathon runner and ditching his job as a music teacher altogether.

yes, he is beating himself up for avoiding ize. no, he’s not gonna do anything about it besides continue to overthink.

the wish tree celebration rolls along with the thawing of winter. truthfully, the day is beautiful, blooming, as everyone makes their way to the verdant green embrace of naminsan forest. on any other day, haesol would be delighting in the spectacle of life, humming a winding melody, bright chords playing an accompaniment in his head. instead, he’s racked with anxiety as he walks around aimlessly, the frown on his face only leaving briefly every time he comes across one of his students or their parents going to hang up their wooden wishes and confessions onto the trees. 

he’s not ready to talk about it, he’s not ready to see him, and yet here he is, out in the open where anything could happen—though mostly out of obligation. this is only his second time participating in the wish tree celebration; he’d probably get marked as rude by the aunties and uncles if he skipped out without a valid excuse. 

his saving grace comes in the form of his housemate: ae yongguk. he’s supposed to be taking pictures throughout the day, and taking pictures means mostly staying out of the action, running around, and keeping busy. so haesol tracks him down, practically begs yongguk to let him tag along, to which he agrees as long as haesol’s willing to him help out in the process.

now, they’re sitting in a secluded clearing amongst the trees, taking a much deserved break to catch their breath after so many hours of being on their feet. it’d all be fine... if yongguk hadn’t rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, the tattoos on his arm coming to light, to remind haesol of yet another one of his problems that just continues to haunt him in his time of living in yunhwa. why is everyone in this town so stupidly good looking?

they’re both quiet: yongguk is looking through the photos he took on his camera’s screen, and haesol? simply moping and avoiding looking at his friend. it’s a comfortable silence at least, birdsong and the rustling of tree leaves filling the space between them. he decides to lay down on the grass and just stares upwards at the clear sky above them.

(...)

“  hey  haesol. ”  what  a  weird  and  compromising  position  ?  the  afternoon  sunlight  flits  in  to  shine  upon  them  both  and  serim  attempts  to  flash  a  smile  which  matches  the  glow. keyword  attempts. he  can  sense  his  mouth  struggling  into  this  crooked  grimace  instead  as  another  jolt  of  pain  strikes  against  his  temple. “  this  is  so  wild  but  like… i  feel  like  i  got  run  over  by  my  parents’  tractor  or  something. ”  he  barks  a  laugh  as  he  pursues  to  flop  his  arms  into  a  better  arrangement  to  sit  himself  upwards. limbs  are  stubborn,  but  he  pushes  himself  up  onto  his  elbows,  head  lifted  so  that  he’s  closer  to  haesol’s  line  of  sight. “  my  worst  post  headache  nap  ever  ?  ”

oh my fucking god. haesol stares in horror at serim’s now knocked over body on the floor, internally screaming at the top of his lungs. he tries to process the last thirty seconds or so through the distracting haze of grogginess and immediately reaches for his phone sitting on the living room coffee table. he pulls up a naver search and types in “concussion signs” and then opens up another tab and types in “what to do if someone is knocked unconscious.”

he’d decided to take a nap in the living room. and then he remembers having a bad dream, something about ghosts? the memories of it run down the drain as he reads through a number of different articles and instructions on how the hell to take care of his housemate (his very handsome and therefore intimidating housemate) who he literally just accidentally knocked out in his panic that a ghost was going to drag him out of his house.

he looks from his phone to serim’s still unconscious body. does he have a neck injury? should he risk moving him? he gets up. he should just run over to the doctor’s office right? they would know what to do, but then again shouldn’t he stay to make sure he’s still breathing, oh my god what if he’s dea—

he almost jumps out of his skin when he hears serim’s voice, heartbeat spiking up into his throat. “oh god, serim. thank god! thank god, you’re alive,” haesol just about sobs out, voice shaking and cracking at the last syllable.

but alive doesn’t necessarily mean okay, so he rushes over and kneels down next to him, eyes searching his face. he’s flabbergasted to find serim just grinning back at him, akin to a puppy being woken up from a nap, ready for a walk in the park. “yeah—i, about that,” he musters. he watches as serim sits up, and he extends his hands out towards him just in case he falls over. 

(...)

and maybe, just maybe, he should stop looking around for haesol like a lost puppy. maybe he should just turn around and walk away, maybe he should stop trying to reach out to someone he had dubbed as one of his best friends the moment he arrived to yunhwa and now seems to be avoiding him.  but he can’t. he can’t. 

he can’t concentrate. he hasn't been able to concentrate on anything for days now, ever since he and ize—

ever since, ever since, ever since.

he shuts his eyes, bringing a hand up to his face to press against the bridge of his nose as butterflies kick up a storm in his stomach. his mind is buffering, overwhelmed, unable to move past that night and just replays the scene over again of messy kisses and blurred lines smudged beyond recognition, far more than they already had been in the first place. what had he been thinking?

he hadn't been thinking at all actually, and that's what kills him. the one time his inner voice that normally insists on never shutting up would have come in handy, and it decided to just take a vacation—because this is ize they’re talking about. ize who haesol adores, whose company he just can’t seem to get enough of since the second that they started talking—what was there to think about?

his nerves are frayed beyond repair as he stands in the library of haemyung artifacts, staring blankly at the shelves in front of him as his heart decides to race a marathon. what did he even come here for in the first place? he’d been looking for music history books, to see if he could glean anything extra for his lesson plans, and came across linguistics books in the process. right, linguistics, language. he’d been tutoring ize in korean and then they slept—

and he’s back at square one. great.

haesol is an idiot. that’s all he can say. he let his feelings get away with him and now has potentially ruined one of the best things to happen in his life, begging an uncomfortable question that he doesn’t know the answer to: just what the hell does he want from all this?

     continued from 🏖️ // @yhhaesol

     she despised most men. she would always cross the street, not only to avoid the obvious danger, but to ensure she did not catch a whiff of odor. she never wanted to see their grossly sharp jaws or razor cutting, giant noses with untouched, bushy brows. everything about men, to yumi, was frankly disgusting. the only kinds she trusted were the ones that never chased her.      the same guy, over and over, walked past her. he was not like that other, gross, tattoo-ed bartender bully, he was almost nerdy. he looked far too soft to actually be any kind of creep or weirdo. he looked, well, to yumi, the way all men should look. he seemed clean and kind. he never looked where he should not look, he never touched anything he should not touch. he was… normal, and yumi liked that.      she made her self comfortable near him, just wanting to know his name and why he never said anything creepy or weird to her. of course, she would not tell him that, rather, she wanted to know what made him such a decent human being through his actions. his awkward cookie-exchange was the first sign.      oh, you’re not respectful of women, you’re just awkward around us.      “you thought it would be nice?” she had her hands folded under her chest. she tilted her head. “then why didn’t you give them to me earlier, ya’ silly.”      she reached out, gingerly, and took them, only to set them right beside her. all her attention was on this new potential friend.      “so, where ya’ from? it seems like everyone in this town- oh, i’m new here, if my… uh, attire didn’t make it obvious,” she gestured to her bathing suit under a white coverup, “but, uh, everyone here is, like, totally a native, right? does anyone ever even vacation here? it’s totally the perfect spot!”

he lets out a good natured laugh at her question. she’s right, after all, he really didn’t have to make a huge deal out of saying hi to her—it’s one of those situations where it’s only as awkward as you make it out to be. “ah, well, how should i put this?” he ponders aloud, furrowing his brows and wondering how honest he should be about his awful bouts of social anxiety. “i kind of suck at talking to people and tend to overthink things.” he drags a hand down in his face, truthfully tired of his own self. “i’m trying to work on it though. it’s not going that well, i don’t think.”

he lets out an internal sigh of relief when yumi continues the conversation, a part of him lowkey terrified that he terrified her with this exchange. at least he doesn’t seem to have crossed a line yet. 

“oh, i’m from busan actually! i’m not a native here either,” he explains. “so you and i are kind of in the same boat. i’ve only living here for about... i think two years soon now? i moved here for my job—i teach music over at the academy. yunhwa was one of the few schools with an opening for a music teacher, so i got pretty lucky.”

he thinks through the faces that he’s seen around yunhwa, and to be honest he doesn’t recall much of anyone else besides the residents. “i haven’t really seen that many vacationers around here—well at least in comparison to busan. i’m pretty surprised considering how nice moonjaedo is.”

(...)

the sound of the water sloshing up against the shore felt comforting, like it wrapped her in a cocoon of warmth, despite the chilly night. it felt good not to drink- but she also felt like if she stopped playing, thoughts of her father would consume her. she wondered if her he could hear her, wherever he was now.

her fingers danced deftly along the fretboard as she hummed along to the vocal melody of the song, closing her eyes to the wind, trying to will her melancholy to be whisked away with it.

haesol wonders if he should ever tell people the truth about why he's avoided the beach for so long ever since he moved here. in a desperate attempt to save some face, he claimed it was because he's got a deathly fear of the ocean, which he supposes isn't completely a lie. the ocean is terrifying in its near infinite depths and lurking creatures far bigger than any animal rightfully should be, but the only time he’d ever really be scared is if he was in the open ocean. the beach is fine, it’s great! he loves the beach. he just... happened to see one hot person minding their own business there and decided it’s just not worth the social anxiety. that’s all!

he breathes in the brine heavy in the air. yeah, no he’s taking this secret to his grave. he’s fine with just telling white lies, as opposed to suffering a permanent record of embarrassment. god, he needs to work on that—like his entire life really. at least he’s out here on the shore now. he’d been hesitant to go out to the beach after hours but found out that the general consensus amongst the town is that it’s fine as long as you’re not up to any trouble—the hours are really only there for tourists anyways.

he lies down, uncaring if his head actually lands on the towel he's set underneath him, and stares up at the stars sprinkled in the sky, thousands more than he could ever see in the heart of busan. it’s quiet save for the gentle lull of the rolling waves, a ripe environment for either relaxing or overthinking. haesol’s not sure which of the two he’s doing right now.

his whole thing about the beach is silly, something that can just be laughed off at the end of the day. dal, on the other hand... he supposes he’s having some sort of identity crisis. sure, haesol may actually be the person behind dal but they couldn’t be more different, from the way that they act, dress, hell even the way they smile. he always feels like he’s looking at a completely different person whenever he sees himself as dal in pictures. dal is a lot of things he wishes he could be, and a lot of things he never thought he would be.

right, definitely overthinking now so much so that he’s hearing a guitar strumming in a minor in his head.

there are a number of things haesol didn’t expect when he started picking up gig work in busan—the one currently in question being how much he would end up relying on the tailors at madam micha’s. he likes to think of himself as a careful person, sure, occasionally prone to getting caught up in the moment, but rarely ever reckless. and yet, he finds himself coming home more often than not with unsightly damage to his clothes. it probably doesn’t help that he’s always moving around heavy equipment and changing outfits in between cities, only increasing the number of opportunities for his clothes to get snagged on something—not to mention the venues in busan could get pretty rowdy.

(un)fortunately for haesol, he always seems to come to micha’s every time eleanor chu is free to accept work. there’s nothing wrong with eleanor, she’s really a wonderful tailor with an equally wonderful personality, but well, quite frankly he’s a little embarrassed that she’s seen so many of dal’s clothes—dal, who dresses boldly, fearlessly—the very opposite of haesol’s usual understated, very normal, everyday fashion.

he doesn’t want to explain who dal is to her just yet (he hasn’t even told some of his closer friends about dal) so he’s made feeble attempts at lying to her about whose clothes he’s been bringing in and how they were damaged. it’s obvious to him that she knows he’s lying, but instead of trying to pull the truth out of him, she’s thankfully taken to spinning tall tales about them instead.

“if you’re a spy,” she said last weekend, “the next time you’re in france, find me a husband please.”

he walks through the threshold of madam micha’s, a small cardboard pastry box in one hand and his denim jacket in another, and finds eleanor towards the back of the boutique, seemingly in the middle of altering a blazer.