the middle ground.
the middle ground; kai/krystal (f(x)/exo) | 2342 words, pg-13
krystal is a sweet poison, a guilty pleasure, a dangerous passion, all things good and bad.
"no red feathers, all red ashes. listen to me, child, it always starts with you saying, i am doing something right." x
they say that all roads led to rome, once. that across europe -- england, france, italy -- there were mud paths and grey gravel roads and mahogany brick-paved streets too. all over, they say with the shake of their heads. all over this damned continent.
well, all the roads lead to her too. she is the unavoidable all bottled up in a girl: the too-bright neon billboard you can't help but stop and look at, that distant family member's funeral you had to sit through as a child, red lipstick and eyes lurking in shadows, a sign screaming look at me.
he only knows her as krystal, but she is a girl -- a woman, a deity, an otherworldly being -- of many names. krystal is a sweet poison, a guilty pleasure, a dangerous passion, all things good and bad.
i deal in ambiguity, she says, scarlet lips wrapping around a cigarette. no one can ever figure out whether i'm good or bad. breathes out the grey smoke, watches it melt into the air like quickening. what am i? her smile is like a dagger.
shouldn't it be who? he asks. regrets it as soon as her smile widens.
krystal reaches out and touches his cheek. they're cold fingers, knowing fingers.
first lesson in the real world, she says, condescending. a smirk ghosts upon her mouth. everyone's an object.
london is backwards, all of it. rife with tradition, perhaps even more so than korea, but everyone insists that their thinking is forward, forward, forward. jongin watches cars pass by -- wrong way, he thinks, can't help it -- and meets krystal jung for the first time.
hey you, she calls out in korean. jongin can't help it, turns around on the narrow sidewalk and looks at her. in the london fog, krystal is luminous -- red lips, softly curling ebony hair, a mystery and a stranger.
you talking to me? he shuffles his feet on the wet pavement.
yeah. she looks at him straight in the eyes, searching, knowing. jongin looks away.
what do you want from me, he states abruptly, voice flat. sticks his hands in his too-big coat, turns away. he's faced one stalker too many over the past couple years.
kim jongin, she begins quietly. he stops in his tracks, listens. son of president kim, yes?
what do you want from me, jongin repeats, teeth gritted. he doesn't turn to look at her.
goes to seoul national university. best school in korea, i've heard. was it daddy's money that landed you there?
i don't need even a fraction of his dirty money to get me where i want to go. he turns around, spits those words at her like bullets.
she dodges them, unaffected. steps forward, so close to him that he can almost feel her breathing. well, well, she whispers. is it your abandonment issues or your ideals?
both, he thinks. instead he chokes out, why -- why are you doing this?
krystal steps back, considers him for a second. her eyes look weary in the light, old beyond her years: a wrinkled crone trapped in form of a mere girl, he thinks.
what do you think? she asks, arching an eyebrow. the trees sway a little in the breeze. krystal takes another breath of london air, pungent and wet. jongin stares at her without answering.
okay, she says. her eyes bore into his, terrible and beautiful. i'm only going to say this once.
one day you're going to die, kim jongin, and it will set the world on fire.
it is not the words she says that paralyze jongin. it is the way she says it -- a prophecy almost, as if she were one of the fates, with a conviction that is powerful and frightening, all at once.
the walk sign lights up and pedestrians start crossing in all of their hurried uniformity. oh, look at that, krystal says. bye for now, my dear boy. she disappears into the crowd, fading into anonymity.
it is only then that he realizes she didn't give a name.
(later, he'll realize that her name is meaningless; she is a being that transcends words and time and any sort of label.)
he goes back to this moment often, wonders what would've happened if he didn't turn around at that moment, if he just turned around and left. pretty much the same thing, jongin figures. krystal is the inescapable, too alluring to ignore.
jongin comes across her name in the midst of a fevered dream. what's your name? he asks. it echoes all around him, bouncing off of the soot-colored walls and floor. he can see the sound waves rebounding off of every surface: traveling, colliding, converging. what's your name? what's your name? then her voice comes to him, disembodied, and it almost feels like salvation.
call me krystal. jongin wakes up, gasping beneath his sheets.
krystal comes along to his cheap flat on a saturday afternoon, out of place with her shiny polish-covered stilettos and tan trench coat. let's go somewhere, she says with a grin. she's an enigma, a true mystery, and why would he ever want to deny her?
jongin buys the tickets and they both watch in silence as the train roars under the english channel. the black tunnel passes by monotonously, with nothing to mark the distance passed or time passed.
ah, how i love brussels, she says once they're out in bright daylight, taking his hand. krystal's cheeriness is more frightening than her touch.
the city is sunny, and if not cheerful at least numbingly apathetic -- much better than the gloom of london, he supposes. and yet he misses the solemn brick buildings of england with their thin snakes of ivy; he misses the rude politeness of every pedestrian.
but then they're not walking in the street anymore. do you see this? she asks. her smile reeks of danger. it is dark now, the sky an inky black. it is desolate and empty, almost devoid of life now.
jongin nods nervously.
just watch, she intones. images come one by one, rapid and only increasing in speed. he can only make out some of them in this chaos: a child, body bloated with hunger. soldiers patrolling the streets. people hurrying to their homes. fear fear fear, more physical than emotional. a woman's shrill scream: don't shoot him. then black, dark all around him. warm like a blanket, enveloping his body, soothing him to sleep.
he wakes in a lawn of soft green grass, krystal crouched over him curiously. ah, my dear boy, she whispers. so quick to faint at the sign of death.
who are you? he asks. shouts it as loud as he can, but krystal's the only one who can hear.
she takes out a pack of cigarettes. doesn't offer him one.
i deal in ambiguity, she says, scarlet lips wrapping around a cigarette. the middle ground, so to speak.
jongin takes the train back to london alone. what am i? what am i? he believes in God but thinks that krystal must be someone -- something, he remembers -- completely different all together.
her voice echoes in his dreams that night. first lesson in the real world; everyone's an object.
she is death, he thinks later. for krystal seems to revel in it, eyes alight as she shows him the moments from the past. stolen moments, well known massacres, blood blood blood everywhere--
i’ve been around for it all, she tells him. every single major event in what you call history -- i’ve seen it all.
don’t you ever get bored? he asks. jongin tries to imagine her, eternal and endless, always existing since the beginning of time. it’s almost fitting for a girl like her.
krystal smiles and it is a macabre smile, the quirk of her lips suggesting violence and bloodshed and death.
well, she begins. isn’t that why i have you?
what am i? it becomes more urgent now, in his dreams. jongin is trapped with no escape, the walls closing in on him. what am i? what am i? krystal’s voice taunts.
death, he thinks. you are death.
but the walls still close in, suffocating jongin until he wakes.
the actual words -- the actual realization of love -- it dawns upon him as unexpected as krystal’s appearance itself. jongin’s listening to her talk about nothing, eyes darting from her to the eggs he’s cooking, and it hits him like a freight train: he loves her, this mysterious, wonderful girl, this being that came out of nowhere to tell him his fate, this person who keeps on popping in and out of his life without any respect to the way regular humans interact. loving her is loving unanswered questions, loving mysteries, loving stories without an end.
another day, another train ride. jongin’s curiosity is just as unsatiated as it was three months ago. krystal doesn’t tell him much as they board the train -- this time, to paris -- but he’s also afraid of asking questions (afraid of knowing the answers).
she’s humming a song that he vaguely recognizes, one of the canned melodies that the radio plays on hot summer days. it settles over him like a sticky layer of film, uncomfortable and itchy. should he ask her? does he want to know? krystal’s humming only gets louder. jongin fidgets in his seat.
krystal, he says softly. she looks over at him impassively, waiting. her lips are pale pink of cherry blossom petals instead of red rose.
krystal, he repeats. breathes in, breathes out. jongin’s trembling, tremors running through him: the manifestation of an earthquake in a mere man.
how will i die?
he leaves this question out there, dangling in between them. it is an earthquake in itself: the answer could shake jongin to the core, or it could be barely registered as more than a slight movement.
she looks at him with her all-knowing eyes, with her eyes that have seen so much. says, you’re gonna die like most of them. a bullet through your brain.
what’s them? jongin asks, eyes watering and breaths shallow. focus on the questions, he thinks. focus on the questions. focus on the questions.
krystal smirks. is she enjoying this? then again, he’s always known that she’s a sadist.
presidents, of course. she says it so casually, so effortlessly, but he can only feel dread creeping down his spine. krystal’s eyes widen, coy and kohl-rimmed. oh, you didn’t know? the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, my dear boy.
poor you, she continues. what a fitting twist of fate, that you are to become what you hate the most.
fuck you, he spits out. you can’t decide what my fate is.
that’s what they all say, krystal replies.
and in that moment, jongin really does hate her. hates krystal and the way she knows his predestined future, hates krystal and the way she can read him like an open book, hates (loves) her for all that she is.
she merely smiles, as light and airy as the spring pink upon her lips.
paris is beautiful, but krystal doesn’t appreciate that beauty. or rather, jongin realizes, she sees beauty in things terrible. in blood, in terror, in death. she takes his hand and instead shows him the bloodiest decade of the eighteenth century: the melee of prisoners and peasants and nobility, the sheer confusion of it all.
it was the purest form of chaos, the french revolution, she says. it was… quite terrible. of course. but krystal’s smiling even as she shows him the guillotine, smiling even as they stand before a horde of shouting people.
and even as jongin tells himself that he’s disgusted, he knows he still loves her for it. krystal’s ambivalence in the purest form (though she’s never been pure).
they walk along the riverside, later. it’s nighttime, the sidewalks empty except for the occasional passing couple or busy commuter. jongin likes this, likes the calm of the night and the steady power of the seine beside him. now she’s the one fidgeting, looking for release: her hands light a cigarette quickly, the smoke fading into the darkness around them.
he figures what he’s planning to say will make a good distraction. keeps walking with her in silence, biding his time and building up his shaky courage, their hands close enough to touch but never brushing together.
i love you, jongin says. he instantly feels foolish.
in that moment, it feels flat -- as if the whole night around them has collapsed into two dimensions, crumbling up into paper pieces around him.
for the first time there is something foreign in her eyes, something recognizable, and his stomach turns because he doesn’t want krystal’s fucking sympathy. he turns away, can’t even look at her.
my dear boy, she whispers. jongin still doesn’t turn around, just stares at his sneakers and wills his salty tears away. my dear boy, you’ve got it wrong.
krystal steps closer, arms wrapping around him, his back against her front. finally bridges the small gap between them.
you don’t know me, she says. in your eyes i may be as great as the universe, but it is still only a fraction of what i am. you don’t know me, so how can you love me?
no, kim jongin, she says quietly. he can hear her exhale. i’m the one that loves you.
jongin stands there, frozen with shock, as she melts into the night.
krystal is the seine, he realizes. ancient and eternal. flooding, always flooding, and jongin's drowning in her depths.
it’s the last time he sees her, ever again.
what am i? what am i?
it is with her overwhelming absence, the loss of her in his life that he realizes--
she is good and evil, bloodshed and chaos, order and economy. all of human history, yet so little of it. so long as there is more than one human being on this planet, she will exist. she is doom, and destiny: they're synonyms now. she will destroy this planet. she will save it, too.
she is war.
a/n:
krystal is a sweet poison, a guilty pleasure, a dangerous passion, all things good and bad.
"no red feathers, all red ashes. listen to me, child, it always starts with you saying, i am doing something right." x
they say that all roads led to rome, once. that across europe -- england, france, italy -- there were mud paths and grey gravel roads and mahogany brick-paved streets too. all over, they say with the shake of their heads. all over this damned continent.
well, all the roads lead to her too. she is the unavoidable all bottled up in a girl: the too-bright neon billboard you can't help but stop and look at, that distant family member's funeral you had to sit through as a child, red lipstick and eyes lurking in shadows, a sign screaming look at me.
he only knows her as krystal, but she is a girl -- a woman, a deity, an otherworldly being -- of many names. krystal is a sweet poison, a guilty pleasure, a dangerous passion, all things good and bad.
i deal in ambiguity, she says, scarlet lips wrapping around a cigarette. no one can ever figure out whether i'm good or bad. breathes out the grey smoke, watches it melt into the air like quickening. what am i? her smile is like a dagger.
shouldn't it be who? he asks. regrets it as soon as her smile widens.
krystal reaches out and touches his cheek. they're cold fingers, knowing fingers.
first lesson in the real world, she says, condescending. a smirk ghosts upon her mouth. everyone's an object.
london is backwards, all of it. rife with tradition, perhaps even more so than korea, but everyone insists that their thinking is forward, forward, forward. jongin watches cars pass by -- wrong way, he thinks, can't help it -- and meets krystal jung for the first time.
hey you, she calls out in korean. jongin can't help it, turns around on the narrow sidewalk and looks at her. in the london fog, krystal is luminous -- red lips, softly curling ebony hair, a mystery and a stranger.
you talking to me? he shuffles his feet on the wet pavement.
yeah. she looks at him straight in the eyes, searching, knowing. jongin looks away.
what do you want from me, he states abruptly, voice flat. sticks his hands in his too-big coat, turns away. he's faced one stalker too many over the past couple years.
kim jongin, she begins quietly. he stops in his tracks, listens. son of president kim, yes?
what do you want from me, jongin repeats, teeth gritted. he doesn't turn to look at her.
goes to seoul national university. best school in korea, i've heard. was it daddy's money that landed you there?
i don't need even a fraction of his dirty money to get me where i want to go. he turns around, spits those words at her like bullets.
she dodges them, unaffected. steps forward, so close to him that he can almost feel her breathing. well, well, she whispers. is it your abandonment issues or your ideals?
both, he thinks. instead he chokes out, why -- why are you doing this?
krystal steps back, considers him for a second. her eyes look weary in the light, old beyond her years: a wrinkled crone trapped in form of a mere girl, he thinks.
what do you think? she asks, arching an eyebrow. the trees sway a little in the breeze. krystal takes another breath of london air, pungent and wet. jongin stares at her without answering.
okay, she says. her eyes bore into his, terrible and beautiful. i'm only going to say this once.
one day you're going to die, kim jongin, and it will set the world on fire.
it is not the words she says that paralyze jongin. it is the way she says it -- a prophecy almost, as if she were one of the fates, with a conviction that is powerful and frightening, all at once.
the walk sign lights up and pedestrians start crossing in all of their hurried uniformity. oh, look at that, krystal says. bye for now, my dear boy. she disappears into the crowd, fading into anonymity.
it is only then that he realizes she didn't give a name.
(later, he'll realize that her name is meaningless; she is a being that transcends words and time and any sort of label.)
he goes back to this moment often, wonders what would've happened if he didn't turn around at that moment, if he just turned around and left. pretty much the same thing, jongin figures. krystal is the inescapable, too alluring to ignore.
jongin comes across her name in the midst of a fevered dream. what's your name? he asks. it echoes all around him, bouncing off of the soot-colored walls and floor. he can see the sound waves rebounding off of every surface: traveling, colliding, converging. what's your name? what's your name? then her voice comes to him, disembodied, and it almost feels like salvation.
call me krystal. jongin wakes up, gasping beneath his sheets.
krystal comes along to his cheap flat on a saturday afternoon, out of place with her shiny polish-covered stilettos and tan trench coat. let's go somewhere, she says with a grin. she's an enigma, a true mystery, and why would he ever want to deny her?
jongin buys the tickets and they both watch in silence as the train roars under the english channel. the black tunnel passes by monotonously, with nothing to mark the distance passed or time passed.
ah, how i love brussels, she says once they're out in bright daylight, taking his hand. krystal's cheeriness is more frightening than her touch.
the city is sunny, and if not cheerful at least numbingly apathetic -- much better than the gloom of london, he supposes. and yet he misses the solemn brick buildings of england with their thin snakes of ivy; he misses the rude politeness of every pedestrian.
but then they're not walking in the street anymore. do you see this? she asks. her smile reeks of danger. it is dark now, the sky an inky black. it is desolate and empty, almost devoid of life now.
jongin nods nervously.
just watch, she intones. images come one by one, rapid and only increasing in speed. he can only make out some of them in this chaos: a child, body bloated with hunger. soldiers patrolling the streets. people hurrying to their homes. fear fear fear, more physical than emotional. a woman's shrill scream: don't shoot him. then black, dark all around him. warm like a blanket, enveloping his body, soothing him to sleep.
he wakes in a lawn of soft green grass, krystal crouched over him curiously. ah, my dear boy, she whispers. so quick to faint at the sign of death.
who are you? he asks. shouts it as loud as he can, but krystal's the only one who can hear.
she takes out a pack of cigarettes. doesn't offer him one.
i deal in ambiguity, she says, scarlet lips wrapping around a cigarette. the middle ground, so to speak.
jongin takes the train back to london alone. what am i? what am i? he believes in God but thinks that krystal must be someone -- something, he remembers -- completely different all together.
her voice echoes in his dreams that night. first lesson in the real world; everyone's an object.
she is death, he thinks later. for krystal seems to revel in it, eyes alight as she shows him the moments from the past. stolen moments, well known massacres, blood blood blood everywhere--
i’ve been around for it all, she tells him. every single major event in what you call history -- i’ve seen it all.
don’t you ever get bored? he asks. jongin tries to imagine her, eternal and endless, always existing since the beginning of time. it’s almost fitting for a girl like her.
krystal smiles and it is a macabre smile, the quirk of her lips suggesting violence and bloodshed and death.
well, she begins. isn’t that why i have you?
what am i? it becomes more urgent now, in his dreams. jongin is trapped with no escape, the walls closing in on him. what am i? what am i? krystal’s voice taunts.
death, he thinks. you are death.
but the walls still close in, suffocating jongin until he wakes.
the actual words -- the actual realization of love -- it dawns upon him as unexpected as krystal’s appearance itself. jongin’s listening to her talk about nothing, eyes darting from her to the eggs he’s cooking, and it hits him like a freight train: he loves her, this mysterious, wonderful girl, this being that came out of nowhere to tell him his fate, this person who keeps on popping in and out of his life without any respect to the way regular humans interact. loving her is loving unanswered questions, loving mysteries, loving stories without an end.
another day, another train ride. jongin’s curiosity is just as unsatiated as it was three months ago. krystal doesn’t tell him much as they board the train -- this time, to paris -- but he’s also afraid of asking questions (afraid of knowing the answers).
she’s humming a song that he vaguely recognizes, one of the canned melodies that the radio plays on hot summer days. it settles over him like a sticky layer of film, uncomfortable and itchy. should he ask her? does he want to know? krystal’s humming only gets louder. jongin fidgets in his seat.
krystal, he says softly. she looks over at him impassively, waiting. her lips are pale pink of cherry blossom petals instead of red rose.
krystal, he repeats. breathes in, breathes out. jongin’s trembling, tremors running through him: the manifestation of an earthquake in a mere man.
how will i die?
he leaves this question out there, dangling in between them. it is an earthquake in itself: the answer could shake jongin to the core, or it could be barely registered as more than a slight movement.
she looks at him with her all-knowing eyes, with her eyes that have seen so much. says, you’re gonna die like most of them. a bullet through your brain.
what’s them? jongin asks, eyes watering and breaths shallow. focus on the questions, he thinks. focus on the questions. focus on the questions.
krystal smirks. is she enjoying this? then again, he’s always known that she’s a sadist.
presidents, of course. she says it so casually, so effortlessly, but he can only feel dread creeping down his spine. krystal’s eyes widen, coy and kohl-rimmed. oh, you didn’t know? the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, my dear boy.
poor you, she continues. what a fitting twist of fate, that you are to become what you hate the most.
fuck you, he spits out. you can’t decide what my fate is.
that’s what they all say, krystal replies.
and in that moment, jongin really does hate her. hates krystal and the way she knows his predestined future, hates krystal and the way she can read him like an open book, hates (loves) her for all that she is.
she merely smiles, as light and airy as the spring pink upon her lips.
paris is beautiful, but krystal doesn’t appreciate that beauty. or rather, jongin realizes, she sees beauty in things terrible. in blood, in terror, in death. she takes his hand and instead shows him the bloodiest decade of the eighteenth century: the melee of prisoners and peasants and nobility, the sheer confusion of it all.
it was the purest form of chaos, the french revolution, she says. it was… quite terrible. of course. but krystal’s smiling even as she shows him the guillotine, smiling even as they stand before a horde of shouting people.
and even as jongin tells himself that he’s disgusted, he knows he still loves her for it. krystal’s ambivalence in the purest form (though she’s never been pure).
they walk along the riverside, later. it’s nighttime, the sidewalks empty except for the occasional passing couple or busy commuter. jongin likes this, likes the calm of the night and the steady power of the seine beside him. now she’s the one fidgeting, looking for release: her hands light a cigarette quickly, the smoke fading into the darkness around them.
he figures what he’s planning to say will make a good distraction. keeps walking with her in silence, biding his time and building up his shaky courage, their hands close enough to touch but never brushing together.
i love you, jongin says. he instantly feels foolish.
in that moment, it feels flat -- as if the whole night around them has collapsed into two dimensions, crumbling up into paper pieces around him.
for the first time there is something foreign in her eyes, something recognizable, and his stomach turns because he doesn’t want krystal’s fucking sympathy. he turns away, can’t even look at her.
my dear boy, she whispers. jongin still doesn’t turn around, just stares at his sneakers and wills his salty tears away. my dear boy, you’ve got it wrong.
krystal steps closer, arms wrapping around him, his back against her front. finally bridges the small gap between them.
you don’t know me, she says. in your eyes i may be as great as the universe, but it is still only a fraction of what i am. you don’t know me, so how can you love me?
no, kim jongin, she says quietly. he can hear her exhale. i’m the one that loves you.
jongin stands there, frozen with shock, as she melts into the night.
krystal is the seine, he realizes. ancient and eternal. flooding, always flooding, and jongin's drowning in her depths.
it’s the last time he sees her, ever again.
what am i? what am i?
it is with her overwhelming absence, the loss of her in his life that he realizes--
she is good and evil, bloodshed and chaos, order and economy. all of human history, yet so little of it. so long as there is more than one human being on this planet, she will exist. she is doom, and destiny: they're synonyms now. she will destroy this planet. she will save it, too.
she is war.
a/n:
- i was in the mood for dangerous!krystal and kaistal and then this just happened. idk i’m probably as confused as you are rn
- inspired by this
- this was originally a Grand Fic but then it wasn’t
- thanks to a certain div for supporting me all the way and letting me rant to her :3
- comments and feedback are encouraged ＼(￣▽￣)/
