#eeseul

there were memories, and there were ghosts. haeran cuts the distinction at the way by which they came: memories came by her will, but ghosts did not. her mother, a memory, comes to her across that distance between the penitentiary and her tall glass windows, summoned by the act of rememberance: a scolding over the supper table, a rare, quiet night of brushing her hair out for her. her old fiancé, the ghost that he has become, invites himself into her dreams. stands there sometimes, right at the edge of her bed, watching with all of the faces she has worn and discarded. seo iseul is both --- not as contradiction, but as some walking, living feedback loop, a ghost feeding on memory and a memory with the indiscriminate presence of a ghost. haeran had few friends a child, and maybe it'd be easy to blame it on that --- i think of you, because there's no one else to think of. the truth is simpler. shorter, too. it breaks through when she's tired and she allows herself to lower the heavy shield of denial for a few precious moments: i think of you because i miss you. what a base, humiliating thought. did it stop sin from accepting the race when he saw his name on the list? no. and, hell, he's glad he didn't. hadn't even known iseul had become a nightrunner until he heard it through gossip but is still glad, because it's exactly the kind of race that they used to watch with bated breaths when they were kids, the ones that left her with just as much adrenaline pumping through her veins and the wild thought of someday that's going to be me. and here they are now, and it turns out that iseul races with a goddamn vengeance, commands a presence on the circuit that even sin has to respect or else eat shit on the tightest turns. iseul is nothing like the ghost or the memory of him anymore, even nothing like this father, a jarring sign of just how much haeran has missed out on. it's what sin pushes harder tries to outpace. not the waves encroaching on the circuit, not iseul hot on his heels, but all of this guilt hounding him down. in the end, gwisin beats him to the finish line. the adrenaline is there, but the victory isn't. sin rears gaenari back to a stop, narrowly avoiding a crowd of celebrating strangers. they must've bet in his favor. he surveys the rest as he kicks down gaenari's stand, noting the decent number who looked like they had bet on iseul instead. sin unlatches his helmet and untucks his tightly-ponytailed hair, but only because he had make sure to have his darkest mask on tonight, his voicebox crackling and his eyes shining an unnatural gray. he turns back towards iseul. it's me, he could say here. his shame catches up before he has the guts to say it. instead, he slings an elbow against gaenari's handlebar, watching as dust clouds clear and iseul finally rolls to a stop next to her, circuit finished. do you remember me too? haeran wants to know. what sin says is, “that took you long enough.” although hidden, there’s a smirk in his voice. “feeling a little off today?”