ficlet: freefalling (bom-centric)
freefalling
pg
832 words
bom-centric
inspired by bom's bungee jump attempt in season three of 2ne1TV, as well as assorted clips from episodes 3-6. melancholy, but lets put that down to practicing characterization, yeah? :)
Park Bom is seventeen years old, in a foreign country, her sister’s disapproving gaze on her back and nothing but open air under her dingy-white Adidas, when she takes the leap.
-
At three, it stops being cute.
The well-wishes are forced, the disapproval run through with pity. Three times, the tilt of her mother’s mouth says, watching her over the plate she’s scrubbing. Three times, her father’s furrowed brows spell out as he searches the paper for Go Eun’s clippings. Three times; three attempts and three failures, three shaken heads and ‘you’re not quite what we’re after’s and three heart-rending ‘you just don’t have the right look’s. Go Eun catches her staring at single lids and a too-flat nose in the bathroom mirror, catches her pushing back her bangs to lengthen her forehead, catches her swapping out Choco Pies for carrots, and her sad smile says ‘you tried, Bommie, no one can say you didn’t’.
But maybe, they all suggest, with their pity and their disappointment and their relief and their condescension, it’s time to try something else.
But Bom knows her own heart, learned the purpose behind every beat of it when she felt it stop in freefall and no one will take it from her now.
She’ll make them love her, she thinks, and raps on the studio door.
-
The news of her debut should put her in flight, should send her heart into the stratosphere, beating a cacophony in her ears.
It should.
But it feels more like someone has taken a rock and flung it against her chest. It leaves her winded, sucking in shallow, absurd-sounding gulps of air in the ladies’ as she buries her face in her hands. Everything she’s worked for, all this time, three years of her life in pursuit of this dangling carrot only for her fingers to touch plastic.
Bom clenches her fists, digs her nails into her palms until the sting makes her flinch, then does it harder. She hits at her thighs, her head, the stall doors and grieves because this is supposed to be hers. Her moment, her spotlight, her voice. And in the blink of an instant, in a terrible heartbeat, what was meant to be hers has become theirs. And she feels cheated.
-
Bom has never been so tired in her life. In her entire existence.
She half-wonders if narcolepsy is catching, the way she falls asleep seemingly anywhere these days-in the make-up chair, on the sofa in the green room, on the plane, in the car. She curls up with a pillow under one arm and the camcorder in one hand, mumbling nonsense as she fights to keep open her eyes. Her false lashes are peeling off at the ends, her liner a muddy mess at this point, but she can’t be bothered to take it off. And anyway, have to be pretty for the camera.
Blinking as she realizes she just said that aloud, Bom yawns into the comforter and fumbles to put the camcorder on the dresser. The clock glares an accusing 3am at her and she hides her face again, knowing that she has to be up in two hours, two hours if she’s lucky and that the next day is so packed with schedules she doubts any of them can remember it all.
It’s in these moments that she asks herself, silent, and quiet even then, if this is really what she had wanted. This kaleidoscopic blur, a rush of color and sound and her limbs performing in muscle memory. She doesn’t feel present, doesn’t hear the words she sings and is this what she wanted?
Pulling her blanket over her head, Bom shuts her eyes tight and thinks of that jump, of the sensation of falling and the rush of wind in her ears and the tears it whipped from her eyes. She thinks of the way the sick feeling fled even as the ground rushed towards her, a peace, a clarity that only came with surrender. She’d been so determined, in that moment, so certain.
She wants to feel that way again.
-
Bom stands at the edge of the platform, harness tight around her torso, the cuffs snug on her calves. She stands and looks out and counts to three and-
Hesitates.
Takes a step back, fear catching like sick in her throat, and it’s that that panics her, that makes her pulse race shakily through her veins. No, she has to do this; she’s done this before, she can do it again. She is Park Bom, and her will is not this fragile.
Bom looks at the water below and thinks how dirty it is. Looks over at Misun and thinks its okay, she was scared, too, looks to the camera man and mentions that she can always come back later. Another time, when she’s more ready.
As they methodically free her from the harness, Bom thinks her heart has never felt so heavy.
pg
832 words
bom-centric
inspired by bom's bungee jump attempt in season three of 2ne1TV, as well as assorted clips from episodes 3-6. melancholy, but lets put that down to practicing characterization, yeah? :)
Park Bom is seventeen years old, in a foreign country, her sister’s disapproving gaze on her back and nothing but open air under her dingy-white Adidas, when she takes the leap.
-
At three, it stops being cute.
The well-wishes are forced, the disapproval run through with pity. Three times, the tilt of her mother’s mouth says, watching her over the plate she’s scrubbing. Three times, her father’s furrowed brows spell out as he searches the paper for Go Eun’s clippings. Three times; three attempts and three failures, three shaken heads and ‘you’re not quite what we’re after’s and three heart-rending ‘you just don’t have the right look’s. Go Eun catches her staring at single lids and a too-flat nose in the bathroom mirror, catches her pushing back her bangs to lengthen her forehead, catches her swapping out Choco Pies for carrots, and her sad smile says ‘you tried, Bommie, no one can say you didn’t’.
But maybe, they all suggest, with their pity and their disappointment and their relief and their condescension, it’s time to try something else.
But Bom knows her own heart, learned the purpose behind every beat of it when she felt it stop in freefall and no one will take it from her now.
She’ll make them love her, she thinks, and raps on the studio door.
-
The news of her debut should put her in flight, should send her heart into the stratosphere, beating a cacophony in her ears.
It should.
But it feels more like someone has taken a rock and flung it against her chest. It leaves her winded, sucking in shallow, absurd-sounding gulps of air in the ladies’ as she buries her face in her hands. Everything she’s worked for, all this time, three years of her life in pursuit of this dangling carrot only for her fingers to touch plastic.
Bom clenches her fists, digs her nails into her palms until the sting makes her flinch, then does it harder. She hits at her thighs, her head, the stall doors and grieves because this is supposed to be hers. Her moment, her spotlight, her voice. And in the blink of an instant, in a terrible heartbeat, what was meant to be hers has become theirs. And she feels cheated.
-
Bom has never been so tired in her life. In her entire existence.
She half-wonders if narcolepsy is catching, the way she falls asleep seemingly anywhere these days-in the make-up chair, on the sofa in the green room, on the plane, in the car. She curls up with a pillow under one arm and the camcorder in one hand, mumbling nonsense as she fights to keep open her eyes. Her false lashes are peeling off at the ends, her liner a muddy mess at this point, but she can’t be bothered to take it off. And anyway, have to be pretty for the camera.
Blinking as she realizes she just said that aloud, Bom yawns into the comforter and fumbles to put the camcorder on the dresser. The clock glares an accusing 3am at her and she hides her face again, knowing that she has to be up in two hours, two hours if she’s lucky and that the next day is so packed with schedules she doubts any of them can remember it all.
It’s in these moments that she asks herself, silent, and quiet even then, if this is really what she had wanted. This kaleidoscopic blur, a rush of color and sound and her limbs performing in muscle memory. She doesn’t feel present, doesn’t hear the words she sings and is this what she wanted?
Pulling her blanket over her head, Bom shuts her eyes tight and thinks of that jump, of the sensation of falling and the rush of wind in her ears and the tears it whipped from her eyes. She thinks of the way the sick feeling fled even as the ground rushed towards her, a peace, a clarity that only came with surrender. She’d been so determined, in that moment, so certain.
She wants to feel that way again.
-
Bom stands at the edge of the platform, harness tight around her torso, the cuffs snug on her calves. She stands and looks out and counts to three and-
Hesitates.
Takes a step back, fear catching like sick in her throat, and it’s that that panics her, that makes her pulse race shakily through her veins. No, she has to do this; she’s done this before, she can do it again. She is Park Bom, and her will is not this fragile.
Bom looks at the water below and thinks how dirty it is. Looks over at Misun and thinks its okay, she was scared, too, looks to the camera man and mentions that she can always come back later. Another time, when she’s more ready.
As they methodically free her from the harness, Bom thinks her heart has never felt so heavy.