#przhiruo

@przhiruo

hyunsoo’s a top-notch orator. if this was 400 bc athens, he’d probably have everyone under his thumb. but they’re in 21st century seoul and he might as well be speaking gibberish, 'cause she’s itching for a light and this meeting couldn’t possibly be any longer (it really could, but she’s not going to jinx it). here’s the thing: sebin’s a proper teammate. and like any proper teammate she stands idle, nods at the appropriate times and laces her fingers behind her back. and thinks to herself, i’m going to have to make a convenience store run by the end of the night.

the neon numbers on her hand-me-down casio read 10:30 by the time the curtain goes down. sebin takes her time to mingle before heading out the door. down the steps she goes, catching zhiruo with an arm looped through hers, all chummy in her near-perfect mandarin. she’s been working on her intonation at ruo’s behest. “you’re not heading home, are you? thought we made a promise.”

this week’s prize is a beaut-- snow-white, with dark cherry upholstery. certainly not as showy as the last one, but sebin’s been looking forward to taking it out for a real test drive. she relinquishes her grip and fishes the keys out her back pocket. with one click, the doors swivel to open in a seamless upward motion-- 

--like an angel unfurling it wings. 

almost biblical if you think about it long enough.

@przhiruo

The engine starts and you’re off, screeching around the four-way, closing your eyes to the blinking lights and scurrying bodies as the guff of your own thoughts overwhelms you. You’re taken momentarily away from your own body and the way your jaw throbs and left arm bleeds in pulses smothered by gauze. Every potentiality unrealized, a hypothetic obituary scrawled into both mind and gut, the vestiges of a night gone awry—you tuck them all away with a twist of the cap on your head.

Filed, filed, processing.

Please hold.

You suck in as much air into your lungs as you can carry until they inevitably sour and swell and give out. You cough into the back seat and a shadow descends over your face to frame a pearly smile and you hum a made-up tune. Breezily.

Still here.

By the time you climb out of the car seat and stride into the villa you’re held precariously together by tape and a pervasive numbing that you will yourself to ignore and so you do, grinding your back molars painfully and sucking in another practiced breath so this time you don’t fold over but instead bend back triumphant. You all but bellow, “Didja miss me?!”

And from all directions but one, a rush of wind and the accompanying chorus of mewls. You feel a hard clap against your back that jolts your head up, far enough that you spot the group’s sole betrayer heading the opposite way, her face shrouded and yet her silhouette so unmistakable that it could never escape you.

Following your debriefing and one final patch-up you retrace her steps and they lead you, predictably, to the study.

“Hiding out here?”

Zhiruo sits in silence. Her statuesque shoulders, no longer held up high, jut against the edge of the desk; the folds of her shirt bend to the will of friction over posture. The image strikes a toothsore sweetness in you.