#jaeneral

with the nail of her thumb in her mouth she scanned the square, biting down harder than she had intended and swallowing the fragment. a pigeon was coming closer, rotating between pecking at the ground and observing her with its head cocked. she let out a laugh, releasing some of the tension. she sighs, realizing the person she had been waiting for just won’t show up anymore. the pigeon flies away just as she stands, ready to leave. her eyes fixate on its flight, following its trail with her gaze as she starts to walk on. but all that’s interrupted with an impact that throws off her petite frame. arms instinctively reach out front, grabbing onto whatever she can to keep her balance, and it fortunately somehow works.

AESTHETIC FRENCH ASKS : not accepting !» @jaeneral

péripatéticien (wanderer): believe in ghosts?

not until @luxinexitium came along 😒

ange (angel): what’s your opinion on religion? do you believe in anything?

she learns through association: chaeyoung slipping out in the early hours of the morning when she’s just starting to wake up; the colored panes of glass, light pooling into an empty room– her head bowed, hands clasped in prayer when she says amen; a prayer journal, chaeyoung tells her when she wanders into her room one night and finds her sprawled out on her bed with it pinned beneath one elbow.

“why do bad things happen to your car only when you’re with me?”

nothing is stirring in the evening air, not even a breeze. silhouetted by the light of the setting sun, taeyeon is facing him with her back, gazing in the distance as if searching for an answer to their dilemma. the green hills are scalded in a faint light, a small village casting its presence before their eyes meters down the slope. “wanna go ask for some help?” despite the rustic, simple appearance of the houses and the gravelled alleys slithering in between, a few cars are parked on the outskirts, with a man even tending to one of them right now as jae is glancing ahead.

to say that they’re friends now is still a question, a debate he is yet to find an answer for, but they’re slowly getting there. it only seems that bad luck looms above their heads, considering how they even got to actually meet each other, a memory jae is not entirely fond of, even if it all ended well when the doctors proclaimed his arm to be whole and healthy, hardly any injury in its bones. now her car limps to the side, a deflated wheel impending their day in the most unexpected moment. only a few miles and they would have been back in seoul. bad luck.

“i’m sure those people could spare some help. errr — you just gonna have to do the talking, okay? what if my korean slips and i say something bad? we won’t get out of here if that happens.” there’s much more comfort in his gestures however, pinching taeyeon out of her dreamlike state with a gentle hit of his elbow against her arm. “time to go, before they’re sendin’ a whole army to look for you. it’d be sensational news, but i’m not lookin’ forward to be involved in it. and i bet those people down there won’t even recognise you, let alone me.”

it’s when she finally speaks, that he casts a questioning look in her direction. words, so suddenly spilled out, have rendered him unable to react properly. people will leave you, but that doesn’t mean it is your fault. is she speaking to him? or perhaps, she’s addressing herself, having no worries that there’s someone in her presence. then again, hurdled days such as this one do leave you tired; maybe, so far away from the jungle of the city, she’s basking in the liberation nature gives. who knows. he’s only assuming. “excuse me?”

It appears unbelievable to her, impossible even, and for a second, it even occurs to her that Jae might be the cause behind her misfortune. Or at least for her car. Apparently, it is not very fond of the talkative boy, unlike her, who has managed over the few encounters that they carried on to get to enjoy his presence. She won’t admit, but the younger indeed possesses some sort of special trick that usually, despite the fact that she is not very fond of energetic personalities all the time, does make her feel lighter and visibly relaxed. 

It is not the case now, as opposed to his continuous attempts to relieve any potential stress that the incident might’ve inflicted, Taeyeon cannot jump out of her trance. The questions come and go, flying towards her but being rejected with coldness. Not rudeness, though. Unintentionally, she falls into a swallow trance. He must be getting used to her antics by now and probably he won’t even mention it afterwards, but she will still feel guilty. 

Sure, she can blame it on exhaustion, the best excuse for everything, because it’s partly true. But  it doesn’t truly explain her outburst, her mindless ramble. It’s pression that does, that has been hovering over her shoulders and loitering in her mind. The pression of an issue she isn’t able to let go, unfortunately for her and the persons who come in contact with her at this time. 

Eventually, the woman opens her eyes fully, his nudge effectively pulling her out of her drowsy estate, and gazes outside the car to scan the surroundings he’s been rambling about. Soon after, her head jerks towards her friend while she struggles thoroughly to fake a believing smile. “Ah, no. Nothing. I was just thinking about this quote from a movie I watched and how fitting it is.” not a complete lie but not the pure truth either. As she shakes her head to emphasize her denial, her short tresses jiggle in the process. The sweet smile still stands plastered on her lips, gradually growing to gain more credibility. 

❝ I– Wait, 오빠. ❞ Although it feels like there’s an impenetrable fog shrouding every crevice of her mind, lashes still thick with residual sleepiness, it appears that Chaeyoung’s body knows what it’s doing even before she can process its actions, because she hurriedly sticks her foot in the opening of the door before he can close it shut ( and she has the sickening feeling in her stomach that if she doesn’t, it’d stay that way for her for a very long time to come ).

She’d all the time in the world to rethink her actions and turn back on the way to his dorm, and even then she still hadn’t come to a proper conclusion as to what exactly she’s attempting to do, visiting him in the wee hours of the morning until she’d very hesitantly started to knock on the door – does she want closure? To see him smile again? Maybe both?

( And the memory of how to get to where he is is still very much written in her footsteps. Take a sharp turn at the first stop sign she sees, head straight past the supermarket on her right, and go through the alley right next to the bus stop for a quick short cut. )

Chaeyoung’s looking straight at his much taller figure now, eyes raking all over his distinct features; In the past she’d told him that she found his monolids charming once with the brightest smile on the planet and now she finds that thought rising to the back of her head with renewed vigor, not that she’ll admit it to his face in the present. His distaste for her is unspoken, but very distinctly reflected in the disdainful undertones of his words, and although she’s always established that the vocalist is a giant in his own right, Chaeyoung has never felt smaller next to anyone else.