excess.

“you’re a train, too. it can just be mutually assured destruction.” he teases back, noses brushing, cheek dimpling. “hurt me back.” he whispers it out, a rather fucked up way to word ‘give us a chance’ but that’s where they’re at, that’s what he chooses to go with. he smiles, something genuine. something he feels running wild, rampant through his chest. something that fuels him, those words. he bridges the gap between them, kisses her. it’s soft, one hand moving up to fit against her jaw. “i know i love you,” it’s mumbled back, a laugh that’s muffled when he kisses her again.

it is perhaps ironic how eager they both are to push the power to the other party, to mentally construct some narrative that centers themselves as the one doomed to pain. maybe that’s what brings them together in the first place, this mutually assured destruction. ryan has always existed in this industry as an aberration, as a success story against the odds. the ugly duckling turned nation’s first love, forever trapped in the amber trappings of some retro, idealized, nostalgic first love. doomed to a lifetime of romantic comedies and tennis skirts and school uniforms no matter how enthusiastically her company pushes the sexually explicit stick it to the man image on her group. as if nothing can overcome the youthfulness of her face. it doesn’t help that she is resolute in her insistence on short cut hair and a personal style that resembles more “i stole this from my boyfriend’s closet and i guess it fits” than it does “ i stole your boyfriend because i’m a super seductress.” the world creates the image they want to see from her and then crucifies her when she falls short or when she actively challenges the narrative, a catch 22 that leaves her lodged in an impossible situation.

daein in many ways feels like a breath of fresh air, a lifting of burdens. daein, being so odd in his own right, doesn’t care that they met on the snowy set of a show where she spent most of her lines crying or bleeding out. daein doesn’t care that her personal image straddles the line of the virgin and the whore with reckless abandon, paired with a tightrope proficiency to put the cirque du soleil to shame. daein doesn’t care that she likes out of style clothes and doesn’t wear the right, trendy kind of makeup. he doesn’t mind her as she is, the package that is ryan, a girl existing between worlds and between moments. not quite an idol and not quite an actress and not quite a soloist and not quite korean enough and not quite foreign enough and what is she, anyway? is she cute or is she sexy? is she a bear or is she a fox? does she even know? she wrote those lyrics at twenty three and two years later she’s still not sure she’s any closer to having an idea of who she is. maybe she never will. and maybe that will be okay.

looking at him now, feeling the heat of him so close to her, with her hands coming up to wind around broad shoulders, fingertips buried in soft hair, it feels like it could be alright. like it might be worth it to lose herself in this and in him, to let herself be swept away. “you’re just greedy. you want me to give you everything i have,” she accuses, but can she blame him for it, when she demands the same with less promise of return? she’s lucky he’s stuck around this long in the first place. how long had it even taken her not to run from the barest hint that he might refer to her as his girlfriend, when so many would die for that opportunity with this man.

“if it’s a huge mistake then you wake up. you make coffee. you go try again. it’s human nature, right? to keep going even if we fuck ourselves up in the process.” he swivels his hand so he can press their palms together. “because it feels nice, right? sometimes it feels nice. and sometimes everything feels right. so we get fucked up chasing that high. but you have to move to get there.” it could be terrible advice. for ryan, maybe it’s not even uplifting, or what she needs to hear. it’s just daein’s own thoughts as they pile up in his head, escape through his mouth. he leans forward anyway, presses their foreheads together, noses brushing. “moments like this. or am i the only one happy to see you here?” his voice is velvet soft, fingers brushing at the bend of her wrist. eyes imploring.

his hair is wild, and his eyes, and the beating of her heart. the stutter of it behind her rib cage, as if attempting to make some fruitless escape. as if it could slip away unnoticed and absolve her of the sins of the moment. as if it could flee from the weight in his eyes, from the want there, and from the need. from the love.  isn’t that her problem at the end of the day? this fear that is so rooted in her. she’d like to call herself strong or independent, but the truth is she’s been living in stasis since taeho. she’s been scared since taeho. scared of loving, of wanting, of needing. scared to open up her chest and take out her heart, to hand it over again.

it had seemed so easy before. with san she had loved him with the purity and innocence only youth can afford, something bright and sparkling, like a diamond treasured between them, the soft warm glow of the afternoon sun as it had slanted through the windows of the practice room. the burn of limbs and hidden moments stolen in the hallways at school, with sooyeon as lookout lest an unsuspecting witness stumble by. it had been something sweet and soft and innocent, before the world had ruined them.

with taeho it had been easy, too. hard in that it had damaged her friendship with san, but easy because his eyes had been soft and full of honey, his words saccharine sweet to match. she’d been floundering in the wake of failure and he’d been there to hold her up, to drag her out of her own misery, to tell her the song had been wonderful, that he’d understood it, and understood her. maybe that had all been lies in the end, a manipulative man noticing the weakness of a peer and taking advantage. in the time they’d been together it had felt real, real and wild and tumultuous, a constant game of proving something she was never quite sure about, of demanding his loyalty and his affection and receiving an outpouring in return. they had been a timebomb ticking down, a storm raging across the ocean. and after the explosion, after she’d drowned in it all, it had been so hard to put herself back together. like she’d lost something, some confidence or some bit of her heart, whatever had been so capable of pouring out love in endless continuation.

she had always sung, they told her, like she’d had and lost all the love in the world. like her emotions here so huge they couldn’t be contained within her frame. but after taeho that part of her had hidden, had shriveled. maybe that’s why it had taken until now to get a solo again, to get a chance to sing with emotion and truth and desire, with the melancholy and the wistful and the wanting. maybe daein had given that back to her, and maybe having all those too big feelings in her skin felt like she was splitting apart, again, an overripe peach bursting at the seams.

and he’s right. it’s not easy. nothing of this has been easy. but it’s been good and it’s been honest and it’s been so much - so full, until she can feel it shine out of her skin.  his finger links with hers and that stupid and small gesture fills her with something inexplicable, bursting from her heart through her veins until her fingertips tremble with it and she shifts her hand to tangle with his, like she’s afraid she’ll be pulled away if she doesn’t. like the tide might take her. she nods a little as he speaks, her mouth dry as cotton, as the desert.

“who cares what sooyeon wants, and if there’s pictures then they’ll get over it. it’s different. your group’s older. my group’s older.” daein points out, which is fairly true, he thinks. pissed off fans, but maybe not the end of the world any longer. “maybe you’ll find someone new, and i’ll have to get over it. maybe it won’t last forever. but you have to let it happen in the now. otherwise, i don’t know. you’re just sitting there and you’re letting some asshole keep you in a past you hate.” he says this delicately, but it’s something he’s had to walk himself through before, with how intensely daein attaches himself to people. with how it sometimes feels like the end of the world when they’ve had enough of him. “but i can’t prove that to you. i can’t do anything about that. that’s…that’s you. a decision for you.”

daein is insightful. he’s clever, he’s observant, and when he speaks out he cuts deep into her, lays some secret part of her bare. and this is the problem, really, with love. with ryan and dealing with the concept of commitment. the problem is that there is no guarantee. she will never be able to know, with certainty, that he won’t leave her behind. she’ll never know for sure that they’ll weather the storms that come, or that he’ll really mean it all in the end.  she can’t know that he won’t crush her, but she has to decide to be open to the possibility. to put her heart in his hands and let it happen, if it happens. to find out if she can survive it or not, if she can survive him or not. she doesn’t know if she’s strong enough, if she’s brave enough, to try anyway.

but what’s the alternative? the alternative is she loses him, right? maybe not tonight, or tomorrow, but if she can’t give him what he’s offering, will he stay? if she can’t match him blow for blow, it’s a certainty that they will crumble and fall and is that any better? to have chosen, in the back of her mind, to let it fall apart just so that she could know with surety that it had been her choice? she feels like a coward and she feels like a fool. she should never have let it get to this point, to the point where she was so infatuated. she’d tried so hard to keep that at arm’s length by refusing, first, to put a label on anything, for him to be her boyfriend, as if such a thing would help at all. and then, now, she’d refused to return the sentiment. the statement. as if not saying those three words would mean that she didn’t feel them.

it was stupid. she was stupid. it was one paper thin barrier after another and daein was always pushing them down, breaking through them, like a hole in a sliding screen door.  and when he looks at her, with that desperation in his eyes, with that almost frantic question on his lips she doesn’t have an answer. she pushes her hand into the tangle of hair atop her head and tugs, pulls in a breath that burns in her lungs. “ i don’t know. i don’t know how this works. i just know...i just. i just know i’m scared. of this. you. us. maybe everything else, too.” she sounds like an idiot, like the stupid lead in one of the shows they put her in, simpering as she lays her heart out for a boy as if that is something formative to her life, as if all things must revolve around the romantic interest of a man.

“hey ryan, i’ve said it a thousand times, that i love you. how often have you said it to me?” daein asks her, and he only looks marginally similar to a kicked puppy. “we all know taeho is a bastard, and that really fucking sucks. but i’m not taeho. don’t treat me like taeho. i love you ryan. i really fucking do. but sometimes it’s like i’m just a stand in for him.” daein’s never really had a problem with sharing, in fact, he often does too much of it. “should i just go get him for you? do you want to ask him next? get yourself a couple of drinks, make a real party out of it.” he drags a hand through his hair, the motion’s jerky and poorly restrained.

the idea that she could hurt him is almost foreign to her. he seems so very far above that sort of thing. the idea that she wields that power over him feels impossible. every article that comes out sings his praises- scandal free and the peak of masculine beauty in the industry. a gifted voice and a talent for acting. he’s impeccable. he’s charming. he’s smart and clever and just strange enough to be endearing. he plays the guitar, he takes artistic and aesthetic photographs. his fanservice, when confronted with his fans, is endearing to say the least. there is something genuine to his energy and in his personal life he is relentlessly appealing, charming. there is an honesty in the way he expresses himself and a surety that radiates from him, be it truthful or not. he seems, by all accounts, to have the word at his fingertips, everything figured out, to have his pick of things, be it opportunities, or women.

ryan feels immensely intimidated by daein, in short, because there is something golden to him, something untouchable. as if he will always be a little bit out of reach, and she must prove her worth to him. she’s heard, after all, of the cycle of his affections, as it runs hot and leaves abandonment cold in its wake. it feels as if it could be transient, as if it must be, as if she needs to prepare herself now for the eventual end. that it must be on the horizon, so she holds back. maybe she can’t believe that she can hurt him because it had been so impossible to hurt taeho. had he ever really cared? even as she was floundering, as they were falling apart, hadn’t he been more attached to preserving his career to anything else? hadn’t, in the end, she mattered so very little? to be so thoroughly and incontestably shown your place in someone’s life, like that, took it a certain toll.

maybe the problem is that taeho had said all these things. had kept saying them, even after. i love you ryan, you’re everything, i need you. i’d give up anything for you. he’d said them, and said them, and insisted upon them, and had they ever amounted to anything but words? maybe that was why she pushed daein constantly, to prove his love. to be obsessed. she wanted that, that unhealthy dependence, as if that would give her confidence in his affections, and in their staying power. as if that didn’t just undermine the whole thing anyway, twist it up into damaging. perhaps she wasn’t eve, eden, the lush garden. perhaps she was the walls around it, caging him in. perhaps she was the snake, tempting him to fall and join her in the wastelands. maybe she wasn’t even in the story at all.

the question is not as weird as ryan thinks and jiyeon knows why she is asking it. “yeah, we’re good. better than we were before, actually.” this is weird, but jiyeon is not complaining. “i thought he would hate me for it, or think i did on purpose to, i don’t know, lock him into some relationship or something, but no, he understands it. probably because his career didn’t take it the hardest.” jiyeon shrugs. “i can’t say our love will trump all or whatever, but we’re just living our lives the best we can.” which is more than she could expect from it. “was it… was it like that for you and taeho oppa?” she asks, wonders if ryan would even want to talk about it.

ryan nods, fingers sweeping through short hair, curling and unruly around her jaw, grazing her shoulders. “it’s the dream. i only ever really wanted to sing, the rest of this all kind of...happened by accident.” lips twitch, a smile drawing faraway and wistful over her lips. “i’d auditioned so many times i’d given up, i was apprenticing, to do vocal training. but my mentor worked with midas and brought me along and all that.” she laughs a little, “it was the biggest coincidence adn the worst mistake of my life. maybe. maybe not. who knows.” she rolls her eyes at her own expense, twists the top from a bottle of water and brings it to her lips, wets her throat. “i’m being melodramatic,” she admits, shrugging slightly. 

“i mean, as awkward as it is, some people just...don’t have what it takes to stand out, you know?” she points out, sighing slightly. “ i mean, that sounds horrible right?” one eye winces shut, “but how many perfectly talented people just never get anywhere for no discernible reason? it’s half luck and half... i dunno. something else. personality maybe, or pure chance, or both.” she half laughs, a soft sound that shifts, twists. she can’t pin down a reason why she’s gotten the opportunities she has, except that she’s pretty much always said ‘yes thanks’ to whatever midas has wanted of her. maybe that’s been the only secret all this time. 

maybe ryan is greedier than jiyeon is, too, because she doesn’t mind it. being the one people think about when they name jinx. being the one in the headlines, the one with a multi-pronged career. she didn’t mind it now that she was pushing toward something better, either. maybe it was different because aurora still had plenty of years left in them, while jinx neared the end. she knew enough to see the writing on the wall. with haeyeon picking up a solo too, they were clearly diversifying the girls out, preparing for the disbanding, or the hiatus for solo activities, or whatever else. their release schedule had already slowed down considerably, for example. and that was fine. they were nearing the end of contracts, and girl groups tended not to hold on too long anyway. 

part of daein wants to wring his scrawny neck and be done with him. not very idol like behavior, and he obviously doesn’t. “this is fucking ridiculous.” he shakes his head, looks off to the side. spots a few other idols with familiar faces, but he doesn’t uproot himself from his spot just yet. presses his lips back together, eventually turns back to look at her. “you want me to make a little guidebook in case any of my exes fuck taeho too? a little star rating, whether or my dining experience was exemplary?” a little dickish, but he’s offended. annoyed. he’d wanted to have a good time, now made impossible.

ryan is a jealous creature, one of excess and vanity and at the same time of crippling in security. a girl who never belonged in one place or another, who spent her youth thrust suddenly under stage lights, condemned for baby fat or a short training time or the fact that she was, somehow, lacking in all ways. as an idol she had first been lacking in appearance. no one could criticize her skill, of course, but there’d been a nebulous “is she pretty enough?” that had hung over her heavy. and years of diet and management and styling had absolved her momentarily at least of that. she’d tried on images that hadn’t fit and had lived narratives that didn’t suit her, feeling like an outsider in her own skin as she negotiated the boundaries of eden and the reality of ryan, as they bled together and she struggled to separate them, to distance the hate and vitriol suddenly flooding her way from the person that she was. but she was a girl with baggage now, years of lacking in one way or another- too fat, too plain, too cute, too young, elementary school girl body, she was a shitty actress, she was still only good for an idol, her solo was a flop, her new and more successful solo was boring for a girl from jinx, she was too risque, she was playing it too safe, she was overexposed, she was leaving her group behind, she was disloyal, she managed herself poorly, she was a sly fox. the narratives spun around her like a cloud of flies, like vultures circling and waiting to rip her apart.

she’d been too young coming to this, and she hadn’t been ready for any of it. she’d been just a kid and she’d barely had time to train first, no time to prepare for the reality of the industry before she signed away the next ten years of her life, long years that left her reeling, an up and down rollercoaster, and with the promise of re-negotiations on the horizon, she’s vulnerable. she’s scared. and with daein she’s petrified. she’s lost out on love once, had it cruelly ripped from her (almost taking her career along with it, and certainly decimating her mental health, her confidence), and rebuilding from that had been almost impossible. so much energy had gone into reconstructing her career she’d never bothered to take care of herself, to examine the damage that had been done, either by taeho or by the legions of fans and the schadenfreude of the public, the cruelty of journalists, all far too eager to rip her to shreds.

so it manifests now, in this moment, in the most foolish way possible. but daein is more than taeho was to her, and beyond that, daein is better than she is, in more ways than one. he could be with a girl like sooyeon, universally known for her beauty, for her figure, for all the things that ryan has not been known for. sooyeon may have been criticized for lacking vocals and enthusiasm, but she’d been blessed with the face and composure and sex appeal to overcome that. ryan was on the opposite end of the spectrum, fighting for her talent to be recognized despite visual shortcomings, desperate to prove there was more, in this visually driven industry, than just a hot body, all while desperately dieting, destroying her self image, in order to fit into some ideal that escaped her. what was she to do about being too short, about not being curvy enough? get a boob job? they’d just crucify her for that in turn. any way she turned would lead to cruelty, these days, and the strain of it was bearing down on her. and sooyeon, with her promising career, with her beautiful disposition, with a company supporting her group still, was a target for envy and for her fear, in the wake of what had happened.

“and what should i apologize for?” he asks, and his tone is nonchalant. but he turns around to face her, hands in his pocket, blue hair wet still from the shower he just took. once, years ago, he remembers lying on his bed, listening to her sing while showering. her voice. he always loved it so much. “i’m single. she is. what’s the matter? why does it bother you?” he looks at her and here he goes again. there’s a taint in him, there must be. that he craves for her this bad to the point he wants to make this bad, he wants to make it worse. he wants her to hate him. maybe that’s why he fucked sooyeon, in the end. maybe that was exactly why. which is pathetic in its own way. it makes him swallow in dry. that ryan still has such power over him, even unconsciously, even when he doesn’t know. it’s terrifying.

they let things linger between them for too long. that had been the ultimate unfairness of it. of him. how often had san warned her to stay away from taeho, how often had he told her she was an idiot for even entertaining it? 

that time with taeho, though, was bathed over in a warm glow still. a promise of something that should have been. in another life, in a world without cameras to take pictures of them in his car, in a world where there wasn’t the pressure of the public, the need to manage expectations that weight heavy on her shoulders, they could have been something. they could have been wonderful. and at first they had been. it had happened so quickly, falling into those dark eyes. his fingers slipping through her hair and the rough cut drawl of his voice. the way he’d looked at her, looked through her, like she was the only creature in the world. 

ryan had never been beautiful. she’d never been anything special, anything much. too short for this, too fat for that, not curvy enough, not pretty enough, too skinny. she’d never managed to hit the right notes, to be a sooyeon or a jiyeon, a stunner with the perfect body. she’d just been a girl with a voice who had stumbled into midas on pure cosmic luck. a twist of fate that had upended her life. but taeho had been the first person to look at her like she was something. 

to look at her like she was everything. 

and after the flop that twenty three had been, this song she had poured her heart and her soul into, this fledgling and beautiful thing she had offered to the world only to have it trampled, she’d needed that. she’d needed the affection and desire that taeho had offered her. and when it had all turned sour,  well, it had never felt resolved. it had never really finished. it had been left, in this suspended state, cut down in it’s prime. hard to let go. 

she wants to cry. 

“you tell me, junseo is some dance show, which i don’t really mind, but still.” jiyeon shrugs. he was there too, people seem to forget, in fact, jiyeon wants to tell everyone, he was the one who called her, who asked her to go to his place. whatever, what is done is done and jiyeon won’t let it turn her against junseo. they had been there before and it didn’t work. “but i kinda like my reflection period. last week i slept eight hours for the first time in years, it was so weird, but so good.”

she shouldn’t need to see the silverlining in all of this, but what else is a girl supposed to do? cry? not yoon jiyeon. she was never one with flair for the dramatics. “yeah, my manager said i’m a hot topic with international fans now, they all pity me, so there can be some work for me out there, photoshoots and etc. you know they like us pretty.” that has always been her biggest asset, how beautiful she looks. “do you think midas would throw you a bone if you didn’t get into a scandal?” jiyeon asks, not sure if she can say taeho’s name, if ryan wants him to be a topic of conversation. some things are better left unsaid.

jiyeon talks about his role on dancing9 and ryan’s eyes roll in a rather spectacularly dismissive fashion. “i’m assuming you guys are like, properly together, so i won’t drag him for it on a personal level, but it’s always such bullshit. i didn’t get another solo for years. the only reason i kept acting - in shitty roles, mind you - was because it still made money. they’d have benched me for years if they could.” she grumbles, crosses her arms over her chest. “it wasn’t until i’d clawed my way all the way to the top of the schoolgirl pyramid that they bothered giving me another release, and what’d i get?” she sighs, takes a sip of her coffee. “i got a non-promoted album of covers. just more for the nostalgic narrative.” 

she shakes her head a little, fingers pushing back through her hair. “i’m hoping i can...sort of talk my way out of dramas soon. at least movies film all at once so i could have time for...literally anything else.”  she’s tired right now. one film to another, back to back. months on end of it. but her leap from younger version to ensemble lead was one that filled her with some pride, even if sunny was still, well, a goddamn school girl movie. it leaned heavy into the nostalgic elements they’d been playing up with her in the moment, between hymn of death and architecture. “i even told them if i got a real solo i’d go along with whatever concept they wanted. i think the words jazz, swing pop were discussed.” she frowns a little. 23 had been the release dearest to her heart and she would have liked to continue in that vein, but....

“they’ll just dangle it over your head for a bit and then act like they’re doing you this huge, huge favor by ever letting you do anything. as if, no offense, anyone else in aurora is bringing in half the cash you are. they’re too greedy to bench you for long. unless one of the other girls starts to step up, i guess.” she muses briefly, before pausing. there’s a lull that stretches between them and ryan hesitates. takes a breath. tries. 

she’s terrible, disloyal – ‘it’s not my fault!’ – and she wants and wants without any inkling of stopping. but this time there was no room for her self-pity as she looked into her friend’s face, no room for her penchant for romanticising her own plight; all she felt was guilt, guilt, and more guilt. im sooyeon doesn’t truly know what to do with herself.

“don’t go, please… i’m sorry – it meant nothing, absolutely nothing – we were both drunk out of our minds, which was no excuse but–” she looked on, helplessly. “i shouldn’t have done it- it was a mistake.”

a broken record now, truly. for the first time, the scriptwriters of her life had ran out of things to say.

there is a feeling that rises in ryan that chokes off words, that strangles her. it rises like bile in her throat and it twists in her gut. it would be a lie to say that she had not, in the course of their friendship, felt envious of sooyeon at times. just look at her and it would be easy to see why. she had been a slip of a girl when she’d come to korea, round faced and shorter than was in vogue, and sooyeon had even then been beautiful. tall and leggy and lovely. she had been kind and fluttering and popular, of course, in the way that beautiful girls often were. and she had continued in their friendship to begin curating a certain image of herself- something lovely and commodified, and as the world had heaped more and more praise on sooyeon, it had equally been all too happy to shit all over ryan. how is she an idol, they’d say. she’s not that cute, her face is plain, she’s too fat.  and when she’d lost weight? it had just been comments about her elementary school kid body, about how she didn’t suit the concepts quite right. and then, after taeho, it had been about what a fox she was.  how she’d given off such a pure image and it had all been a lie- as if she had assigned any of that image t herself. as if they hadn’t looked for reasons to infantilize her at every turn.  ryan had spent an innumerable number of years on the chopping block, with olympus fans in particular too eager to drum up reasons for her to be the center of scandal. 

but she’d clawed her way up. sure, they only gave her cover albums that didn’t get promoted, now. sure, they had put another label on her that just meant “high school crush” and created expectations she would never live up too, put her in the shoes of a romanticized idea of youthful purity and affection and were then offended if she dare act like the grown woman she was. but sooyeon? sooyeon had a perfect body, perfect face. they hadn’t made her into an idealized memory from high school, they’d branded her a queen, legendary and beautiful. how could she not, then, feel a little resentful at times? 

but those had been feelings she kept locked up, tight, key thrown away. secret resentments she’d taken out to pour over in glum melancholy only on difficult nights, wrapped up in her blankets in her room, scrolling through articles and comparing comments. at least sooyeon had finally made a mistake, too. no longer was ryan entirely alone in her foolishness. 

but this. this was a new level. she’d spent years avoiding junseo when it was instructed, loyally keeping her distance from those sooyeon deemed insufferable, obediently hated those who had wronged her friend on principle alone. but that hadn’t been a respect returned to her, had it? had she ever really been anything but a sort of accessory to sooyeon, to be tagged on instagram or to listen to her overwrought and soap-operatic depictions of her life? 

now all he does is close his door, walk towards her with lazy steps. he doesn’t hug her from behind, no. he stops steps away from her, stares at the elevator as it doesn’t come. “late night snack?” he asks, eyebrows raised at her. there’s a tone that he forces him, something that rings of familiarity or at least of comfort and closeness. but when she looks at him taeho feels something completely different from her eyes. he never asked sooyeon if she told her. now he guesses she probably did. 

there had been a time when ryan would have given up her career for taeho.

she’d been too young to make a decision like that and locked into a contract that wouldn’t have allowed for it, but in her heart, she would have. when they came to her with the news, that the pictures were going to leak? she’d almost been relieved. for a moment, she’d felt a selfish happiness. now they’ll know, she’d thought, that he’s mine. my boy, my love. that i’ve won him. so many had wanted him, so many had cherished him, and she’d had him. it had meant everything in the world to her. he’d meant everything. she’d put her friendship with san on the line for him, she’d believed the best of him when everyone had told her not to bother, had told her she was stupid to do it, to think that it would ever be anything real in the end. 

but it had felt real. they had been real. she had to believe, in her heart, that he’d loved her as much as he was capable of. the problem, though,  is that perhaps he simply was not capable of enough love to make a difference. ryan would have let midas bench her. ryan would have left the whole world behind to stay with him, to be with him, and he’d promised her the same. and then, he’d let it go. let it all go. of course it had been hard, being under the spotlight like that, a microscope. but he hadn’t been fielding vicious hate and threats. there hadn’t been hundreds of articles about his cheapened image. no one had eviscerated his character. and yet in the end it had still been just too hard for him, too much. she’d known it then, seen him choosing his career over her, choosing the potential of a solo over her. discarding her. 

he’d never thought he’d be capable of this, though. fucking sooyeon. she should have known. sooyeon’s always had the leg up on her hasn’t she? prettier face, prettier body, more consistent group, better chances with roles in acting. ryan was an eternal teenager and sooyeon was the joseon princess of korea. of course he’d sleep with sooyeon. why the fuck not. her blood boiled to think of it, a physical disgust. with them and with herself, once again measured and found wanting. 

san’s learned to hate it too. that feeling, and then the one that follows. when people’s eyes stick to him. a sneer, frustration, annoyance. he doesn’t like to share it. and the prospect of trying to push himself into that space, into that feeling of vulnerability that he so often avoids, that makes him feel nauseous has his stomach starting to roll. “how is crying cathartic?” he asks her, one leg swinging and his heel thumping against the rung of the chair. he slants his eyes over at her, his expression sarcastic, but not angry. he knows ryan just wanted to work together, and it wasn’t until this moment, with the shoot fast approaching that san’s unease catches up to him. 

he squirms at the press of her fingers, a whine hitting the back of his throat as he twists his body out of her reach. “you should not.” he huffs, lets his body lean away as he slumps back into the chair. he’s not sure what will make him cry. maybe he’ll just think about his mother. he shuts his eyes as he listens, head bobbing along to the beat, until it eventually fades back out and he offers the earbud back to her. “i like it. i’ll buy the album.” he promises with a grin.

ryan is fourteen the first time a vocal trainer tells her, specifically, what makes her special. what makes her voice better. it’s not technique or precision. it’s not even her range, really. it’s not the power that comes out of such a small girl. it’s the emotion. 

you sing like you’ve lived a thousand lives, they’d said. you sing like you’ve lost everything. like you’re in love. 

maybe it’s always been indicative of a certain truth of ryan. she feels too much. emotions that well up in her and split her at the seams. some people don’t mind that about her, don’t mind her crying fits or her sulking, her blinding cheer or her melancholic lethargies. she lives and breathes her heart, shining out of her eyes, squashed and bleeding in her hands. once she’d offered up that organ to anyone who’d asked a bite of it, like an overripe peach. but taeho had seen to the end of that, hadn’t he? once she had loved fervently and fully, an outpouring. she still did, in a way, but she wouldn’t say it. wouldn’t admit it out loud. 

daein was probably going to leave her over it. 

“midas should at least give you some special stages, the public might not like it but your fans sure ate it up.” jiyeon doesn’t know much about jinx, but they sure are successful or ryan wouldn’t be releasing this album at all, unpromoted or not. “but it’s always about the maximum profit, isn’t it?” she asks, bitter. it’s why jiyeon is benched now, waiting for people to forget, for something else to happen and everyone move on. god, what a shitty life she is living now, but maybe ryan knows that better than anyone else.

ryan likes jiyeon lately, she decides in a second. mostly because, if she’s being frank, she’s determined that she is not a good judge of character. what had trusting her gut ever done for her? trusting her gut had led her to midas, to jinx, to the solo song that flopped, to the first acting project that had flopped, to taeho for love, to sooyeon for friendship. nothing good had come from her gut, not really. so why not, why not let midas take the reigns. sign her up for whatever stupid dramas they wanted, put her into the movies they thought fit her. she might not find them compelling, but she couldn’t deny that they were working well for her career. they’d made a whole image out of her, a whole creation. a creature that she’d never hoped to be nor wanted to portray, but if this much of her life was acting already, what was the harm in a little more? so she likes jiyeon because jiyeon is straightforward. jiyeon appeared here with the luck of the gods- genes and connections - and survives on grit alone. if ryan can’t appreciate that then who can? 

“it’s exactly what midas wanted it to be, so, it works alright. they know what they’re doing, clearly.” she laughs, nose crinkling. “i figure they don’t want to stress the jinx fans who think i’ve got one foot out the door. i guess they’d prefer i sit around on my ass while my group ages into obscurity.” her eyes roll dismissively, sighing slightly. “i did enough waiting. you know that game, now.” she points out, nose scrunching in distaste at the thought, as she takes a sip. “it’s funny how much it hurts the girl, while the guy, like, nothing happens. taeho went on radio star and made a few awkward jokes and then it was over for him. for us it’s miles of articles with his name attached talking about how we’re not as hot as we were before, or our image is used up, or whatever else.” 

“wallowing’s no fun. dance with me.” daein suggests instead, sweeps his hand across the fabric of her shirt as he pulls her body into a slow sway. not quite dancing, but he’s instilling the idea of it. “found you anyway,” daein speaks the words back quiet. they sound nearly intimate. it’s a skewed thing, what they are. but ryan seems to appreciate it, and so it works. ryan speaks again though, a question that dashes at the mood and daein has to all but stop himself from pretending to take a fake phone call from his manager. “ryan, what the fuck?” is what he says instead.

ryan exists in a nebulous moment, right now, where daein has demanded of her a level of commitment that frightens her. he has a hold on her now, there’s a label. there’s every reason to believe that some fucked up paparazzi stalker will revel in the chance to really and truly ruin her this time. she’s still not sure how she made it out before with a career. she still gets vicious hate on anything she uploads on instagram, though of course it’s but a few shitty stragglers these years later. but olympus fans have no desire to let go of the past, and so some part of her will always live there, trapped in what ifs and could have beens. it’s not that she loves taeho still, no, but she resents the world for stealing from her a chance at something. it’s not that she wants to be with him again now, though she enjoys the knowledge that at any second she could reclaim him being the vain and proud creature she is, but the fact that something so close to happiness was stolen from her, the fact that her privacy was viciously intruded upon, it hurts still. and she worries about the future. about what would happen if daein was in that position, to put up or shut up. when taeho had been prompted to put his money where his mouth was, when the pressure of the public had borne down upon them - and upon her worse even still- they had crumbled and fallen. will that happen with dane? and now, with sooyeon creeping into taeho’s bed, betraying years of friendship and trust even as her star rises ever higher in the sky, ryan is many things. jealous, betrayed, scared. scared of how much daein means to her, scared of the idea of losing him, scared of the idea of losing out to someone else. she’s envious, she’s angry, she’s frightened, and the combination isn’t particularly attractive on her.

it breeds uncertainty and discontent, and they take root in the back of her brain like an ever-growing cancer, something that spreads poisonous in her veins, tendrils creeping through her consciousness. for a moment daein chases those thoughts away just with his appearance, with a light touch at her waist, with the familiar smell of his cologne. the problem is that he is too beautiful. he is too much - he is so much desire outpouring that ryan is drowning in it, trapped in sticky honey molasses, mired in affection, in obsession. in something that grows dark and twisted and sinks into her like thorns and brambles, tangling her in place. to extricate herself will  be unbelievable pain and she’s afraid of that- who wouldn’t be?  his hand his against her cheek and she leans towards the touch, her features scrunching into a smile as the other’s lips brush her temple. she tries to fight the anxious flutter of her heart at such a public display of affection, when they’d come to close to exposure after the gayos, had only been lucky to avoid the various exposures.

“were you hiding before?” more a joke than anything else, but daein hadn’t managed to run into ryan into his cursory lap around the small stadium that the showcase was held in. but they’d all been herded into waiting rooms, and there were too many groups and members and back dancers all scurrying around like rats lost to a maze and daein had given up on that prize. at least momentarily. daein folds himself closer, head tipping to he can catch ryan’s eyes. she still has her performance makeup on, and he catches flecks of glitter glowing into the dimmed lighting. “find anyone fun?” before i came is implied.

chile is beautiful, santiago a lovely city, and ryan has seen almost none of it. she’s been around south america before, central america, even parts of the states. pockets of europe. she’s spent long enough as a midas artist that she’s been carted around to enough places to make your head spin and she knows so very little of all of them. glimpses from her van, or the way certain venues look, or the restaurants they stumble into exhausted after lengthy flights and long concerts. the interior of various interviewing places, maybe a tourist site or two she was whisked to for “vacation show” filming. nothing real. nothing fun. between comebacks, solo promotions, her personal dating reveal hell, and filming various and sundry dramas and films, ryan can’t think of the last vacation she had, the last time she had security and freedom and anonymity at once.

so, she’s not as impressed by their current situation as many seem to be. she doesn’t revel in the momentary freedom because it doesn’t feel real. she’s in the middle of auditions and casting calls, she’s preparing a shot at a real solo album, a full one, and promoted, and she’s begging for even further opportunity. there’s no time to be relaxed. there’s no time to be happy. because she’s not, right now. she still sits stewing in the loss of friendship, resentful and betrayed. she’s the type to hold a grudge when it comes to a personal slight and this represents so much, a blow that strikes deep. she broods over it tonight, with a glass of wine in hand, because she can’t help it, reminded of the other girl’s presence by recent articles, by stages, by her presence. annoying.  she should have figured out by now, perhaps, that sooyeon is just out to further her own career and her own self-created narratives of love and awe inspiring attraction, has little care or awareness of ryan in the end. maybe that’s the part that hurts her most, this sudden realization - to her mind - that sooyeon clearly hadn’t cared for her in the way ryan had thought, with the love ryan had given her, the unconditional support and loyalty.

whatever.

goeun sat again, balancing on the end of her chair in a combination of good manners and slight excitement. “yes, i’m still getting used to the idea of debuting at all. it’s really exciting. and busy. i’m sure you remember.” she took a sip of her coffee to avoid babbling too much the way she did when she was nervous. the drink burned her tongue a bit and her eyes watered slightly as she swallowed it. she blinked quickly and cleared her throat. “i’m a bit worried right now about my vocals matching neon’s concept? i was originally training to debut with aurora, so for a long time i sang in that kind of… dreamlike voice, i guess. our concept is more on the bright and girl crush side of things, and i’ve been working to fit that better, but we’re recording soon and i’m want to be sure i’m up to par.”

ryan isn’t sure how it is that she feels about the debut of neon.

the writing is kind of on the wall at this point. nearing ten years in the industry, she shouldn’t be surprised that the replacements are rolling out. and it’s not like they’re thaaaaaat much younger than she is. younger enough, but it’s not a bunch of high schoolers or what have you. somehow that helps. maybe it helps, too, that the decline of jinx itself was so sustained. that they’d at least had the benefit of a renaissance, a resurgence. that she’d been able to weather the storms of controversy.

it was at least enough, then, that she’d managed to build a career for herself. it made it a little easier, now, to sit across from the girl who was set to take her place. there was something slightly awkward about that, an earnestness to hear her sing, to know what kind of pipes she was working with. she’d not heard anything to indicate neon would be as vocally focused as aurora had been, but then, jinx hadn’t been intended to be quite so intensely vocal anyway- and weren’t, outside her bits, for the most part.  “yeah, the debut rush is really something,” she agrees, with a little grin, “it definitely takes getting used too, but you’ll be fine i’m sure. won’t have much of a choice, they’ll keep you so busy you can’t even think about giving up and laying down.”  there’s a shade of mirth to the statement but the veracity of it rings through.