#ug.ctrl

Name: Kwak Jieun Pronouns: She/her Age: 26 Occupation: Freelance Music Copylist Canon: CTRL_04′

Freeform:

Grief has a tendency for overstaying. It seeps into the smallest of things: the outline of a frame on the living room wall, the vacant chair at the dining table that suddenly feels too big for their home. Constant reminders of how an ending can be as easy as leaving your set of keys at the table, a note accompanying it like an afterthought.

Still, her father can’t bear to throw it away. She can’t find it in herself to blame him.

It’s the finality of it all that hurts the most. As a rule, breaks are never clean  — theirs is no exception. To watch the death of a marriage in real-time is less fire and conflict and more waking up in the morning to an empty bed, the other side cold and unslept in. Anger is only ever at the beginning, at the part where the cracks are still salvageable. At the end, the only thing that remains is apathy and a gaping black hole. Living through the latter is more bitter, she finds.

—

On a Wednesday morning, a few weeks before she turns twelve, her mother decides to not come home.

It’s never the same after that.

—

The aftermath is a blur. November into August into November again. She wants to say: wait for me, world. Slow down and let me cry into my hands. My heart is soft and tender and rotting like fruit left out too long. I am hurt, I am mourning. I need time.

In actuality, the world moves on without her. Silly of her to think otherwise.

—

The house is always cold, even in the heat of summer. She tells herself it’s a house with old bones, because the alternative is unthinkable. Some months the bills are paid on time, and she learns who to call when they aren’t; keeps a list tacked onto the fridge long after they’ve been printed into her brain. Her father is the picture of surrender — spine perpetually bent, shoulders heavy with regret. It’s pitiful until it’s her cross to bear, the sentiment souring on her tongue. She picks up the pieces anyway, because she has to. Who else will?

She’s such a sweet girl, so dependable for her age; they say it to her face, behind her back. No point in differentiating between the sympathetic and the condescending — their gazes sting the same way.

She’s not one for semantics: to survive, she had to grow up.

It’s not about how the pain eats at you — it’s how you move forward despite it.

—

Time passes, and it gets better.

Or maybe it doesn’t. It just starts to fit better instead. This hole she has to live with. This hole that lives in her.

—

A brief interlude:

The room her father uses as an office is the product of his mind: stacks of vinyls piled on top of each other, curtains pulled shut, the only light coming from the flicker of his screen. And of course, it was all perfectly in place, so nothing was to be touched. Everything in balance  — or the semblance of it.

He teaches her how to play the piano when she is five, fingers gentle over her own as he recounts muscle memory. My hands are too small, she remembers having said. They’ll change with time, he had replied.

It’s not as if she believes him, per se; more like she wants it to happen, so she makes it so. Practice, practice, perfect; in time, it’s not about the end goal, but the pursuit.

It just makes her happy.

That’s enough.

—

Time passes, again.

Absence is silent and thunderous in equal halves. She grapples both with the same (lack of) finesse, channeling her signature spirit: try, and try, and try. At some point, the illusion of succeeding is a good enough replacement for the real thing. Step by step, she learns what it’s like to live.

There are mistakes: the smoking habit she picks up at fourteen, for one; lying next to a boy she had given everything to, but who gave nothing back, another. Then there are growing pains: when her mother calls her on her birthday, or sets a date to meet up, she becomes familiar with perfunctory responses: thanks, mom; sure, mom; no problem, maybe next time, mom.

But there are the good moments, too.

Hours spent in the dead night going over this lyric, that note. The piano is her first love, a boy her second, writing her third. The rush of standing front row, center stage; the clarity of oh, this is it through the double-vision. Standing front and center on the other side of the fence with people singing her songs. Finding a place to call home.

She holds this feeling tight in her hands until her knuckles turn white. Good things are so rare to find these days; might as well keep them close until the warmth turns cold.

She’s selfish that way.

—

She should know better by now. That to open your heart is to invite grief. The same grief that stays after the love leaves.

She should know better.

Name: Bae Yunjin Pronouns: She/her Age: 26 Occupation: Musician Canon: CTRL_04

Freeform:

bae yunjin’s life is pretty comfortable. upper middle class, only child, academically inclined without being socially inept. all the makings of a cushy existence.

it helps that she’s a cute kid. pretty, smiley, so on and so forth. makes herself heard, but doesn’t overstep– and given how meek her parents are, it’s quite the exercise in restraint for a little leo.

the early years go by in a sort of blur: middle school drama, shedding tears over exam prep, and late nights at the academy‚ it’s all mostly uninteresting as far as yunjin is concerned. the issue is that she can’t think of anything fun to do, until her parents suggest picking up an instrument as a hobby. it’s a bit unexpected, but it’ll do.

she first gets into her dad’s hidden stash of vinyls when she’s 12, finding a hidden treasure trove of punk, alt rock, and grunge classics. it’s the furthest imaginable leap from the image she has constructed of who her father is, but definitely an interesting discovery. it seems there can be more to the people you might think you know.

everyone’s rather disconcerted by the fact that she chooses to stick with drums. maybe it’s the incessant need to prove herself,  a desperate bid to go against expectations. and she does just love the noise.

picture perfect high schooler by day, aspiring punk rocker by night. the idea of having a hidden life is so endlessly appealing. it’s like no one can ever see the full picture of who she really is;  her social standing perfectly balance on a knife’s edge.  

her parents catch on earlier than she realizes (in hindsight, she wasn’t even really hiding.) but it becomes impossible to ignore once the university entrance exams draw near. her father, potentially more enamored by the idea of having a rock star daughter than he’s willing to admit, proposes the following deal: she can pursue her interests freely as long as she finishes school. at least a bachelor– yunjin, please.

said and done, she sets off to university with every intention of keeping her word; balancing her very much not-lucrative career as a drummer in an all-female alternative rock band with the maintenance of her mid-level gpa is a chore at best. she hates how it all feels like work, but it’s a formative experience nonetheless.

it’s a miracle that she lasts through the degree. the dues have been paid, and she’s finally off the hook of her parents expectations, and on square fucking zero of life now that her little darling project group has caved to the pressure of the adult world. so what now?

ctrl is the answer to that question. a fever dream of late nights and making it up as they go, a worthy sample size of success.

it still doesn’t feel like her life though. maybe it never will, or perhaps she’s just internalised years of critique and accusations that she’s a glorified party girl who happens to be able to play the back beat. on a good day she’d contend that she’s keith moon reincarnated, in the flesh for one more night, just wait and see. other days, it hits a little too close to home.

some nights yunjin imagines a levon helm future for herself, taking the center of the stage and staying on the road into old age. other times she wonders if it’s time to retire the whole performance, pull back the curtains and see what’s even left back there, just collecting dust and memories.

Name: Park Seokjin Pronouns: He/him Age: 26 Occupation: High School Teacher Canon: CTRL_03

Freeform:

ONE —

“stop smoking, we love you,” seokjin croons.

“stop smoking, we love you,” his younger sister adds, a key higher.

together, their voices crescendo: “and we don’t want you to die!” seokjin strums the guitar with more urgency. “we don’t want you to die, we don’t want you to die, we don’t want you to die, we don’t want—”

“alright, alright,” dad claps several times, interrupting their half-a-joke, half-a-serious-plea hospital room performance, a wide grin on his face. a terrible cough intrudes on his smile, but he plays it off by reaching for the old yamaha in seokjin’s arms. seokjin lets him take it.

seokjin was eight years old when dad first taught him how to play the guitar and sixteen when he and his kid sister write a song to stage a musical intervention of sorts for his charming, loving, “i-was-in-a-band-once-you know,” “smoking-is-bad-but-the-reason-i-smoke-is-worse” father. so typical of dad to steal the show.

seamlessly, dad thumps his hand against the strings of the guitar: one, two, three, then a slow strum.

“last night i dreamt we did our laundry together,” his voice is little more than a lilt. “and we were singing the same song while we folded our clothes.“ seokjin crosses his arms.

“as i recall, you looked like a total doofus,” he then raises a brow at seokjin, who frowns in return. “which is pretty accurate. so i woke up feeling sad,”

“cause it never happened,”

“cause it never happened,”

“cause it never happened—”

tears begin streaming down seokjin’s face, so dad stops strumming. “aw, let me finish the song, won’t you? it gets better.”

seokjin responds with a punch to dad’s shoulder: “you won’t even let me finish mine!“ then, the slight of a smile on his lips. he can’t help but laugh.

a pause. "you’re not going to quit.”

dad smiles, holds his kids in both arms. for a second, seokjin thinks dad’s eyes look glassy. “i’m a goner. but you guys aren’t. make the most of it.”

TWO —

“fucking dick.” seokjin mutters under his breath.

“what’d you say?”

“i said you’re a fucking dick,” a little louder this time. his heart begins to beat faster before it musters the courage to add, “and you fucking suck at the guitar.” a pause. “and i had sex with jieun, your stupid fucking little girlfriend-not-girlfriend.” despite all his pluck, he doesn’t have the nerve to even glance jieun when he says that. still, he can practically feel her heart sink from behind him.

all his life, under dad’s credence, seokjin has been good. but now, some years after his death—ah, what the hell. it doesn’t surprise him when a fistful of knuckles meet his cheekbones, nor does it surprise him when his shoulder meets the musty green room carpet.

seokjin doesn’t fight back. i’m a lover, not a fighter. it felt good to finally tell his bandmate that they suck though. oh, and also “this band sucks too. i quit.”

as if the quiet of the room could get quieter, a hush accompanies a long pause. damn, the tom-morello-wannabe is speaking again: “when i met you, jin, i didn’t know your dad’s fame would actually fuck up your head so badly. maybe you can play the guitar, but the only reason you’re anything is ‘cause of your dad. you’re deranged if you think you’re going to get anywhere playing the guitar by yourself. now fuck off.”

ONE TWO —

other than music, history is the only thing to seokjin that ever made sense. maybe doing just the guitar stuff would’ve worked out fine, but having lived the wild unpredictable, son-of-a-rockstar childhood that he had, seokjin likes stability too much. being a teacher pays enough, and history is cool, and kids are cool too.

it’s mid december. after seokjin lets his 10th grade world history class out for their winter break, he heads home. an old man shares tea with his son outside of a convenience store.

slowing to a stop, seokjin falters. watching them, he begins to cry. even now, a decade after his father’s loss, the grief (or whatever it is that it’s morphed into) is usually triggered by something arbitrary.

he wonders what dad would’ve looked like in his seventies. would he still wear his band’s t-shirt? the one with the holes in it?

would he be proud that seokjin finally stopped jumping ship from band to band? that he’s actually making music in a band that he likes now? a band that people like now? that he never wants to break up, ever?

he imagines his arm around his dad’s shoulders after a CTRL show; he mouthes exactly what he’d say to dad (obnoxiously, “did you love the show or did you love the show?”) and imagine what dad would say in return. dad would knock on seokjin for playing by himself and not with the band or something, and seokjin would get annoyed—but they’d be together.

it feels good to irrationally blame this old man and his son and their tea for the dull pain that has long been a fixture of seokjin’s life. he knows dad taught him better though, so he just tries to play the guitar instead.

THREE FOUR !

Name: Kim Sungbin Pronouns: He/Him Age: 26 Occupation: Tattoo Arist Canon: CTRL_01

Freeform:

i.      

sungbin’s sister is convicted for aggravated assault when he’s fourteen years old. before they stop seeing each other daily, she leaves him the following:

1.       a toyota corona that he cannot yet drive. the upholstery is stained in places, with liquids that remain unidentified; later, when he tries to start the car after his father teaches him how to let go of the clutch, he’ll learn that it needs more tlc than it’s worth to be of any use. the backseat, however, is just big enough for him to spread out until he hits his final growth spurt.

2.       the bass she’d never returned to her ex. he covers it in stickers, and it becomes a permanent accessory.

3.       a backpack full of stained glass bottles. sungbin is very efficient in making the alcohol disappear before his parents notice, and, a little more slowly, he takes care of the pack of smokes she’d shoved into the tiny front pocket, too. after that, he feels confident in his ability to say that he doesn’t care much for nicotine, but loves the way the world smudges around him when he’s intoxicated.

it’s all downhill from there.

ii.      

there’s something gaping inside sungbin and he doesn’t know what it is, just that it keeps coming back with a vengeance, ripping him apart and others to shreds. inexplicably, it makes him feel lonely; worse than that, angry. he’s a walking blaze, waiting to set the world on fire.

or that’s what it feels like, anyway.

iii.      

his mother shuts down after their family is broken apart. it feels like a betrayal, that after losing the sister who’d taught him to box and to tune the bass she’d leave him, too. to make up for her quitting her job, his dad picks up more shifts at work. because nobody enters sungbin’s room for two months, he manages to paint his walls without anyone noticing.

iv.      

these are the after-school activities eight-year-old sungbin is involved in:

1.       hapkido

2.       flute lessons

3.       a science club that bores him to death

4.       swimming classes, but only until he’s learnt to dive all the way to the bottom of the 4-metre deep pool

5.       a children’s choir

these are the after-school activities eighteen-year-old sungbin is involved in:

1.       fighting, and he’s traded the thick mats of the gym for the hard concrete of tiny alleyways

2.       playing basslines in the backseat of his car

3.       chemistry experiments, e.g. mixing vodka and beer and hoping for the best

4.       swimming classes, as a teacher in exchange for cash

5.       standing on stage, fingers numb and blood pounding, and feeling more alive than he does anywhere else

v.      

“you’re turning into your sister.”

sungbin sits across from his grandfather, nursing a split lip and a cut across his cheekbone. he’d hit the gravel, skidded, lost his balance, and now he pays the price.

the thing is, the assessment isn’t wrong. but it isn’t right, either, because he doesn’t fight to hurt others. he fights because there’s anger in his gut, threatening to boil him from the inside out, and there’s no other way to release it.

(he’s good at it, too, but that’s not what it’s about. sungbin, he’s been told, is fiercely loyal. it doesn’t sound like a compliment.)

vi.      

he’s feeling great when he does it and there’s plenty of cash to burn on his account, courtesy of his grandparents. so sungbin makes the stupid decision, encouraged by friends he shouldn’t be hanging out with, and the next morning he grins at his parents around the metal wedged through his tongue. they don’t speak for a week after that, and when they do it’s in screams. sungbin says a few things that are so ugly he doesn’t dare repeat them even to himself. everything he’s bottled up in four years spills out, every little frustration, and his father matches him with no trouble at all.

his mother retires to her room. she always does, whenever voices are raised, and it infuriates sungbin more than anything else she could do.

vii.      

brother,

the letter reads.

it’s okay to be weak sometimes.

viii.      

music surrounds him from the moment sungbin is conceived. his mother plays orchestral music while he grows in her womb, then cheesy children’s songs with lyrics that, to his chagrin, sungbin will remember forever. his grandparents listen to jazz, his father sings folk songs while cooking. sungbin learns how to play the piano, the flute, the violin, quits all when he gets interested in the next shiny thing. his sister introduces him to classic rock. his cousin, when they’re eleven years old, gets into vocaloid, then k-pop. he resolves to digging through youtube to figure out his own taste, then learns to play the songs, sings along to the radio when he’s with friends. his sister asks him to play for her through the phone and in person when she’s briefly out of prison, only to get convicted for something else within the same year. sungbin joins a band, then another, switches instruments when needed.

he loves music. and he knows that pursuing it will destroy him from the inside out, but he does it anyway.

ix.      

sungbin ends up going to group therapy. it helps, to learn that he’s not the only one whose grief turns into fury, and the medication does too: it keeps him more settled, a little sluggish. sungbin likes that version of himself better until he doesn’t, and then he wants to do nothing but scream for ages. goes through slumps that feel like chasms, drives friends away because he can never commit to plans. finally gets a new diagnosis, new drugs, and it should feel fine, but it doesn’t. he wonders, sometimes, whether it ever will.

x.      

it’s not about the stage. he relishes in the heat, in the way a pumped up crowd can make his blood sing, but sungbin doesn’t crave it. it’s about the hours in-between: in all the recordings that aren’t perfect enough, in the comradery of figuring out rhythms, adding harmonies. it’s about showing the rest of the world what he’s thinking without being snobbish about it. and it’s fine if nobody understands, because his bandmates do.

xi.      

he lets his piercing grow closed again, only a year after the investment. in exchange, he starts on covering his skin with ink. maybe it’s that transformation that appeals to him, the finality. somehow, at some point, he stops playing on the bass in his closet, too. it does well to look ahead sometimes.