wtfisstardust.

{ x ] 

it’s not the scent of jasmine that hits him. that claims, suffocates, triggers a reaction. rather it’s the clouded dew that falls over the forest at night. that scent. that kind of gentle shrouds that wafts around the face and tinkles the skin. wet and makes him want to touch at his face to make sure he’s not dreaming, to make sure he’s worthy enough to bask in the sights around him.

street lamps tower, flicker as if in warning and haneul continues by them. marvels at how he’s managed to cower beneath the things he doesn’t know, without intention. marvels at how he wishes he could stretch that large, appear that large and not at how unnaturally it is that the lamps almost look like the canopy of trees in a forest.

but they can’t be because he’s on his way home, he’s been on his way home for a minute now. whether it takes a minute or an hour he takes it as a journey, foot by foot, step by step. his boots in the gravel of the sidewalk are the only reminded that he has somewhere to be, that his destination is the comfort of his bedroom, the faded shine of the stick on lights on his walls.

and he has to get there, so what’s taking so long? where’s the lead pull in his boots coming from? why is he suddenly heavy, tired of nothing but the thought of walking more.

he keeps moving even though all the houses he pass look the same, even though the haze has startled to settle as a fog. even though he knows he needs to breathe and wake up. something about walking around in the daydream sounds so appealing, much more appealing than the empty streets of the night. the echo of his thoughts and the tire in his limbs. it seems easier.

just like the voice that starts to weave through the cloud. it’s not thick yet, he can still see lights, lamp posts, street signs and houses. he can still see the paint on the streets telling cars where to go, he can still see the jagged edges of rocks and terrain that make up the neighborhood. 

the voice is subtle. it’s sharp enough to pierce through the haze, deliberate and with intent. but it’s gentle enough that it doesn’t graze his ears the way it seems to slice through everything, invade everything. instead it dances around and if it had a trial it would look pink and purple. if haneul’s stopped moving he’s unsure. if haneul’s floating he’s unsure. he just knows the sound, the call even if he can’t make it out.

he makes out laughter too. from all directions and all crevices. from the window of a house he’s passed four times. from the top of a lamp post that flickers in darkness. from beneath the stones and the gravel of the street. his body reacts and he’s pulling his flannel closer, feeling his skin tingle and his body shudder.

he cowers again and isn’t sure why.

why the voice sweet as a rose has laughter that stings, taunts.

‘what do they call you?’ comes the question, riding on the wind as if he needs to chase it. soft as if there were a motion with it. haneul thinks he’s imagining the eyes that peer at him through shrouds of black, blue and green, the colors of the night don’t hide the figure that plays it’s presence in them. it’s faint, the silhouette. the twinkle of two eyes and the grin. they’re pink, a bright pink with specks of black and all of a sudden he’s overwhelmed. with the need to move, to walk, to escape.

 instead he’s swallowing any whispers of his name that want to come out. choking on that same sweetness that tugs at his skin. his throat.

laughter repeats. haneul swallows.

‘don’t you have manners?’ when the silhouette moves haneul’s body stills. it’s heavy with something else. lead-ridden with a fear he can’t quite place. fear that’s coming from a weight, a presence, an unknown. and haneul’s shoulders sag, his lids want to close and fall into it.

fall into the command. sweet in a way that makes his stomach turn, his brain fog. tell me.  tell me. let me.

he catches the shroud of black, a tad shorter than him moving around him. he hears the laughter as it circles his head, as it digs past his ears, clouds the words telling him to move. he tries to follow the eyes but can’t keep up. where there was one pair there are now two. and three and four, and behind his eyelids when he tries to drown them out.

‘what do they call you?’

“haneul.” it’s ripped from him, the way a sob sounds when it breaks through, but more air, no tears. like a gasp of air from being submerged. “my name’s haneul.” once it’s said, haneul finds himself scrambling to get it back, to cover it, keep it safe. but all he gets is the same laughter and a disappearance of the many pairs of eyes, the fade of the laughter, the pull. immediately like it’s been sucked into a void. a space.

‘that wasn’t so hard was it?’

that space is now occupied by a person, the owner of the pink pair of eyes. the majority of them still shrouded by the night. this time the flickering lamp post is only highlighting that their hair is pink too, their skin is bright, not in a color but in a glow. 

haneul’s first step is a stumble back.  the response he gets is another laugh.

‘it’s too late to be afraid.’ when haneul looks around there are pairs of eyes surrounding him, lurking where he thought he’d seen them before. there are trees and vines encroaching where he’d seen dips of darkness in alleyways and corners. they’re gold, green, cat-like, empty, open, focused. ‘haneul.’ his attention is drawn from them, from the rustles of leaves and the sound fo whispering. it’s drawn back to the person(?) in front of him. ‘it’s nice to meet you.’

haneul doesn’t return the sentiment, but his smile is a lazy one. he feels all the fatigue from before start to settle again. he feels all the air return to him so he knows he can respond, feels like he should. but nothing comes and he sees a motion that looks like a shrug. as if to say ‘that’s okay’ as if to imply i need nothing else. 

haneul has never truly felt like he’s had anything worth stealing. he’s got parts he wished he could shed but nothing that would interest anyone, nothing worth taking a closer look. and even so, with all those parts and all those troubles, he feels inclined to hold his body closer than he ever has. to beg for something he’s not sure he’s lost.

but when his mouth opens everything disappears. the street is clear, the lamps are bright, the houses are alive and he's awake. thrown back into the chaos of a world he suddenly missed.

the walk home isn’t any easier, nor is it anymore difficult. it just happens, he follows the steps, allows his brain to work in overtime to get him to his doorstep and to get him inside. his body does the rest, the falling into his sheets, the curling around his pillow. when sleep doesn’t come it’s not until there are a hundred renditions of the eyes in his sketchbook and his fingers are stained, cracked with colors of pink, black and purple.

“I am trying to wander more. I am trying to breathe more, to love my lostness,”

⸻ THE GIRL SAT BESIDE THE MAN AND LOOKED UP AT THE SKY, AT THE FEW LITTLE STARS BARELY VISIBLE IN THE NIGHT SKY. The light pollution of Seoul blocked them from seeing the true beauty of the celestial bodies as if the world was already punishing them for their selfishness and their cowardice. She pondered over the other’s words, her head pressing against her shoulder as she leaned to the side seemingly hoping that a new angle would show her more than she was seeing. A futile attempt, like many others before this one.

“Mercy…” Her voice trailed off, her face changing slightly into a pensive expression, brows knitting, nose scrunching. “I… never really thought of that.” She finally confessed after a long pause and a few steady breaths of the night air. “I always thought of others, selfishness was not…” She turned to Haneul as if he’d just showed her a completely different world. Could a girl like her, Melancholy, deserve not needing forgiveness?

Escapism, fear, loneliness all of that came in the night for her, it was within that darkness and solitude that she found a companion to be alone with. Sometimes they’d stay quiet, sometimes they’d talk and sometimes… there would be a different type of connection, one based on gestures and sighs when he’d show her things and she’d look and then she’d paint little pictures in the sky from the stars and let him take them for himself.

“I… I sometimes think that we only take…” the words finally fell from her heavy in the evening air. “We need ourselves, we need our souls, we need our freedom.” Their greed would be punished with time, she was sure. it made moments like this, with the other so much more important with how they were allowed to just be, in that moment complete and with their full hearts beating for no-one but themselves. Soon enough, Seonhee would wake into the real world, her heart would start beating for her sister once more but for now, she just wanted to let herself fall into the dream Haneul was painting, where forgiveness and others did not exist. “Don’t you think… sometimes… that this will be punished?”

“selfishness was never allowed.” he knows it without her saying it, he both understands and feels the weight of it. selfishness was a luxury, offered to those who didn’t often give parts of themselves to every interaction, to every smile and every words. selfishness was never allowed because selfishness was just that. heinous. blasphemous.  it was a how dare and the disappointment in the eyes of those he cared about, for ever caring too much about himself. possibly without trying, haneul has thought too much of others, not because he’s had to but because somehow he was always put in the position.

somehow it was easier to cling to what others would think or feel than to try and think of himself. somehow it became easier to shed parts of himself that made others uncomfortable, to smile and hide behind a practiced personality. and when they were uncomfortable, it was easier to offer the smile.

haneul knows there’s a million reasons why. why people prefer to smile or stay quiet, hidden in the corners of their minds. he knows that for him it was easier to be everything else but what was comfortable. he knows because he was never quite comfortable in who he was, who he could be. selflessness was easier. if someone could take from him he could feel the emptiness as a sign of once being whole. that was easier. so much easier.

the freedom that he’s allowed now, the nights on rooftops, the easy thoughts and the peace in silent nights and shy words. that’s something that’s brought on the thoughts. people like seonhee, are the reasons he’s okay with having them, with saying them as if the only one to judge them is the night sky. and why shouldn’t it be? 

there’s a smile. “i’d never thought about it until recently either.”

nothing prompted it. just that haneul was quite tired of feeling pulled thin when he’d originally thought that’s all he wanted. a reminder that he was here and that he was grounded. what he’d originally thought was grounding, what he’d thought was tethering him to place was being suffocating, confusing and he couldn’t understand himself. it’s nights like this, whether he’s alone or with someone, that he remembers what he wants.

“i think sometimes - we only give.”

freedom to be.

haneul sits up, allows his body to adjust past the stillness he’d been for the past half hour. his hands splay out over the ground, curl into the feeling of the concrete. “do you think the world is that cruel? to punish us for wanting that kind of freedom?” his gaze shifts in every moment, from being trapped into the stars, to being trapped in whatever thoughts start to weigh on seonhee’s mind. heavy enough to see even in the shroud of night. “i think we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be punished.”

“I was looked at, but I wasn’t seen.”

tears him up into an unidentifiable ache. a burn. and a reminder.

the voice is a soft coo, an echo of fingers through his hair and onto his cheeks.

it seems to say ‘oh haneul,’ poor boy.

haneul sinks himself into the water. into the feeling of something similar to this touch and this voice. the gently placed comfort that trapped him, soothes him to go against the world.

but oh boy turns into poor boy and there’s a bubble of laughter replacing it. replacing the hum of his sister’s voice, replacing the melodies of his childhood and becoming the crash of waves on the horizon.

haneul jolts and there’s water around him.

eyes stare into his own. the crash of waves becomes the vicious laughter of something inhuman, something strange.

what are you. he doesn’t voice it because his lips move and he realizes they’re submerged, shut dumb and quiet under the water. he says it with his eyes, body losing all traces of pain or confusion.

in a fight or flight moment his body has chosen to still, not to feel.

so the creature, more human than not, watches. the smile isn’t human, it’s wicked, glimmering white and pearl-ish under the water. haneul thinks he sees bits of red but then again he’s not sure if he’s seeing at all.

if he’s dreaming or just - just here.

floating, existing, trying to be and trying to cling to life.

by all logic life should’ve left him by now.

there’s another laugh, boyish, it echoes as if to contradict how light it sounds.

haneul blinks.

the eyes don’t. they’re deep and pale blue. they’re the color of tears he decides. and everything around him, the water that’s escaped past his lips taste like that. like tears. like he’s finally drowned in them.

finally.

he blinks again.

silly boy.

there’s something on him, firm and grounding. he feels again, a surge that’s pulling all the fight from the depths of his body. yanking, that’s his body thrashing now, against the firmness that’s holding him, against the waves, against the very death he’d been on the brink of.

a gasp.

he’s above water. a heady gaze that follows the sound of a splash meets the same eyes and now hair wet and pink against pale blue skin.

he feels the weight of himself start to simmer back in. he’s now aware of how long he’s been like this, floating, wading, adrift in the water. his limbs ache, his throat burns and his eyes water, marring the image of the man creature in front of him.

what.

he sputters nonsense as he struggles to stay above water.

another giggle.

silly boy.

there’s a rush of movement, haneul exhales a breath he didn’t know he had onto something cold and soft. his chest expands and when it deflated again it’s with his back sinking into sand and his feet being kissed by waves.

wake up han.

he hadn’t been dreaming. yet he sits up and finds himself grasping for the memory as it slips away.

haneul main verse is probably dressed in loose clothes, flannels and wide-legged pants. he’s a fan of patterns but aside from that he’s not too wild about his choice of clothing, if it’s comfortable it’s chill. his current hair color is black and his hair is long and usually curly only because if it’s not curly he looks like the ghost from the ring. he’s fairly sturdy in built, nothing too surprising just hours and hours of lifting AV equipment. 

haneul reverse verse probably has a better build because status means a need to maintain an appearance so he goes to the gym regularly. his hair is usually not long and it’s usually under a cap of some sort if it’s not styled. it’s typically brown though and if not it’s a variation of brown he dyes it electric colors but not usually, only if he’s heading to an event that might call for it. his clothing choice is comfortable and chic, expensive clothing that you probably couldn’t tell it’s expensive unless you read the price tag or find the fashion he was gifted it from. 

Lavender

Key words: pure, affectionate, innocent. Your love is the love of childhood crushes, secrets told in the dark between two best friends and long car trips with your favourite sibling. You're a sweet person with a soft heart and a gentle way of showing your affection. A pure, idealistic love, yours is the love of intertwined pinkies, butterfly kisses, and rubbing noses. 

Peacock

Key words: gifts, doting, devotion. A crazy love that makes you want to tell every stranger you meet about it! Your love is wild and extravagant. You feel most loved when you're being showered in the attention of choice. You're a unique person, and you deserve to feel that way by the people you adore! You show your love by making the recipient feel as if they are the most treasured person in your life. 

Fern

Key words: intellectual, humour, best friends. You feel like you 'click' with everybody you love and get along in an intrinsic way. You would never give somebody your heart if you felt like you couldn't talk with them about anything. You show your love by making playlists, sending late-night memes or remembering their coffee order and why they like it. The one you love is always on your mind, and you're never happier than hearing that somebody you love has been thinking about you. 

@needfuldreams // ( thank youuuuu! )

hm.

haneul’s response is just that. seonhee’s words are a reminder and his hum is an echo of guilt he didn’t know he had. tucked away low and where he can’t quite access it. tucked away like his hands underneath his head and his eyes trying find different ways to join the stars.

he’s known the guilt was somewhere, and he’s known it had a habit to resurface when he wanted to bury himself away. when he sought peace. nothing seemed easier and better than the vast space that greeted him whenever he looked up. it’s why he spends his days talking to the stars, asking, hoping and wondering all at once. it’s why seonhee’s found herself a space in it. for the two of them the guilt of not being home, cannot overpower the relief. the relief is always better and haneul doesn’t like to admit it much, but seonhee’s solidified her belief.

it doesn’t make him a bad person, a bad son, but it does trip something ugly and resentful in his chest. that’s the worst part of it. somewhere he knows, like seonhee, that decisions to hide out on seoul rooftops and far from home are for sanity. they’re for wellbeing and for the little things that make someone call a space a home. not the desperate attempts to reign himself in, to catch his tongue from saying something that’s so him - and bait for his family to tear through at the same time.

he shifts his hands beneath his head and restarts counting the stars.

“i don’t think we need forgiveness for this.”

for wanting to keep the parts of themselves that they’ve learned to love - far away from those who don’t understand. they hold out together because very few can understand this, the need and the desire to be far away from it all. in times when people are huddling close and posting pictures on social media. when people are screaming family for the applause of the digital world and haneul, well people like haneul and seonhee are screaming freedom.