#idjowi

@idjowi​, san’s apartment late at night, half-drunk off of wine.

san figures his bond with jowi is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things. a shooting star of a relationship that lodged inside his chest, firecracker-bright and burning. he relies on her, more than he might even realizes. often regards her far higher than he does himself. but despite all of this, jowi is never who san runs to first when he’s going through something. or, not in a way where they would exchange emotional baggage, where she could help him cut down to the crux of a problem, why he’s upset, figure out his next best step. 

jowi is who he goes to when he feels like shit and wants to try (for the umpteenth time) to drink his problems away (and wouldn’t you know, it never really works out). perhaps it’s because they both deal with problems in the same, unhealthy manner. they just end up as a sounding board for each other, unintentionally pushing each other into the same patterns again and again. and part of san is still unsure when it comes to the realm of relationships, love. even in the platonic sense. there’s always that belief rattling around inside his head that it’s conditional. he and jowi have worked out this dynamic, and so what happens if he breaks it? what happens if you day he trips and spills his relentlessly stupid issues at her feet and she just doesn’t want to deal with them. him. doesn’t want to help him clean up whatever fucked up mess he’s managed to create out of seemingly nothing? 

they’re friends, and he loves her. trusts her. but there’s always that edge of uncertainty. hesitancy that he’ll cross some unspoken boundary and everything will get yanked away. it’s something san’s grown up around. tiptoeing carefully around emotions and desires, bottling them all up instead, hiding them away. because when they come up, people get upset. when he spills them out, that love has a tendency of getting yanked out of his reach. like a child, with spilled juice on the floor, sticky-fingered and grabbing for something precious and clean. that’s how he feels, sometimes. and it’s a little shameful. a little humiliating. so san keeps that to himself, too. 

it’s why, now, inside his apartment with a bottle of wine nearly gone (and another on standby), san still hasn’t told her why he’d invited her over to binge-drink and watch slasher films (the tipsier he gets, the less san’s able to find the will to read the subtitles). this isn’t unusual. but he knows she’ll come, and he knows she’ll drink along with him until he passes out on the couch or makes himself sick. whichever comes first. “i think this movie’s worse than the last one.” san decides as too-red blood sloshes around the screen. his voice lilts out, like it’s wobbling along on a merry-go-round. 

For: @idjowi Word Count: 580 words Plot: An exhausted hoobae finds himself catching some much needed rest in a room that is definitely not his.

The fanchants and the cheers were intoxicating. It was something that the guitar player never got used to. It didn’t matter how much his legs were shaking from exhaustion, or how his eyes felt so swollen with a lack of sleep that he could barely keep them open, or how numb his fingers felt as they slid up and down the neck of the guitar, he could never truly hate this life he forged for himself.

The university crowd in front of them cheered as their drummer performed the last few beats followed by everyone releasing the final, powerful note of their ending number. King threw his head back, feeling his hair slick with sweat flipped back with the motion and he felt himself take a step back from the force of it all. For a moment he couldn’t hear the crowd anymore and his head felt as though it might fall right off his shoulders and roll away without him. The harsh poke of the monitor against the back of his legs reminded him of where he was and he scrambled to follow his members off stage as the MC took over the event once again.

The sound of his band mates excited comments over their performance faded in and out of his hearing and he felt as though the world around him was beginning to lean one way. He pressed his shoulder against the wall closest to him—which incidentally wasn’t that close at all, and he nearly lost his balance and fell to the floor. He heard a familiar voice down the hall asking if he was alright. He waved them on.

“Jus’ needuh minnit.”

He had felt tired before, but not like this. Life as a fisherman’s son was taxing with its early mornings and the constant loading and unloading of heavy cargo. This was a different kind of tired. This kind of tired he felt rattling his bones and felt as though his very soul was evaporating out of existence. His dark brown eyes skimmed the hallway for the door that would lead him to his dressing room. Or perhaps the bathroom. He wasn’t sure anymore. All he knew was that he needed to sit. He pulled his acoustic guitar up into his arms so that he could hold the body close to his chest. He felt along the wall and counted the door knobs as he passed.

‘One… two…’

But it was hard to focus as the next group—a female group by the sounds of it—were performing on stage. The song was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

‘five—wait’

“Where am I?” he murmured as he felt for the next door knob.

( when iseul finds a stick and decides that prodding @idjowi​ with it is the best idea ever. )

kang iseul prides himself on being a good friend: the therapist, the dr. phil of the korean music industry (audience laughs here). the type that tackles issues and problems head on. he doesn’t run from them, he confronts them halfway in a less than impressive battle royale just without the gore, the blood that’s impossible to wash off of anything. but he thinks goading jowi is a little like poking a sleeping tiger. does that stop him? (it should.) it doesn’t. and that’s catastrophically his problem. he jumps head first into situations looking around, but he can’t see beyond the sheen of sun reflected off the alpine metal facets of skyscrapers. iseul dives, anyway. because he’s kinda sure he as a knack for helping people. or least letting them know what he thinks is wrong. because he’s very... how does one call it, empathetic for the lack of a better term.

and he has the entire thing planned out, illustrated in the bullet journal he keeps to perfect his schedules. plot twist: neither 99 or POIZN keep him busy, so he doesn’t have much to do. iseul pens that in between the squares of graph paper, though. makes lyrics out of his sheer boredom. it fits the aesthetic. him writing, a bottle of soju before him and ahn jowi across the table. the korean barbecue hub is quiet in the middle of the afternoon. that fraction of time after lunch and before dinner. the lights are dim, they’re tucked away in a corner people pass without thought. good, good. he can’t have them being recognized. and the black turtleneck is starting to suffocate with it pulled to cover the lower portion of his face.

he writes that in, too. (i can’t breathe when i’m with you.) thinks of the weeknd. (i can’t feel my face when i’m with you.) while initially it appears to be about someone, it’s not. or maybe it is about badgering jowi, and he’s getting rustled without even beginning.

@idjowi, san’s apartment, a few days after kcon, late.

he shouldn’t be doing this. this as in drinking. too much. an overflowing amount that flood his body, his system, blurs at his vision and leaves him stumbling. elbows knocking against marbled kitchen counters and stomach twisting violent until he half-makes some ramen and chokes down a mouthful of too-hard noodles just to make it stop. it hadn’t ended well at kcon. in fact, it had been the complete opposite. a goddamn miserable time, and drinking definitely hadn’t helped much aside from common sense. if he hadn’t been that far gone maybe he would’ve told milo to fuck right off when he’s jammed that question between them. sharp-edged and forceful.

san hasn’t yet figured out who he’s more pissed at -- himself or milo. at least it’s so terrible and awkward now that he doesn’t even consider sending him vitriol in the form of drunkenly put together kakao messages. instead he reaches out to jowi. clumsy fingers skating across his phone asking her what she’s doing like preamble. it inches into asking if she wants to come over. not that he has much to offer aside from the rest of the now-bloating ramen still sitting in the pot, a collection of half-finished wine bottles, and his own charming presence. 

but he she gives him affirmation anyway, and it’s somewhat comforting. he’s in a mood. feels like a balloon stuffed too-full with air. about to burst, and a strong intention to rise higher. rip itself away from the twine holding him in place. keeping him on earth. he often calls jowi in an attempt to keep himself grounded. sometimes it’s jaehyun. and lately milo, too. and then, sometimes he bursts. a violent snap of a sound, and that’s when he pulls back. runs. snaps out angry and isolates. but he hasn’t hit that point yet. he’s just fluttery uneasy in the gusty winds of panic and he wants to pretend that jowi can try to help solve that problem.

she can’t, that would be asking too much. but he knows that she’d at least be willing to call milo names with him until san grew bored of it at three in the morning. that’s what friends are for, after all.

@idjowi, guerilla concert ( prompt, +5 exp, +5 skill free-choice )

it’s at times like this where san feels a little bit like he’s underwater. drowning, caught in a current. he’s eight years into debut, olympus is standing above it all. have dragged themselves into infamy until their bones ache, until they’re past the point of running on fumes. everybody knows their name. and yet, here they are. at a guerilla popup concert just because they had a free slot in the day and midas wants to wring every last possible cent they can out of them. san’s swallowed down two caffeine pills and an energy drink to keep himself moving. had shoved on stage clothes in something robotic, let makeup artists magic his face into something ethereal. hair tousled and rearranged until he looks how midas wants him to look.

that person isn’t san. they share the same name, the same obsessive love of dance, of music. but that’s it. 

san in reality is vicious. sharp teeth, a perfectionist, willing to rake people over the coals in an attempt to drag them up and into what he expects out of them. san in front of the camera is bubblegum-sweet smiles, hiding smiles behind the back of his hand, knocking against his group members and linking fingers together. backstage he shakes everyone off of him like the contact burns. resumes a scowl, sinks his attention into his phone. he’s sick of the schedule. he’s sick of constantly working, constantly working, constantly keeping himself stuck in place. stagnating despite the time he sank into dragging his vocals up to par with the rest of the group. 

san shouldn’t be at the guerilla concert. the rest of the groups here are all freshly debuted. they’re the biggest name. he knows the screams will be deafening when they shove them all out onstage. but he also knows he’s still tired from the music show they’s performed at, had rolled out of bed at four in the morning to get there on schedule. knows he has a photoshoot the morning after. knows his hands are trembling, that he’ll have to ignore it on stage, step into the role of something powerful. he needs to stop worrying the fans. that’s what his manager had told him last month. san barely kept himself from laughing outright. if only he could tell his body to stop breaking apart. 

at least cherry bomb!’s there though. he’s gotten along with jowi better than nearly anyone from the first time they’d met up at a music show. had fallen into something surprisingly comfortable. a connection that bubbled up. the sort of thing where you feel like you’ve known each other for a lifetime. it’s rare in the industry, or at least, it’s rare for san. a boy who grew up poised, perfect, and ready to trample anyone who stood in the way of his dream. well, his mother’s dream. he’s waiting with her backstage, dressed up for his groups stage, his mic clipped into place and turned off. can hear the pre-recorded songs of whatever newly debuted group is pretending to sing on stage. 

Send me ☃️ to find out a resolution my muse has for the new year.

Send me 🎄 to know how/if my muse has decorated for Christmas this year.

a metaphysical desire. 

what on earth could she want more than what she has? with success as an actress gradually stabilizing and the renaissance of her group providing new life, ryan would be remiss to wish for much. would be greedy, in point of fact. and yet, the heart forever yearns for more. in the true fashion of the perpetually unsatisfied ryan hopes for many things. to enumerate them is simple enough: 

for love though this is ironic as it is offered to her presently and she finds herself frightened of the commitment involved, and risks a summary rejection or loss of it in the first place, perhaps creating a self fulfilling cycle of abandonment

for success specifically as a soloist, which is foolish perhaps as she has had some very modest traction with that in the past, when operating under the image given to her by midas, and then much less when given her own freedom creatively, and as a result must certainly know better than to try again. 

for respect and in this surely she is the most foolish, to ask for such a thing from a world that sees her as little more than a music box, little more than a powerful voice from a diminutive figure, a neatly packaged safe, infantilized and sexualized in dual measure, simultaneously and disturbingly.