ETC
ficmeme backlog. some of these are pretty old, so bear with me.
Open Endings
SHINee, Jongho
G, 534
Jonghyun stared at the blank page.
"I can’t do it," He said, voice flat. "I can't end it."
It was cluttered in the office, stacks of whatever littering the corners. The desk he sat at was clear, but it was obvious that everything once on it had just been relocated to the floor. Still, his disorganization wasn’t as bad as others’ in his profession. The room smelled stale; it hadn’t seen sunlight for a while. Now the drapes were finally peeled open and Jonghyun watched dust motes float around his guest’s seated figure.
Minho crossed one leg over the other and locked his hands behind his head.
"Maybe you don’t understand the situation you’re in. You got a forward of ten million won, right? Do you even remember what that money was for?"
"To write a novel," Jonghyun said and squeezed his pen, wondering if he had good enough aim to hit Minho’s jugular with it from where he sat.
"To write a novel," Minho repeated. "Do you remember when your deadline was?"
"Two...two years ago."
The years sat between them like a confession and Jonghyun felt his cheeks burn. It was shameful. A writer who can’t write, a plot that refused to be finished, and a grossly overdue manuscript that nobody really wanted anymore. Except for Minho.
"Have I really been putting up with you for four years now?" Minho said lightly, breaking into a smile, and the wall of resistance in Jonghyun’s mind crumbled.
"You? Put up with me? I've never had an agent force me to pay for as much alcohol as you have."
"It’s a necessity. It numbs the displeasure of being in the same room as you."
Jonghyun threw the pen and decided that no, his aim was not good enough, because it bounced off the other man’s arm and Minho immediately started shouting about how this was a new blazer and if it left an ink stain Jonghyun would pay for his drinks for the rest of their lives.
Jonghyun woke up smelling like whiskey and morning breath, but it was still dark out. One of the glasses had tipped over on his desk. They had been outlining something, a chart of character relationships maybe, but now the writing was smeared and ran down the page. There was a stirring from across him, a sigh. Jonghyun sat up and studied the face pressed against the other side of the desk. Minho’s large eyes were half-open in drunken and contented stupor, round and dark like pools of ink. Maybe if Jonghyun filled his pen up with that, wrote with whatever deep and composed substance filled Minho, it would all work out. All the subplots would intertwine together, the perfect mix of interiority and exteriority, a climax and catharsis, and not a flowery adverb in sight.
But maybe Jonghyun liked paying for drinks and keeping a glass bottle on his bookshelf that he never touched unless Minho was over. Maybe he liked the tickle of Minho's breath on his neck as the taller man bent over him to read his progress.
Maybe it had become less about finishing, and more about the only person who cared if he ever did.
Land of the Free
Younha/Yoobin
R, 459
Yoobin should have been grateful. She should have been glad that the planets aligned and their careers intersected for any period of time at all. Sometimes she imagined a world where Younha never came home to give Korea one last shot, just spent the rest of her life singing anime openings and having her hair styled badly. Sometimes she imagined a world where some other trainee had been the one to sit in stunned silence at that emergency boardroom meeting and listen to executives throw around phrases like "permanent replacement" and "immediate group integration."
Now she was leaving for America, The United States, land foreign and intimidating and not home to the girl currently fingering her.
"Hmm," Yoobin said and shifted.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. That angle is good."
It was good, and Yoobin wanted to focus on Younha's breath in the shell of her ear and the way her fingers worked slowly, but her mind had already boarded the airplane, with emotional baggage stowed neatly in the overhead compartment.
Turbulence. She felt it roll up in her abdomen, cocked her head back, and clenched.
The sigh hissed between her lips and she loosened her grip on Younha's shoulder blades. Yoobin looked up at Younha's face, which was glowing bright and smug. She was too cute to be so good at this.
"You were quiet," Younha said, wiping her hands on the sheets. "No dirty talk for me to remember you by?"
"Oh, baby. Play me like an arpeggio," Yoobin deadpanned, but only maintained a straight face for a few seconds before laughter erupted from them both. Younha collapsed onto Yoobin's chest and played a few invisible chords along her breasts, staccato.
"You're going to be gone for a long time, huh?" Younha said.
"Yeah."
"But not forever, right?"
"Not forever."
"Don't come back too different, and don't fall in love with another girl."
"Never."
Yoobin was grateful for everything, for the way Younha's hair was growing out and tickled her cheek when she held her, for how Younha thought Yoobin's thighs were the perfect size and how she spent her free time leaving scathing replies on articles about Yoobin's weight. Yoobin was grateful for the opportunity everybody told them they were blessed to have, grateful for the bright futures and fame that they had been offered. The company was so convinced that they would make it big, that their isolation in America would be worth it.
She watched Younha nap. She was tangled in the blankets, the skin on her exposed leg warm from the dusk sunlight that found its way through the curtains, her mouth pursed open mid-snore.
It better be worth it, Yoobin thought as she pulled an arm into her jacket and reached for her bag.
Void
2NE1, Bom-centric
G, 340
She cut a hole, her scissors making a jagged circle through the high gloss. She slid a finger through and wore the photograph like a ring.
If her mother banged on the door and yelled, go to sleep, she didn’t notice. Instead she sang at the top of her lungs, sprawled out on the bed, wearing nothing but herself on her finger. She flipped through her high school yearbook; there was one headshot missing. The hair and shoulders were still stuck in the frame, grayscale and looking lost, but the face was liberated, a hole cut where “Bom Park” should’ve been. Bom Park. All it took was switching things around to become a different entry in the phonebook.
They drew lines on her nose and it tickled, so she laughed. The woman in the white coat made an impatient noise because the ink had smudged. They were mapping her. Face cartographers. She held a hand to her chest, imagined drawing a huge dot over her heart: the capitol of Bom.
It wasn’t hard or scary. It reminded her of the cardboard cut-outs at the amusement park, figures with holes punctured through their cardboard faces, held up by their cardboard necks, next to a sign that said “stand here”. An opportunity for friends to laugh and take pictures of your face on the body of a fireman or a farmer or anything that you’d never be.
But maybe those cut-outs got sick of the wrong faces always poking through them, maybe they were waiting for an actual fireman or a farmer to lean into the hole and complete them. Then they'd come to life.
All Bom was doing was sliding different faces in, trying to find the one that matched.
On the ride home she held a cut-up picture against the van's window. It was hard to breathe around the gauze and her eyes felt heavy and bruised. But she liked the way her body in the picture stayed still while the world outside raced within the outline of her head.
Open Endings
SHINee, Jongho
G, 534
Jonghyun stared at the blank page.
"I can’t do it," He said, voice flat. "I can't end it."
It was cluttered in the office, stacks of whatever littering the corners. The desk he sat at was clear, but it was obvious that everything once on it had just been relocated to the floor. Still, his disorganization wasn’t as bad as others’ in his profession. The room smelled stale; it hadn’t seen sunlight for a while. Now the drapes were finally peeled open and Jonghyun watched dust motes float around his guest’s seated figure.
Minho crossed one leg over the other and locked his hands behind his head.
"Maybe you don’t understand the situation you’re in. You got a forward of ten million won, right? Do you even remember what that money was for?"
"To write a novel," Jonghyun said and squeezed his pen, wondering if he had good enough aim to hit Minho’s jugular with it from where he sat.
"To write a novel," Minho repeated. "Do you remember when your deadline was?"
"Two...two years ago."
The years sat between them like a confession and Jonghyun felt his cheeks burn. It was shameful. A writer who can’t write, a plot that refused to be finished, and a grossly overdue manuscript that nobody really wanted anymore. Except for Minho.
"Have I really been putting up with you for four years now?" Minho said lightly, breaking into a smile, and the wall of resistance in Jonghyun’s mind crumbled.
"You? Put up with me? I've never had an agent force me to pay for as much alcohol as you have."
"It’s a necessity. It numbs the displeasure of being in the same room as you."
Jonghyun threw the pen and decided that no, his aim was not good enough, because it bounced off the other man’s arm and Minho immediately started shouting about how this was a new blazer and if it left an ink stain Jonghyun would pay for his drinks for the rest of their lives.
Jonghyun woke up smelling like whiskey and morning breath, but it was still dark out. One of the glasses had tipped over on his desk. They had been outlining something, a chart of character relationships maybe, but now the writing was smeared and ran down the page. There was a stirring from across him, a sigh. Jonghyun sat up and studied the face pressed against the other side of the desk. Minho’s large eyes were half-open in drunken and contented stupor, round and dark like pools of ink. Maybe if Jonghyun filled his pen up with that, wrote with whatever deep and composed substance filled Minho, it would all work out. All the subplots would intertwine together, the perfect mix of interiority and exteriority, a climax and catharsis, and not a flowery adverb in sight.
But maybe Jonghyun liked paying for drinks and keeping a glass bottle on his bookshelf that he never touched unless Minho was over. Maybe he liked the tickle of Minho's breath on his neck as the taller man bent over him to read his progress.
Maybe it had become less about finishing, and more about the only person who cared if he ever did.
Land of the Free
Younha/Yoobin
R, 459
Yoobin should have been grateful. She should have been glad that the planets aligned and their careers intersected for any period of time at all. Sometimes she imagined a world where Younha never came home to give Korea one last shot, just spent the rest of her life singing anime openings and having her hair styled badly. Sometimes she imagined a world where some other trainee had been the one to sit in stunned silence at that emergency boardroom meeting and listen to executives throw around phrases like "permanent replacement" and "immediate group integration."
Now she was leaving for America, The United States, land foreign and intimidating and not home to the girl currently fingering her.
"Hmm," Yoobin said and shifted.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. That angle is good."
It was good, and Yoobin wanted to focus on Younha's breath in the shell of her ear and the way her fingers worked slowly, but her mind had already boarded the airplane, with emotional baggage stowed neatly in the overhead compartment.
Turbulence. She felt it roll up in her abdomen, cocked her head back, and clenched.
The sigh hissed between her lips and she loosened her grip on Younha's shoulder blades. Yoobin looked up at Younha's face, which was glowing bright and smug. She was too cute to be so good at this.
"You were quiet," Younha said, wiping her hands on the sheets. "No dirty talk for me to remember you by?"
"Oh, baby. Play me like an arpeggio," Yoobin deadpanned, but only maintained a straight face for a few seconds before laughter erupted from them both. Younha collapsed onto Yoobin's chest and played a few invisible chords along her breasts, staccato.
"You're going to be gone for a long time, huh?" Younha said.
"Yeah."
"But not forever, right?"
"Not forever."
"Don't come back too different, and don't fall in love with another girl."
"Never."
Yoobin was grateful for everything, for the way Younha's hair was growing out and tickled her cheek when she held her, for how Younha thought Yoobin's thighs were the perfect size and how she spent her free time leaving scathing replies on articles about Yoobin's weight. Yoobin was grateful for the opportunity everybody told them they were blessed to have, grateful for the bright futures and fame that they had been offered. The company was so convinced that they would make it big, that their isolation in America would be worth it.
She watched Younha nap. She was tangled in the blankets, the skin on her exposed leg warm from the dusk sunlight that found its way through the curtains, her mouth pursed open mid-snore.
It better be worth it, Yoobin thought as she pulled an arm into her jacket and reached for her bag.
Void
2NE1, Bom-centric
G, 340
She cut a hole, her scissors making a jagged circle through the high gloss. She slid a finger through and wore the photograph like a ring.
If her mother banged on the door and yelled, go to sleep, she didn’t notice. Instead she sang at the top of her lungs, sprawled out on the bed, wearing nothing but herself on her finger. She flipped through her high school yearbook; there was one headshot missing. The hair and shoulders were still stuck in the frame, grayscale and looking lost, but the face was liberated, a hole cut where “Bom Park” should’ve been. Bom Park. All it took was switching things around to become a different entry in the phonebook.
They drew lines on her nose and it tickled, so she laughed. The woman in the white coat made an impatient noise because the ink had smudged. They were mapping her. Face cartographers. She held a hand to her chest, imagined drawing a huge dot over her heart: the capitol of Bom.
It wasn’t hard or scary. It reminded her of the cardboard cut-outs at the amusement park, figures with holes punctured through their cardboard faces, held up by their cardboard necks, next to a sign that said “stand here”. An opportunity for friends to laugh and take pictures of your face on the body of a fireman or a farmer or anything that you’d never be.
But maybe those cut-outs got sick of the wrong faces always poking through them, maybe they were waiting for an actual fireman or a farmer to lean into the hole and complete them. Then they'd come to life.
All Bom was doing was sliding different faces in, trying to find the one that matched.
On the ride home she held a cut-up picture against the van's window. It was hard to breathe around the gauze and her eyes felt heavy and bruised. But she liked the way her body in the picture stayed still while the world outside raced within the outline of her head.