drunken angels

it’s cold. the kind of cold that seeps past numb and into pain. jinsol can feel it as he walks. it gnaws at bones and lives underneath his skin. the kind of cold that feels impossible to shake, where you start to wonder if you’ll ever be rid of it. there’s a tremble to his hands, though he can’t say with all certainty that it’s due to wandering winter in too few layers. because there’s that fear. a constant worry that burrows in past his skull, nestles deep in his mind. an infestation that settles and rots. 

where have i been? what have done? for how long?

in a loop, he questions himself. it’s not a new occurrence, but it is unwelcomed. and it’s been a while, hasn’t it - since the last blackout? wandering alone and dazed, half-asleep with faded memories that worry away at him. until he finds it in himself to shove them all away, turn a blind eye, carry on.

he doesn’t want to go back, after all. doesn’t want to confront that innate wrongness he seems to have been born with. an inescapable evil. people already look at him strange enough. and sometimes with hatred. usually those that know him too well. and that’s a little funny, isn’t it? how the better people seem to know him the more apprehensive they become. the more they want distance. the more they resent.

and it’s entirely the reason that jinsol ends up at dongheon’s apartment at exactly four-fifteen in the morning. who else would take him in at such an odd hour? in fact, who else would take him in at all? especially with his hair a wild mess and dirt smeared across his face. a shivering mess of his own bones rattling around in his body. matches the chatter of his teeth, off-beat and off-kilter. there might be blood; his own, he thinks. puzzled that on his walk over. maybe brambles that dug deep in his arms, could have tangled into a bush or two while he’d been sleepwalking in the woods (he refuses to call it by any other name, as incorrect as that one is).

it takes jinsol three times before he correctly keys the right apartment number into the buzzer. curls his arms in on himself and waits to see if the camera will click on, if dongheon’s at the other end eying who showed up at his doorstep. eventually, it flickers to life. a tiny picture of his face, and jinsol tries to swallow back his own apprehension.

“i think i need help.” 

i have an about page here with some info, but yeah under the cut is some word salad in case you feel like reading more.

@disclosuer / jian & yejin.

it’s eerie. lately it’s been eerie. a strange unsettling that’s fallen around the troupe like a morning flurry. it’s left everyone ashen-faced with chattering teeth. only it isn’t from the cold. just nerves. but not the kind that come from opening night. with the clamor of people and a racing heartbeat, that tripwire of adrenaline where you fall into spectator’s bliss. no, it’s a different sort of nerves. the kind born from unknowing. disruption. a loss of life. that kind of nerves.

the kind of nerves that come packaged with a murder, and no-one charged for it. not that people care much anyway, not often. for their sort. circus folk, but then, that’s why jian sought them out in the first place. he needed a new home, a home where people wouldn’t look too closely at him. and he found it. it would make sense then that things don’t always run as smoothly as one might hope.

so here he sits, in his tiny, cluttered caravan. the rumors of murder floating around him. there’s more than one person they could all jab their fingers at. most of them are busy jabbing them at yejin. so he does too. not wildly, or publicly. but it settles on the brain. when prompted to ask what his opinion is, well, it would be her. it would fit the script of a crime drama, wouldn’t it? a rivalry, grown from childhood. 

it’s in the middle of wondering ( and wondering when they might be picking up tracks and moving away from these newly born ghosts ) that he feels a strange sort of sensation. like cold water spilled down the back of his neck. spiked skin, and he shivers. throws a sharp look over his shoulder. there’s someone, hovering off near a window. like they’d been peering in. it takes three jarring steps to jam his shoulder to the creaky-hinged door. two more and an outstretched hand to grab them -- her -- by the shoulder.

her profile, when he finally makes it out in the dull moonlight, is somehow predictable.