#virtue:start

he’s not drunk enough for this—at least, he thinks he isn’t. sober thoughts turned staggering walk; slurred words give his intoxication away, but he’s still coherent. he’s still here. 

his insides are a messy concoction of champagne and tequila, a mistake of mixing drinks as the threat of a hangover looms over his shoulder. the others are having fun, he thinks—maybe not genuinely, and probably in that feigned rich-kid-superficiality where you’re buzzed enough to forgo inhibitions, but never enough to let your guard down.

that’s the part that pisses him off the most, the one he can’t escape from. the mind games, the constant competition—what does it even mean to meet someone anymore when, in this world, all that matters is sizing somebody up and shooting them down?

it’s suffocating, this lifelong struggle, so he retreats—he wouldn’t survive the battle, anyways—to the balcony. a whip of fresh air threatens to slap sobriety in his face, and as he breathes in, out, in, the steps of another disrupt his rhythm—indicated by an outward sigh and a slow turn of the head as his greeting.

she’s usually more graceful than this—but elegance is easily forgone in the face of a splitting migraine. every so often, she winces, inhales sharply and dramatically touches her forehead for effect, when the light is too bright, when the world is too loud.

classes pass by in a flash—or, rather, faster than she can process. the discussion of syllabi blurs, and half-hearted and bygone greetings with classmates, professors, and other colleagues all blend together. but don’t blame her too much: it’s hard to discern differences when hungover and dealing with an accompanied headache.

her professor couldn’t dismiss them any later, and inhwa herself nearly bolts out of the door—the clack of her heels as the first sounds echoing in the hallway before the hustle and bustle of the academic crowds scurries in behind her. she’s irritable, and thus, searching for some well-deserved self-isolation; her feet lead her to the campus quad, eyeing a perfect spot of shade tucked in the corner of the sunlit center.

she’s all too fast in plopping herself down, ignoring the subconscious nagging against freshly-cut grass staining cashmere with a heavy sigh. her arms lazily spread out on either side as her head nestles into the comfort of dirt—how poetic.

     an open starter.

it’s another party, event, socialization, a crowd of important people from all different paths of elite life all placed into one room, suits and sweeping gowns and champagne to try and float everyone through the evening. it’s one that suhyeon has seen so many of he could probably recount every single step he takes in a night almost like a practiced set of lines, one he could repeat diligently, if not for the fact that he is getting tired of saying the words. like muscle memory, they settle in his mouth and he bears them, still smiles through his teeth and swallows down all of the things that he wishes he could be saying, something like i have really just seen you at the previous event, it hasn't been that long, why are you acting like that when i know you truly do not care about me? he is reaching out to return a hug, patting the back of another and hitching his chin over their shoulder for a bare moment, hand expertly holding his glass of champagne to not spill across the edge. he watches the bubbles float up to the top and pulls back just as he feels the way the person leans back, used to watching for gestures like this, acting smoothly without any hiccups.

here, he thinks, i don’t remember your wife’s name, and i barely remember yours, but i’m going to smile through this and pretend that i remember meeting you at that party and accidentally swiping one of the last sandwiches and giving it to you instead. do you make up these stories before you attend these things? truly, does no one else have more time for other things than relentlessly keeping up appearances? and he knows the answer, so he continues to smile and laugh and return all of the pleasantries that make his skin crawl. he can see his mother and father across the room, doing much of the same of what he is doing, with the practiced ease of doing this in the industry for years and years longer then he has. and when he catches his mother’s eyes, there is a sharpness he thinks he could only see in the nation’s sweetheart, one that says, behave. you can crumble when we leave. and he only straightens his back and smiles brighter, because how could she even begin to see the signs when he hadn’t yet realized?

he downs the rest of the champagne and weaves through the crowd. he’s avoiding eye contact when he can to not start anymore conversations, can already feel the tightness of his collar and the way that all of this is wearing on him. in between school and work and his mother piling more and more onto his schedule, the fatigue of it all had begun to slide further onto his shoulders, weighing him down and down until he feels like he could lay and become one with the floor in order to feel like he can properly handle it all. suhyeon’s sweeping the glass onto a tray of empty ones and finding an exit, one that’s shadowed by velvet drapes and a lone, empty hallway, dimmed from light and probably not intended for guests to venture down.

he hoped that his mother hadn’t seen him-- had been too involved in her conversation with.. whoever that was, he had only seen half a glance, as he had found his way out of the party to take a breath. it seems to all be zeroing in, vision coming in on the sides with a darkness like a vignette as he leans back against a cool, marble wall and attempts to shut his eyes and focus on air filling up his lungs, pushing it out, feeling it one by one. he should be better at this. he shouldn’t be doing this, in the first place.