Melancholia

It takes about thirty minutes before Kyungsoo is yelled out of his parents’ home. “Don’t you dare bring shame to our family! Your brother is getting married soon and we do not need your threats!” His mother calls after him. His hands are shaking, but he can’t cry. He splurges on a taxi ride home. Who cares about money anymore at that hour of his life? Is this how Cinderella felt when she ran away from the ball? How have seventy years passed since the Disney Cinderella film has been released anyway? Time has no grasp on film, it seems. Kyungsoo has no grasp on time, or life for that matter. Everything slips from his fingers like sand. Nothing remains. 

Film has always been a distraction from the inevitability that was to occur. No matter how many bad days Kyungsoo has been through, grasping at a DVD or Blu-ray and seeing the images appear on his screen have always been a consolation for the pain he had to suffer through life. But how many films can one watch before the exhaustion of a screen burning your retinas settles in? Twenty-seven years, it appears. Kyungsoo is exhausted. He feels the separation between reality and the one behind his TV screen frustrating. Multiple times he has fantasised about climbing through the screen and disappearing into a world not of his own. Freedom. From pain, from suffering, from endless exhaustion. 

When he steps out of the taxi, his life switches. How many times has he tried to cry out and yell for help. Be it his therapist, his parents, his brother, whoever knows of how suicidal he is, whenever he cries out it feels like a hand is waving him off. A child dismissed. As if he had threatened them with his own life to get what he wants. But his desires lie in death, and no one understands how he feels. He feels tired. So tired. Anxious, angry and antagonised by having to stay alive despite not wanting to be. The door shuts behind him and a long process starts. 

Erasing yourself from someone’s life is near impossible. The next best thing is almost erased. Traces of himself will remain. Memories. Items he has forgotten here and there. But all of his possessions are sold, given away or thrown away. The last time he kisses Sharpe, Pentecost and Elisa on the head is when he drops them off at The Director’s Cut’s audio technician. The only one he can trust to not know about his depression and at the same time be sure he will treat his cats right. It’s the most painful farewell. It’s the only farewell. Leaving Jianyu’s home bare of his own presence and history. Like he was never there to begin with. 

His old home is where he finds his last stage. The only thing he faces is a painting, a gift. He downs a bottle of soju, and then another. The painting reminds him of times he was happy. Silence fills the room but his eardrums are filled with the gates of death opening for him. He doesn’t know whether there is a heaven and hell. He doesn’t know what lies on the other side of death. All he knows is that it will make him happy. Only when the alcohol has buzzed his system enough so he won’t throw up, does he down the bottle of pills. He looks at the painting and sheds a tear, but a smile forms on his face. He was happy in this life. As short lived as it was happy. And that’s all he’s ever wanted. A taste of happiness. 

When his body is shocking and shutting down, he feels pain and relief all the same. The happiness he felt during his life time he feels again. Relief. His spirit is going to be free, finally. Everyone he cares for... ‘I’ll see you on the other side.’ It’s a thought that forms before his heart finally comes to rest.

the second time he tries to commit suicide he takes an overdose of his medication and swallows down a bottle of alcohol. on a hill near seoul forest, he doesn’t expect to be found. a middle aged woman finds him and calls the emergency line. she is the only one to leave him flowers. his mother screams at him. berates him for trying to taint his brother’s reputation with his call for attention. “act like a man!” she yells, her hand in contact with his face in the form of a swift but strong slap. he leaves for america a couple of months later, for just the duration of a semester.

the third time he attempts to commit suicide, the kitchen floor is deep red, and a knife is jabbed into his chest several times. jaehyun. he can’t live without jaehyun. 

all of it leads to his time in the hospital now. he thinks back of the other tries to die, and how they failed by the saving hands of others. he thinks of how he impacted their lives and if they still think about it. his arms are bandaged, the left far more so than the right. his left arm hurts when he tenses it or moves his fingers. there is a pleasant buzz of a feeling, yet he’s dizzy. sedatives. he’s familiar with the process now. 

“you should try to be kinder to yourself.” the doctor tells him when she checks up on him. kyungsoo had attempted to smile, but it felt feigned. the doctor looked at him like she appreciated the effort but wasn’t buying it either. he receives an order for iron tablets, double the dose of his antidepressants and a limited prescription for antipsychotics. “am i insane?” kyungsoo asks her, his eyes tired (partly due to the sedatives, partly due to the lack of blood in his body). 

“there are no insane people in this world.” she replies. her smile is warm. “only those who have been dealt a more difficult hand in life. sometimes circumstances cannot be helped. only if we manage to cope with them or not.”

the nurses never seem judgmental. not when they bring him his food, and not when they bring him his medication, or ask him if he would like some tea. they don’t scowl or frown when they note down his pulse or blood pressure, or when they ask him how he’s feeling. “do you think i’m insane?” kyungsoo asks one, his eyes tired (partly due to his endless thinking, partly due to the rush of curiosity to know what’s on their mind).

“i think you’re tired.” she replies, giving him his medication for the day while her eyes watch over his face. “i think you needed help. i’m here to help.”-- only after she’s gone does kyungsoo let those words linger. 

did he need help? probably. he knows he had felt alone no matter how well he knows he has friends. jianyu, he has. but he couldn’t disrupt jianyu’s latest found happiness to tell him he wasn’t doing well. that would be selfish. he had known how angry he had felt lately, how his loneliness was boiling and bubbling into something far more dangerous. he couldn’t tell anyone how he hated living with himself, how he felt guilty for wanting to die, or how he felt lonely despite having a friend. how he felt that solitude was calling him again so he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore if he inevitably did end up successfully committing suicide. at least no one would cry. 

leaning back in his bed, there is a moment he is able to look around the room. there are no flowers. there are no cards. only wide windows and hospital equipment meant to keep him alive. and the disheveled chair which mark sat on. the poor boy, kyungsoo felt sorry towards him too. no matter how much kyungsoo had cussed him out and yelled at him for being stupid, no matter how hostile kyungsoo had been, at the end of the day mark had been the one to save his life. he doesn’t feel appreciative. he feels apologetic. for surviving. for having been found. 

everything he touches dies. mark had been so concerned that he had refused to leave kyungsoo’s side. a permanent scar of trauma left on the boy’s psyche because of kyungsoo. he thinks of how he has brought nothing but misery, anger and disgust to people around him. he is tar. tar spreading on canvases meant for paint. in his moments of solitude, kyungsoo allows himself to cry. he cries and cries, glad when visiting hours are over and glad that no nurses will check up on him when he cries until he falls asleep at night. 

on saturday afternoon, he visits the duty psychiatrist, and after being ordered to sign off a suicide watch and made appointments for regular therapy again, he is released. the doctor sees him off with a smile that tells him everything will be okay. he smiles back, yet his expression reads more of tears than joy. “don’t come back again.” she says. “i don’t want to see you in here anymore!” it’s a joke. a stupid one. kyungsoo looks surprised, and then shakes his head with a smile. 

he feels stitched together, like the wounds on his arms. but barely holding on and rather than recovering, he is infected. he doesn’t remember what happiness feels like. when his head tilts up and he looks at the sky, the sun is shining on his face. it’s cold. he can feel everything. he wonders if he can disinfect his brain from all the pain it’s going through. he wonders if he can recover. 

maybe. tonight, he’s going to eat indian. his favourite. “you should try to be kinder to yourself.” he will try. he will try, and maybe... maybe he will recover. 

killing himself hasn’t worked. maybe he’s supposed to be alive. maybe his story is going to end well. maybe he will be happy again. there are a lot of maybes in his mind, accentuated with hope. he knows that even in a few minutes he might go back to the darkness in his head, but for now he will hold on to it. 

hell.

he was in hell.

the void of warmth in his lover’s eyes was enough to indicate what he didn’t want to know. though jaehyun was his lover, in the other’s eyes, kyungsoo was no one. the memory of him was erased. along with a bunch of other memories. did he remember anything at all? until what point had it been wiped blank? did he know they lived together? did he remember staying with him for the first time. his eyes were puffy, and red, and kyungsoo felt a whole new wave of exhaustion as he had stared at him. 

he didn’t want to know. he didn’t want to hear jaehyun confirm what he dreaded to be real. but he did. he sat there and he heard him ask. (”who are you?” the simple question could have felt like a knife stabbing him but that would have been a relief. this was nothing more than a brutal cold collecting in his chest. a hollow feeling that erased whatever emotion he felt. there was no love. only an emptiness that ached.) he remembers very little from that moment on. 

he had walked all the way home. he felt nothing. he felt nothing but the ache in his chest. vaguely, he was aware that he was crying. and vaguely, he felt his feet complain about exhaustion, but he didn’t feel. days had gone by dreading that his lover would never wake up. but he had. just without ever remembering kyungsoo. 

(the last thought caused him to sob out loud. his vision had blurred and he tried to stick his keys into his door but his hands were shaking. he felt himself crumble. his vision grew darker by the second. 

“what do you have left to live for?”

“why are you even alive anymore?”

“maybe it’s for the best.”

“he doesn’t live for you. he doesn’t need you.”

“just die.”)

the door opens.

stumbling inside, the door shut behind him and he pulls his shoes off. he can’t see anything. blinking through his tears, he feels his chest grow heavier, stuffier. gasping for air, he grabs for his throat, panting and wheezing for air. he can’t breathe. he can’t breathe. the darkness he had been battling for so long rises from the floor embraces his body, corrupts his mind.

the dance with the devil is a quick and short. 

it leads to his kitchen, and he trips over his feet, only to catch himself on the kitchen counter. yanking open a drawer, he gasps for air. he can’t breathe. he can’t breathe. his fingers grasp the handle of the sharpest knife he can find. his mind is blank and the darkness guides him. 

the first stab to his chest is a sharp pain that helps him breathe. as if trying to reach for his lungs. he stabs again, and the dull, empty ache seeps out of his chest like a cloud meant to sink to the floor. the third stab is less forceful, drawing out all the life he had left in him. 

he falls to the floor and stares at the ceiling. tears fall down his eyes and he blinks slowly. ironic, how the kitchen floor jaehyun used to paint on, used to stain with such bright colours, now is filled with his own deep red hue. taking a soft breath, a final breath, he exhales deeply and shuts his eyes.

the darkness holds him. it feels comforting. 

now he understood.

seeing jaehyun with his eyes closed, hooked up on several devices, on a bed with railings in a white room with white walls and white sheets and white curtains. the only sounds he heard were the stable beeping of the heart monitor and the device helping him breathe. the sight made kyungsoo scared of death. it made him fear the reaper like he never had before. what was he supposed to do now? 

the only accent of colour in the room were yellow and white. it had been the third time he’d come to visit and he came with a third bouquet of sunflowers. the vibrant colours made everything seem a bit livelier. he wanted jaehyun to feel happy when he woke up. when.. if. he clenched the bouquet tighter and choked back on his tears. he was alone in the hospital room besides the patient. slowly, he put the bouquet in a vase and cleared his throat. 

honestly, he was avoiding looking at the comatose patient. cowardice, frightened, he didn’t want to see the man who was usually so lively now lie silent and closer to death than kyungsoo had ever been. still, he looked at him, finally, when he took his seat beside the bed and gently held his hand. he swallowed away the lump in his throat, and words seemed to fail him. there was plenty to say. there was a lot that he wanted to shout. but it all failed when it came down to it. begging jaehyun to come back wouldn’t make him come back. begging jaehyun to wake up wouldn’t make him wake up. kyungsoo was, at the end of it all, powerless. 

“i walked guillermo today.” he finally said into the silence. “he was very happy, i think. yanked so hard on the leash he almost made me trip.” the tone of his voice becomes shaky, and he holds the still hand a little tighter. his throat feels clogged up and his eyes water. kyungsoo shuts his eyes tight and presses his lips together. even though the intention had been to tell jaehyun about his day, all he could do was resonate with what he wanted to say all along.

voice shaky, and feeling fragile, he choked on a sob. tears streamed down his cheeks as he gasped for air. “i miss you. i miss you, i miss seeing you at home, i miss paint on the kitchen floor, i miss how you spoil the dog, i miss your cooking, i miss being kissed, i miss your texts, i miss your laughter, i miss your tears, i--” his sentence is cut off when his voice turns into a whimper. “i miss you.” wiping his cheeks with his free hand, he sobs as he hides his eyes behind it. “i miss you. i can’t sleep, i can’t eat, i can’t live because you aren’t there.” he stutters between shaky breaths, squeezing the hand of his lover. “please wake up.. please wake up, jaehyun, please..” 

This conversation began unusually, and when they touch upon another topic that’s uncommon for strangers, Daniel feels a need to clear it up, if solely for the choice of the poet’s sake. “Well,” he says, pushing a hand into a pocket of his pants, the slightly backwards bent posture relaxed and his gaze roaming the sky. “My mother was raised by a white family, and my father is white. I haven’t had any contact with my roots from her side until very late in my life. Raised by and among whites. The genes are sometimes just that, genes. It’s the way of thinking and behaviour, even privilege,” Daniel grimaces slightly, ”that comes with the environment we grow up in.” He smiles then, all seriousness falling from his frame and the curve of his mouth is gentler, forgiving. He glances back to the dirty group behind them. “Wordsworth was British, and so is my father. It’s a link I imagined would help with connecting with them. At least performance wise.” 

His strong fingers wrap around the smaller hand firmly, and it takes a moment before he unlocks them and takes his hand back. “But the experience of performing is all our own. Next time we get to use it instead of copying.” Both hands in his pockets Daniel watches the man with a cryptic smile. “It’s not often that I get to discuss poetry and subtleties of existence with strangers.”

Kyungsoo is interested in the performance, not so often the person behind them/ For example, he knows Keanu Reeves has had a tough life, but couldn’t tell you who is married to who or has how many kids--or who their family is and what they do, their upbringing often left in obscurity he isn’t interested in revealing for his own ignorant mind. Daniel clarifies everything for him and it makes more sense now that he understands where he’s coming from. “You don’t seem very comfortable with calling yourself priviliged or white.” A silent observation brought into a verbal sentence. The critic spends time thinking it over, especially regarding the connection to his father. Another piece of information he’s oblivious of. “You sound like you are very close with your father. He must be quite proud of you.” Words of praise. He feels like he’s addressing a child, but the man towers over him and is grander than him in terms of age. It shouldn’t be that easy speaking to someone he’s supposed to act deferential towards.

There was a sense of familiarity in sitting with Kyungsoo like that, the sound of the critic’s rhythmic breath grounding Mason in the moment even with the stillness of the situation. A little part of him had been scared to meet the other man again, the same part that would dream of wide eyes and soft lips, eyes and lips he had drawn enough times to have the lines burn on the back of his head. After almost a year of radio silence, it would be weird not to be scared, not to be hesitant, and in all fairness Kyungsoo had always been a little intimidating to the tattoo artist, but as they both sat there, in a concrete bench at the Hangang Park just a few meters away from the river, Mason could feel himself slowly being crushed by the weight of his past decisions.

Mason tries speaking first, but no sound comes out of his mouth and the Australian tattooist swallows hard, fists clenching on the sides of his body and teeth digging into his bottom lip. It would be easier simply pretending he had never left, but Mason had always been a bad liar and he knew it would only hurt the both of them. “I’m sorry,” is what he says after a while, voice cracking because of his dry throat, but that is enough to make him feel a little lighter even when he not sure what he’s apologizing for. It was, maybe, (probably,) for months of ignoring the younger or maybe it was for choosing someone else. He was sure, however, it was not for falling in love with Kyungsoo to begin with, even if by now he had always buried that feeling somewhere dark and dry, where it couldn’t grow, like a flower that won’t bloom at night.

“There were many things I wanted to tell you,” he speaks again, clearing his throat and chancing a quick look at the man sitting besides him and the words start coming too fast for him to stop himself. “Like how I could tell you were lonely the first time I met you, even if other people couldn’t, because I know what if feels like. And how being with you made me want to become better even if there was no chance you’d ever like me back. Because, at some point, I liked you. I might have loved you, even,” Mason chokes at the word and leans back on the bench. “I… I’m… I don’t even know why I’ve asked to meet you after so long, but lately it feels like I’m permanently outside of myself.” Only then his eyes turn to Kyungsoo again and that time he doesn’t look away. “It’s like you could push your hand straight through me if you wanted to.”

Surreal, like a dream he floats in. Maybe it’s the reason he can’t feel his fingers. After all this time, seeing Mason feels surreal. How much time had passed? It’s funny how things become different when there’s a loss of contact. People grow, with or without you. The part of him he had expected to scream and yell is dead silent and whatever emotion should be sending signals to his brain remain dead. He doesn’t feel anything just yet, as if any moment now the Australian will burst like a bubble when he wakes up from a dream. The coolness of the wood beneath his fingers as he clenches the bench tight tells him otherwise tells him this is reality. Harsh, gritty reality.

It’s the sound of Mason’s voice that strikes something within him. A melancholic tune that wants to silence the apology. What is there to apologize for? There’s a lot he wants to say. The day Mason left for the country down under left a painful memory and a gap Kyungsoo failed to fail many times over. He had entered his life like a reckless storm, and left nothing but devastation and powerlessness behind him when he left. His apology, his voice, brings him back to the day he’d seen him last. And now he’s seeing him again. He can’t focus his eyes on the taller. Something in his head tells him he’ll burn if he dares cast his eyes on tattooed skin again. He had touched over his tattoos before. Could he do so now? The man that left him weak and pliant beneath his every word had left him even weaker. Heartache was the result of Mason’s departure.

His eyes remain dry (he doesn’t cry easily), but there’s a lump in his throat as he listens to the rambling, spoken too fast as if he too is trying to find an answer for all of this. They’re here, but the reason is still unknown. Unknown to Kyungsoo, unknown to Mason. His feet scrape over the ground and he hears spoken in past tense, because that’s all there is left between them. The past and the bridges burned. There are question marks everywhere, and he doesn’t know how to answer them. Their eyes meet when Kyungsoo looks at him, too. There are so many questions within him. ‘Why did you come back? Was it worth it? Did you ever think about me? Did it hurt? Does it hurt now?’. There is so much to say. ‘I missed you. I thought about you a lot. I regret never saying anything, I regret never doing anything. I can’t watch Von Trier movies without you.’

due to her intoxication of alcohol for the night, her accent becomes worse, making it harder for people to understand what she was saying. thankfully, it was only the male listening to her. they were having.. what was it? right. a casual conversation. something she couldn’t really keep up with if she was sober. a chuckle rolls off of her lips, her pinky tracing the rim of her shot glass.

shot after shot, she kept downing the alcohol like water. she raises an eyebrow at his suggestion, about to raise her hand like she was back in class but a glass of water appears in front of her after a few seconds. there’s a smile etched across her face, nodding her head to show her thanks. “mm.. thank you..” she mumbles, placing the glass against her lips to take a sip.

“hmm.. dangerous is my middle name.” she jokes. “kiddin’. i don’t have a middle name. but, yeah. don’t worry. i’m careful. ‘course i am. that’s why i keep it down low..” she mumbles, now continuing to drink the water. “ah. what kind? an’ i didn’t ask for like.. reasons. jus’ genuinely curious. y’know? people could be out here bein’ painters an’ shit.. it’s amazin’.”

There’s no punching aimed at his face, so at least she isn’t a violent drunk who hates him meddling with her business by telling her to drink water. Not like he can’t defend himself (he knows how to keep any person in a headlock long enough for them to pass out) but he doesn’t like getting into physical altercations with anyone. Let alone a stranger. Funny, how her willingness to drink water turns his image of her from a deliquent teen into one of a cute girl. 

It is something to grow used to, the disdain of a latter portraying dissatisfaction and diminishing his image to insignificance. Then again, it is a fact that none of the eyes hiding in the audience truly knows an artists just by a glance, or even through a biography – it is impossible to judge a person without acquiring the true story from the source. So he finds it immensely annoying how those words seem to spill ever so nonchalantly from the latter’s mouth, a set of words sharpened and armed set to burst through rosy lips and yet he opts for an elegant speech instead. “That is correct.” A child birthed in the world of music and made to fall in love with a piano, to blossom a true passion, is not sloppy. He isn’t, so to speak. “I don’t believe you have witnessed me on a live performance. Until then, allow me to say you have no right of judging whether or not I possess such finesse.” Truth be told, Byun Baekhyun is an entirely different person when engulfed by peaceful notes.

There is no use getting worked up about it – he doesn’t mind his work being publicly bashed if the deep devotion he holds within perseveres. A smile crosses his features he he takes a moment to absorb the latter’s words, delicate rows of fingers tapping against the frame of his forearm as his figure bends over, just enough to capture the other’s gaze. “You sound quite passionate about it. Movies and its endless branches.” A brow rises, amusement plastered across his complex. It is an all too familiar sentiment he happens to carry within, and the other’s speech gives in much more than just an opinion. “What exactly do you like? In regards of a movie. What is your criteria when writing a critic?” It’s a curious point. Those writing a lengthy review about a certain subject do it according to their very own liking, so what makes the different from the rest of the world? It seems like a much more complex world that he has never bothered to analyse.

Of course, pride is always something that gets in the way. No matter what words he would toss at the pianist, a fishnet of ego would catch them. When passion is involved, there is no room for nonchalantly spoken insults. Kyungsoo very well understands this, debating why or why not a movie is good or bad. He’s spent time defending Del Toro’s works more often than not. The flickering of fire in Baekhyun’s eyes is one he recognizes, one that burns silently with a little flicker within himself. Waiting to be fueled. Why not play with fire a little while he can? Ever the same, his voice carries the same monotone. “If you are so proud of your work, I take that as a personal invitation to your next performance. Perhaps a chat directly afterwards will clarify whether or not I have changed my mind.” His fingers brush over the edges of the book. “Do not lose your temper if what I say isn’t to your liking.” A challenge.

Somehow, Yixing manages to balance both his tub of popcorn and large drink in his hands while showing the employee his movie ticket, who then gestures lazily to the end of the hall on the right. His feet practically hop down the carpeted hallway since he was looking forward to seeing Wonder Woman ever since it came out. There were hardly any tickets available by the time he bought them, and he’d end up having to share a sofa with a complete stranger, but nothing could stunt his excitement at this point.

Through the dim lighting of the theater he checks his row number once more before shuffling over to his couch, though, is completely shocked at the sight of a couple with their tongues already down each other’s throats, and the movie hadn’t even started yet. “Uhm.. I think I’m supposed to be in one of these spots.” Yixing speaks lowly, feeling incredibly thankful the theater was dark enough to hide his flush. The couple hardly spares him a glance and Yixing’s palms start sweating. He wasn’t the type of person to make a scene, much less speak his mind in such an uncomfortable situation to total strangers. Desperately, he glances around to find anywhere else to sit, and ends up spotting another sofa which held a young man, probably around his own age, completely alone. Yixing hurries over, bowing over a little as he speaks.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but is anyone sitting there?”

It’s not for the sake of nitpicking at all. Whenever he sees a movie, it’s not uncommon for Kyungsoo to see it a couple of more times (the advantage of owning a press privilige pass). Every little passing detail, his eyes want to find and his mind wants to capture, and every single time he reshapes his opinion and adjusts to his liking and disliking. To him, it is both work and pleasure.

Usually, people leave him to his devices. His aura is off putting to say the least. The privacy and solitude he craves speaks volumes in the way he carries himself. Isolation in his own personal bubble. People tend to stay away from people like him. It’s how he has his own space even in a fairly packed hall. Maybe the person approaching him is oblivious to it. Maybe the air around him isn’t any type of air at all. Some people don’t get it. Or they don’t mind. Kyungsoo doesn’t know which one to categorize this person in. His face lacks a smile--as usual--but he shakes his head.

If there’s a glimmer of recognition in the man’s eyes, Daniel dismisses it, and as much as he usually doesn’t mind the ever repeated conversations his level of fame brings, today is not the day. It’s not often that he does impulsive and odd things like today, and poetry seems to be the path for the discussion to take. 

“He is,” he simply says, his critical eye trying to discern whether this, exactly, is something to challenge a complete stranger with. Looking back to the disheveled and dirty crowd behind him, Daniel takes a step closer to the man to remove himself from their earshot. “I thought reading something like that, to them, is more meaningful than trying to cheer them up with a few cliche’s. After all, the men in times of Wordsworth knew poverty and misfortune more than any rich white guy possibly can.” He grimaces a smile at having just described himself as white, but that’s how he’s always felt. Reaching out he offers his hand. “I’m Daniel. And I admit I stole the performance from a British actor who forged his skills on the stages of theatres. They make an actor like nothing else, the theatres.” 

Kyungsoo has his opinions about everything. A certain voice inside of him speaks and speaks whenever it can about whatever topic is being discussed, but his mouth more often than not remains silent. He could debate with this man the meaning of poetry and he could ask him why that specific poet, but he remains silent. His reasoning for picking such a somber topic to recite a poem about makes sense in a way. The grievances of man have long been inspiration of many poetic pieces. “But you aren’t white.” He only comments. Daniel Henney remains part Korean, after all. 

“I’m not laughing.  Do I look like I’m laughing?  There’s no humor in this face..”  Now… he finishes off mentally. Ah the blessing of being able to somewhat act.  Bada had learned a few things in his time on the cruise ship.  Things that came in handy at times.  Like now.

“Narnia was terrifying though if you think about it.  You had 4 kids, sucked into a land they knew nothing about.  A land where a witch wanted to rule and in order to do so, she fucking aimed to murder the beloved ruler.  She threatened anyone and everyone that got in her way.  How on earth was Narnia not terrifying to you, but a duvet cover was?  Please tell me that the duvet cover was two-toned as well.  That’s why it was like Narnia.  You went from the dark to the light, right?” 

 “You look like you’re about to laugh..” Kyungsoo mumbles to himself. There’s no point in confronting Bada about it when he’s going to deny it anyway. He even has the strength to act like he isn’t amused. Kyungsoo isn’t as easily convinced.