rise of persephone.
in the halcyon whispers between the death of night and the dawn of tomorrow; where the world deadens its greedy senses and stagnates its lust for the hustle and bustle, hyungsik alone does not rest; for his machinations never halts.
( for there’s never rest for the wicked, you see —)
tonight, in the tranquil silence within the eye of an impending; gathering tempest, hyungsik hums something dark and heavy under his breath. in his fingers, within glossy pictures taken without consent: a full-bellied man and saturnine girl stare up at him, a lion and deer co-existing at first glance.
he; the owner of a vicious conglomerate, her; a girl barely on the cusp of adulthood with dark embers in her gaze. them; an age gap of many decades. together; an unlikely pair.
( unlikely, but common. power does impair the self-importance of many men. )
dark orbs observe her empty smile; fragile equanimity. persephone in the deep rue of lament. a cup of something deep red and bitter clutched in her pale, fragile hands. he wonders what poison she drinks to fill her void; if she drinks it sip by sip, little by little past a sharp teeth guised by a pretty mouth— or if she tips it down her own soft throat without end, until she chokes on the thick, velvet red of dolor.
( for hyungsik only knew of two types of women. those who suffer at the feet of men, or those who know how to play the game. )
and so hyungsik paints. with every picture he shuffles to the front, he solves her puzzle. piece by piece, brushstroke by brushstroke: a little bit of desperation, a little bit of sorrow; but ample emptiness splashes onto the blank canvas of an emerging gambit. it was a dark, moody thing; filled with dark blues and murky watercolor. and where some would have called it lacking, hyungsik saw allure in the dark despair and vicious despondence.
flip. slightly hunched shoulders; untold misery. flip. a glistening smile full of teeth; determination. there, one lone red stripe of paint boldly struck across the gloomy landscape.
when the sun dawned on a new tomorrow, a girl enters his stratagem with fanfare— for hyungsik aims guide her building fusillade in the direction of her own destruction. and perhaps, in its vicious hail, she would be persuaded to bloody her own hands with that of an outdated predator; a greying man who claims ownership of her body and its soft, soft flesh.
there’s no need for apologies for what he is about to unleash; for it’s nothing personal, you see. he whispers through the sharps curve of his smile to the girl in the photograph.
—
a sunny morning, bitter winter winds dawn. hyungsik steps into a homely café, full of joyful shouts and memory made.
ah, such is the energy of youth, he muses.
at a table piled sky-high with thick books, hyungsik stops, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly in good humor. the very picture of a guileless sunbae in the need for a soothing, healing cup of caffeine.
“hello there.” he punctuates a boyish smile with the pleasant timbre of his laugh. “sorry to interrupt you, but the other tables all seem to be taken.” here, he raises his carefully balanced cup of coffee remorsefully.
“mind if i sit here?” hyungsik gestures to the comparative emptiness of an adjacent seat, “i would promise to be quiet, but i think the bustle renders that assurance pretty empty.”
( and into the pitch-darkness of turmoil that colors her world, a pale hand reaches out to break the cycle of dependence and misery. in it, sits temptation; ripe pomegranate seeds in the eyes of naïve persephone. )
@ihsoojung
