#jcmood

kc, though things draw his attention, rarely is he interested and rarely can they hold it. he sees the screen for all but two seconds before his eyes are on his brother, chin over the seat of the couch. if he takes a seat he’s invested, if he stays on his feet he’s ready to move on. 

why do you want one? why do you need one? can you take care of one? 

kc is glad for the rationale his brother doesn’t shove down his throat and it makes him smile, bright and excited. “don’t know. didn’t check. just want one. gray or orange? do black tabbies exist? maybe black.”

“just thought it, didn’t you?” at least he thinks, at least kc thinks. at least he’s not walking aimlessly, at least there’s somewhat of a goal. even if blurred, the path is still drawn, even if stumbling, steps are still being taken. it’s about moving on and on, it’s always about going on and on. 

hayden’s quick to try once the object is passed over to him, quick to search for the right positioning and angle, an eventual furrow to his brows as focus takes over. he’s watched locks be picked so many times with something as seemingly useless as a hair pin that he’s practically memorized the rhyme and rhythm. a few details are foggy, but he can air them out with trial and error.

seconds tick by with a prolonged attempt, and prior impatience almost has the time to completely slip from his shoulders, irritation close to dissipating along with it, until he catches the movement of light out of his peripheral vision.

(and until jc mentions it, comments on how noisy they apparently are.)

you’re noisy, he remarks in his head, attention briefly straying from the task at hand as he takes one last puff of withering tobacco before disposing of the cigarette altogether. it drops near his shoe and he doesn’t take the time to snuff out lit embers, doesn’t really have time to even think about doing so. and even as he glances towards where the flashlight’s source is coming from, he doesn’t consider the option of giving up and leaving.

not now, not when he’s the one trying.

so he keeps trying, bets on refined hand-eye coordination birthed from endless years of nursing a gaming controller to save the both of them from having to flee like some sort of pathetic, bootlegged delinquents who’ve just finished watching a marathon of ‘cops’ and thought it’d be funny to recreate one of the scenes.

eventually, he feels it. hears it. the ‘click’ that tells him the door is unlocked.

“should change my last name to bond,” he grins. it’s barely there, almost resistant as he turns the knob and all but swings the door open. time is running short with the light crawling closer, and it doesn’t give him any room to feel as proud as he probably should. the enclosing walls of such a reality have him grabbing for jc’s wrist as he stands, and then he’s practically pushing his friend through the doorway in a rush.

“dunno, a change of name for a lucky strike?” it’s teasing, but does it hold the tone for it? jc’s sure he’s lost the tone for a lot of other things besides monotone. monotone, drawn, long, sluggish. there’s no need for a hint of intoxication to sound slurring for him. words can be heavy on the tongue, hard to pull out of his mind. grinding against gears that persist to keep it in, keep it in. write it down, do not speak. thus when he does and speaks and goes against them, they grind and grind.

he wonders if it’ll shutter one day.  he wonders if it’ll break one day. 

jc’s a doll behind hayden, a doll that may be dragged left and right. or inside of the stolen space for now, but a doll that sees and watches and talks and has no master to pull on the string. more of a companion, never bought, never made. creepy little dolls that just are in certain lives and just aren’t in others. even when gentle, they will push away from hold because porcelain he is not.

won’t break, won’t break, you can tug, i can pull 

he frees his wrist, almost frail in the action. he gets told, eat some more. more meat. you’re all bones, all skin. are we not all made of bones and skin? so what if the flesh is less thick. bones and skin keep him alive. he’s alive, is he not? 

the room is dim and he lets his eyes adjust to it. eventually all darkness will dissipate, eventually, with time, things just get clearer. are supposed to. his hands find the back of his pockets and his feet wander before the path is clear. jc likes stepping blindly, if he has to be struck, may the thunder rage and plunge him deeper into darkness. it won’t matter. we all sleep eventually. there’s no light behind closed lids, is there? 

are you asking? are you saying? expecting, needing, wanting? it doesn’t matter, doesn’t at all. 

“so you drown what you’re afraid to hear?”

sounds familiar. 

it’s probably not as clear cut as all that. and jc’s probably not talking about the same kind fo fear that kae knows. but then what fear does kae know, fear at fingertips or from it. fear from things or thinking of things. he knows fear and doesn’t hide from it anymore. he hasn’t touched a pen in a month, he knows fear.

“sounds like a neat trick.” and he says this not out of envy, but curiosity. kae’s tried drowning out the night, he doesn’t have things ringing anymore but he wishes he did. he needs the blast, he needs it all, the wreck and the chaos. he doesn’t like silent nights because silent nights are brewing. he prefers the brewed and the stirred.

“selective hearing runs two ways. like this.” 

a hand up, fingers held up as if sprinkling substance but they’re just tapping in the air. that is nonchalance and because he expresses himself with his hands more often than not. “taking the fear as if i’d said i was afraid, i am not.” granted, he talks in a way that rises more confusion than understanding. it’s not purposefully, it simply is the way that he is. 

how can one change something that one has lived with from the beginning of their time, or at the very from the first time they could be as such. because as a screeching little stranger in the world, there isn’t much to be heard or said. it’s reversed roles until you can do the same as they used to for you. his hand drop back on his lap, scraps at a paint stain that was made to give the pair of jeans a style. 

the bed will be welcoming, but before we sink, let’s swim with the crowd that passes by quickly. 

the sound of the car driving as if it will never stop and life will never be stilled. things stay a blur and he takes the long way home, the way relationships are fickle, come and go. 

he watches and in the second that he sees, he knows, he cherishes, he lets it sink in. but the second that it is gone, it is gone and the affection leaves with it, on to the next one that will pull his hand out of the window. 

he’s but a fleeting soul, the paper in the wind wrinkled that catches on you but leaves before you can tell if it’s scribbled on or empty, there’s no way to catch it. deflated are the lines of this paper plane, but there’s no way to catch it. 

he drives through the city, knowing that the only reason why he takes the long way there, is because he's fearing the admittance that there’s ease only in one and only place. 

then he settles and forgets the torments of letting himself be still. 

repost, replacing the old information with your muse’s information. pass it on to your mutuals for a better understanding of their muses.

face claim: nam taehyun name: jc ( real one is a secret, if you knew it he’d have to kill you or i’d have to ) age: in his twenties  gender: male nationality: korean birthplace: somewhere out of seoul but within sk birthday: a month and a day star sign: a moody one residence: apartment shared with kc marital status: single alignment: chaotic neutral

LIKES —

drink: coffee, alcohol, water food: noodles addict day or night: anytime is fine song: 아니 (No) quote: changes daily or hourly. pet: none color: any dark shades.

LOOKS —

body type: ectomorph eye color: brownish darkish hair color: black body reference: x

kc’s desires spread thin. kind of like his interest. well his interest is wide but it touches thin. in the middle it’s not tight, it’s bulky, and everything else tries to escape. stop him from pouring all he has into guitars and leave everything else. that’s why he lets jc fill in the blanks.

like practicality.  it’s too hot for spicy stew. is he craving spicy stew? is he craving anything? is he trying to make sure he’s grounded and pull his brother out. or, is he the one who isn’t grounded and his brother pulls him back? they operate like that without knowing. it’s better that way. better than someone always trying to ground them and openly reminding them that they aren’t. 

grounded that is.

kc can take it from his brother because he understands. sometimes he thinks they transfer. maybe he was grounded the whole time. then maybe jc notices and that pulls him out. they bother prefer it that way. prefer losing themselves and subtle tugs through their minds. anything fierce and kc fights back, bold and jc slips through.

alike and not alike. operating around and through.

“short rib.” not alike yet again. but kc’s got this silly grin on his face. like he’s trying to see how alike and not alike they are. he doesn’t mind the similarity, the mirror of him and the cracks that only they see. he likes it. loves it. makes him feel as if he’s not as detached if there’s someone else existing like this. “don’t feel like udon noodles.” or does he. he’s up now though, adjusted his position to be convenient for the both of them. so jc can reach him, see him and not worry about how he often twists his body across couches.

or how he twists around others, dances around himself. around jc he’s always a little good, always got a decent flow.

“i wanna go pink, did I tell you?” he’s been meaning to say that, and this seems like the perfect opportunity, eyes moving up up up until he claims he can see the hair falling over his eyes. jc can always, always pulls what he forgets to let loose. does he do the same? sometimes he wonders. but he’s thankful, jc pulls from the trash heap what will be left a regret. kc’s got so much to say and not all of it makes it out. jc sees to clearing the mess he’s got up there. “maybe after that I’ll try bald, that way they’ll never mistake us right?”

always cheeky. always grateful.

sneakers already on, mind already excited.

“don’t know if you did say, not surprised that you wish to.” to be surprised would be to mock the knowledge he has of his brother.  to be startled would be to mock the world on how well jc knows himself. 

“i want udon, get ribs. i am not.” the limit is drawn and he’s watching kc move around before jc’s even agreed to go out. it’s pulling him out of his chair too. sluggish in his movements he is, limbs heavy, fingers trying to rake through his hair. but it’s a subtle and meek scan through. it barely moves anything, but there’s not much to be moved.

the strands are thick and dark, but they’ve been a mess since this morning. rarely does a comb find its way through his locks. he likes them looking like how they want to be at the first blink of his eyes. open and up and out and why should he ix, if this is how he’s meant to be at the most raw moment of his life? 

up and out and as jc.  up and searching for his own shoes so he can be matching kc’s speed. 

“it’s like a game, didn’t you know? it’s like breaking the ice, we’re the hammer that shatters it--our similarities,” shoes on, laces being tied. crouched and back arched, jc’s ramble are now filling in the studio. “they play on it to ease into something else. you should know by now, even if they can tell us apart, they still never will because it’s not what they wish to do.” 

understandable though, is it not?  when one has a worm that always gathers enough fish to feed a whole starving nation, why let go? why change? why switch? why try to find another worm who has the same touch as this one? 

his reason, it rings, it might be cold-- his sweater in a corner and he reaches even as his reason, strings yet again.  but it’s summer, is it really needed?  it doesn’t matter, jc slides in the warmth of it. 

“just want something warm.” he explains, it pertains to the udon, the craving for it. he just wants his spoon in a soup and his tastebuds invaded by the flavour of the broth the noodles will be dipped in. he’s not that obsessed with meat, not really. liquid are his favourites, hard, heavy and biting, not so much. his hands, they slide in his pockets and he shakes himself, once twice. what his fingers cold not do to his hair before, he does by shaking his head as well. it fixes nothing, as it’s not meant to. 

you’ve witnessed it,  now think, tom and jerry,  they have a purpose, here they are, friendly in their hunt. it’s friendly, it absolutely is, or else bloody war would have sprung from it, long ago

humans should learn from tom and jerry. 

“you think too much.” jc speaks quietly against the pen pressed to his bottom lip. he whistles atop of it, his eyes can’t break away from the jiggle of kc’s knee. bad habit. bad habit that just become habit and then they just become a part of one’s life and ticks. bad habit simply because it gives away who he is, what he is. it gives away a bit of himself. jc’s unable to let that happen to him.

his ticks, are just ticks. and who he is, they’re hidden within the stillness and the silenced rooms that never get opened. “to jerry the mouse, kc, listen, to the him cheese is the most delicious thing to exist, to tom the cat, mouse is the most entertaining and certainly delicious meal to hunt and to us, cheese or mouse, we’d never be that addicted to it.” 

it’s just how it goes. kc thinks and thinks and gets bothered and jc, he just soaks it in. if there’s irritation it has to glide over his skin, it will never make him fume. rather than cause smoke, it will arise as steam, pearl as sweat, drop as rain, and wash away as a river. 

“but just because the mouse thinks cheese is prestigious, doesn’t make cheese prestigious. just because summer is said to be golden, doesn’t mean it’s golden. it’s simply summer, why are you thinking of squaring it?” why do you think at all?

“huh, kind of hard when it’s marketed everywhere as just this one thing.” “yeah, but you’re your own person, don’t look at the market, look at you.” “i want me and summer to be as in the market.” “then you lose, because the market will never be you.”  “so am i wrong?” again with that word, so misplaced and misused. “never, summer is just a season like other seasons.” “still hate it.” “and it’s not wrong.”  “whatever the reason?” “whatever the reason.”

the fidgeting’s not stopping, it’s been slowing down between each question, answer, line, words. the clock ticks away, jc blinks a few. then kc does too, once though, “the fuck kind of comparison was tom and jerry, what the hell jc, what the hell, now i want cheese.” 

He closed his eyes and leaned back, taking a deep breath.

“I might have exaggerated a little, but my point stands. Right now I want to crawl in my bed an sleep for 12 hours. Oh, scratch that. I might just fall asleep right here. If I do, do you mind tucking me in, setting an alarm clock to 8 am, switching my phone to silent mode, closing the curtains, getting a glass of water with two ice cubes and placing it on the night stand, and changing me into my pajamas?” He smirked and opened one eye. “Thank you.”

A hum, “Stupid question of mine, but it was begging to be asked, you’ll excuse it though.” Amused by words and actions as he listens and watches. Amused by words and actions as he places them within his own world. Situations here he may have felt the same way as Kihyun describes. But JC seems to feel it everywhere, in every hour and day. Mornings may feel as if they’ve healed the exhaustion of a week worth of wrinkled papers, but--it’s the afternoon and the bags heavy under his eyes that remind him that mornings was met only two hours after a late night. 

Faceless, until a man sits himself at the bar and addresses her, that is.  

“Hm.” Her brow pulls, amusement in the darks of her eyes, the last drink still warming her from the inside out.  He looks as if he’s just getting started- she’s hardly drunk, anyways.  Buzzed.  Maybe.  The floor pulsates with each beat, and she beckons the bartender over for two more.  

“An empty cup,” glass lifting to meet his expectantly, “is just another excuse to drink more.”

Do you dare? ( @aduros )

Took you for someone else. He thinks but doesn’t say. Ringed fingers are tapping the counter and he’s leaning on an elbow as his gaze falls on the glass she holds. 

“Excuses aren’t meant to be good or bad, but there are made to make it look as if there’s more good than bad, so does the emptiness really need to be filled if it is just an excuse for something else?” Comes the ramble after a quiet few seconds. “Why need an excuse at all, drink if you wish to, say you do and drink more because you wish to.”

If there was a control and a wall between the man and his words, maybe, maybe he wouldn’t always just let them spill before they can be stopped. But why stop at all? He raises his glass and clinks hers, but puts it down on the counter with a small shake of his head, longing might run within but it is not to always be stilled. 

You don’t always get what you want. 

and he’s buzzed. floating within the warm area that rests between completely intoxicated and uncomfortably sober. as he floats, he wonders if this is even worth it.

whatever’s inside this building better be worth it.

(there’s not enough liquor in his veins to take up the empty and hollow space of sobriety. there’s not enough to completely fog up his mind, totally cloud his judgement. but there’s enough for him to go along with what’s happening.)

he needs another beer.

“you’re gonna pick a lock and you don’t even know how,” muttered words form through exhaled smoke as fingers fiddle with the cigarette between them. eventually, he becomes tired of simply watching - feels all too sensitive to the amount of time that passes - and crouches beside another soul. cigarette between his lips, one hand held out in expectancy, and then he speaks muffled words.

“gimme it. not even doin’ it right.”

“make way, make way for hayden bond.” there’s already so much nonchalance that slips in between everything jc does. but it’s harder to control his lax attitude when there’s the mix of a bit more than just his own mind and the way the world revolves around it. it’s not spinning, he’s had enough from the days in the country side. at an age so young it would be considered a delinquent act had it happened in the city. when you’ve known the strong taste of alcohol from a place that doesn’t need to even buy it because they have their own sources, it’s hard to even consider the bottled soju in the cherished soul of seoul to be alcohol.

it’s watered, has the same taste. but the sting is not the same. his parents did mention that if not for them, their kids might be coming back for, at the very least it’d be to find their own mind within the burn of the taste of their liquor. homemade, homemade is always better. 

“but how am i supposed to know how if i never try?” it’s a genuine question. but there’s never anything that is not genuine about what jc says or does. it was the dilemma when they landed on this side of the country. people around them seemed to be in it for so much more than the authenticity of their actions or words. it was hard to pinpoint who was true and who was simply painted the colours they wished you to warm up to. 

jc’s crouch falls, he sits on the ground and presses his back to the wall next to the door. his fingers let go of the hair pin, as useless as it is in his hold, is the way kc’s guitar also felt like. it feels a bit amusing, when he tells people he cannot do anything except singing and they think he’s lying. but there are proofs everywhere. in the quake of the drum when he wants to take siyoung’s role, in the distorted sound the bass makes when jinkyung is not around and he knows it’s his only chance to so much as chance a glance at her diamond. his fingers always stumble on the keys when taeil’s keyboard find their way through the experience. 

but most of all, kc’s guitar is the hardest to handle. the weight, the material, the strings. they seem to want to cut through jc’s fingerprints. it’s why he’s never hesitant when he fails and they ask for the task. so here he is, dropping the pin in hayden’s palm and waiting, as usual. 

this was the blissful ignorance of the life led by someone so chronically nervous: the line separating who’s intimidating and who isn’t blurred to nothingness. but yubin wears it like the blissful ignorance of someone who simply is. (for years now, she has learnt to get away with it.) “how have you been?”

mundane inquiries, for a mundane world, where mundane souls, go about mundanely. a mundane boy and a mundane girl, sit by the table and let the mundane inquiries flow. jc’s got a smile pulled from the strings of words aligned in his mind and how it made him tap his finger atop of the surface of the table, he chanted it within, but it’s showing that his mind was distant for a millisecond. not absolutely torn apart, because it relates to no and to yubin facing him. he’s facing her, gaze on and he always faces without a flinch, watching people try to seek a safe zone to put their eyes on can get fascinating. 

Tanner shakes ash into the street drain, pushes at the dirty puddle with the tip of his boot and watches as mud sloshes away. He loves the rain, but in the city, down all those alleyways and dead ends, it never cleans the dirt. Pushes it around a little bit. Eventually it settles in damp clumps once everything is dry, looking just as disgusting as before.

It reminds him of himself.

JC does too, a little bit. But not when he talks like this. Tanner rarely talks like this. When he does, he’s usually barely lucid and feeling with his heart and mouth instead of his head. And that’s when songs are conceived. That’s how he gets to the “raw emotion” that critics so often praise him on.

“Keep talking. I’m listening.”

And he is. He doesn’t always understand, but there’s a quality to the things JC says that Tanner appreciates. Tanner takes another drag, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the rusted metal railing. “Is this supposed to be a science lesson? I was never good at science, you know. Chemistry I can do– or well, I can blow shit up.”

It’s dark, the sky nearly cleared so that they can see all of the stars in it. “Grab my wallet. Let’s walk.”

A hand is quickly passed through his hair,  dark contrast through his fingers. They linger for a bit, as if unable to leave the silk of it. Or simply because JC is thinking, while a sound leaves him--a chuckle it may be. Lighthearted as it is, his eyes half closed as they are and his eyebrows are up for the wallet suggestion. “Trusting me with your money?” 

Walking is never going to be something to be denied or to refuse. Legs as they move, eyes as they scan, they appease what he considers his soul. We all have one, don’t we? A soul in Tanner that somehow matches and yet mismatches his own. Is it in the way the smoke carries him around that JC found similar? Or simply in the way that things seem to be as simple when Tanner is playing, the way JC feels but when Tanner speaks it’s as if the man himself can pull back from the puppetry of his art. 

It’s something JC often times wondered if he’d ever be able to. He’s unable to break apart who he is, from who music makes him to to be. The songs, they’re in everything and where they touch it’s because they’ve lived there long enough to have made a home out of him. He’s simply the bit of smoke that rises through the foyer and tells of a home that is well taken care of, warmly kept, warmly lit.

jc wakes up with a glass of water. the weather may be cold, or warm. but it’s always stale within the four walls of their apartment. kc wakes up mere minutes later. bedhead, brown to blond, standing side by side. they’re quiet mornings.

they move in the kitchen, the sound of rock rolls by soft from the radio station. guitar strikes, they struck. kc’s mouth moves first but no sound comes out. it’s a yawn. his hand does nothing to hide it. jc moves next, it’s a foot and it nudges behind a knee. 

not a word, but a grunt. 

the table is by the balcony, it’s lit with the sun. filtering through the curtains, the touch of it draws their shadows. the toasts won’t be left to turn cold, the butter melts atop of it. spread and wide and jc leans against the table.

he taps a finger. kc taps a leg on the floor.

a taste of the bread, the oil of the butter. thick, rich, lasting. 

the milk follows, washes. “write about the bread.” jc says, another mouthful in.

kc snorts, won’t stop chewing on bits of his toast. 

“it’s deep, admit it. bread first thing in the morning. the only thing that matters.”  the cup against his lips, jc smiles at the rim of it. looks up, kc is looking back. 

scattered and moving. moving and scattered. why am I everywhere, why can’t I be bound?

it’s hard, extremely hard for kc to last these sessions without moving. he’s tried it once and fell asleep. the other time he just started screaming to scream. the loud kind of scream that turned into a laugh when his brother gave him the look. he finds it very, incredibly hard to focus on the process when he’s not doing the process.

he finds it very hard to do the process when he focuses. the riffs and the styles come to him separately, not when he’s inside. he uses this time to hum rhythms, and hum and hum and hum and match whatever he can see jc scribble across his way. he goes over some, doesn’t touch any unless he needs to feel the rough between his fingers. that turned to ink and ink turned into writing on jc’s arm. 

it’s not a show for anything really, he doesn’t take a lot of pride in his words. too scattered, raw but not anything. too everything is what he said. jc just shrugged it off and let him write. and write and write and write. sometimes they mean things sometimes they’re words that scatter suddenly and mean something later. 

so kc scribbles, over and around, sneaky and not so sneaky. he’s barefooted but he’s got snickers and shuffles breaking the silence in the room. he should take a picture, someone should - of the look on his face when he gets stopped.

“no.” had he drawn feet? scattered, always. is he hungry? is he tired? it could be boredom or all the above.

“are you? you’ve gotta be you haven’t eaten since.” he turns, glancing at the makeshift watch he’s drawn on his own arm. “since earlier.”

sometimes it’s a game. and sometimes jc hits things just right when kc himself can’t put it together quite right. because of course there goes his stomach and then his smile. “spicy steeeew?”

“i am not.” or is he? he could be. it could be that he’s projecting on kc, is he? does he do that often? want something but decides that it’s not his choice, not his desire, not his needs. so it must be his brother’s. if jc isn’t thinking, then kc must be thinking. and vice versa. or not at all. maybe they’re always both doing the same thing. whether thinking, whether not thinking. 

he shouldn’t imprint himself on kc. kc is kc, jc is jc. there’s a line.  where though, where’s that line?  is it drawn? black, bold, or grey, fragile? 

“maybe.” jc is frowning, but it’s not a hard line. it’s not the one he has when he’s thinking. kc wouldn’t think twice about it if he wanted it, he wouldn’t. he’d admit. yes, i am hungry. here he is, having to think if he’s hungry or not and he’s shaking his head lightly. his stomach feels hollow, but his mind is not supplying the feeling of hunger. there’s something less, something more. but not hunger. 

it’s when kc’s stomach growls-- that is when jc finds himself leaning in his chair and it settles there in his stomach. as if on cue. see? kc didn’t need to think it, it came and he took it. 

“too hot for spicy, you want spicy?” there’s an answer, vague, but here. he is hungry. no he’s not thinking it, he’s feeling it. stomach not growling but it’s there and it’s growing close. 

have you scribbled your desire onto me? jc tilts his head, observes kc over his shoulder.  or is it that we’re more alike than our minds think?  or are you you, are you me, am i you, am i me? 

it’s a mirror, with bleached strands. but it’s a mirror, it’s not smiling as jc is. not moving, not sitting, not talking, not alike. it’s not alike. but it’s a mirror, as treacherous as it is. it is there, by his side and jc reaches to ruffle what should look like the mop atop of his head. but is distinctive and tends to stay distinctive. 

still bent too, but over a desk. jc is all paper and ink and the scribbles of a few lines or words across his hands and arms. that’s kc’s work though. because jc won’t let him touch the papers sprawled across the table. they work together. they work well together. but with each person doing what they need to do and eventually mix it up. or bring it together into one final product. 

they may work well together, but jc’s selfish in owning his space and kc wants to invade every little part of everything. so they manage around it and when kc gets enough of enough of jc’s way of handling all the papers on the table, he takes a pen and inks across his brother’s skin. arms, fingers, back of hands. whatever’s available, if his legs were bare, they’d be ink drawn on them too. 

he’s sure he’s felt the end of that pen on his cheek at some point. what a spectacle he will be giving to anyone who catches sight of this. it brings a smile to him from time to time when he feels it. when he sees it, because he’s not always aware it’s happening. not until a break for some water, or a sip of the coffee sitting somewhere, maybe behind. never next to kc.