the citizens
the citizens
1,922w; pg (sungjoon/minha)
autumn's a killer.
a/n: because i enjoy my crackships too much.
There is this song he knows by heart that he thinks about a lot, but if you asked him the tune, he wouldn’t remember. He thinks about it a lot, the parts he remembers, it goes something like this. Life, like the billions claiming to have it in their grasp, is lonely, so lonely, without death as its companion.
He thinks about it a lot.
She’s pursing her lips, Park Minha, alias smokes girl - or so he likes to remember. They look clean, devoid of the color and gloss the girls he sees on the bus like to slather on. He likes that, her, smokes girl, or so he likes to remember. They sit in (un)comfortable silence.
“Where to?” Her fingers are drumming against the steering wheel, windshield wipers scraping trails through the rain pelting down. She sounds the same, the same as she did when she asked what kind? Marlboros or Camels? from the tiny window of his and her family’s joint supermarket. Park Minha, smokes girl, why the senior boys would line up after six o’clock, why all their lungs turned to shit. He is no exception.
His palms are slick from his hold on his soaking coat, black and shiny from the rain, two sizes too big and ten years over worn. His father’s, he thinks, as she glances at him, annoyed. Or tired. He cannot tell with her, smokes girl, enigma in a puff of white smoke and trail of grey ash. “Can you just drive?” he asks, voice thick and quiet from underuse. He does not remember the last time he spoke so intimately, so alone. The words are like tasteless taffy on his tongue.
She sighs. The light goes green before she can say anything more. The engine hums, vroom vroom, subtle, domesticated. He imagines it’s black like soot, like ash, like his lungs - shit. A time lapse on his x-ray would show a slow decay in his thoracic cavity.
And she (reason for the decay: smokes girl) just sighs.
When they were younger, Minha remembers everyone in their town thought Bang Sungjoon was autistic. That, or painfully shy, and after his seventh year with a word barely uttered, only subtle smiles that you would miss if you didn’t watch carefully, like he was forcing you to observe him (and minha did) - it was a foregone conclusion that he was. A few years and a diagnosis test later, they found out he just didn’t like to talk, he liked to listen. His parents were embarrassed over the misunderstanding for a while, but that passed, and middle, high school came, and people gradually forgot about it.
She looks over at him from the corner of her eye, now, not quite the same, not that different. He feels familiar in the passenger seat even though he’s never been in her car before, it’s like they’re walking to school together again, every morning (he’d wake her up taciturnly if she didn’t), the girls in her homeroom finding him attractive before he left for his class two wings away (mysterious and dark, they’d giggle, and she’d bite down the urge to correct them with an example of his awkwardness). She remembers confronting him one night after they closed up the supermarket, you don’t have to walk me to class, I’m fine by myself. He only shrugged and took out the trash (when it was her day to do so).
She remembers the one time he bought cigarettes from her, standing in line on a weekend night behind all the other senior boys when he could easily just grab a pack for himself and stick the two fifty in the cash register whenever he remembered. But he was there, last of the six o’clock pack, late spring, early summer sunset setting a fiery halo behind his silhouette. You don’t smoke, she wanted to say, when he held out the money. Marlboros or Camels? came out instead. You don’t even have a lighter, she thought as she handed him the pack he pointed at, the creased dollars in her hands. There was some writing in black felt tip marker on the underside of the first bill like some of the other boys liked to give her, with I love you’s and Park Minha’s all over the backs. Him, not like the other boys, Sungjoon, Bang Sungjoon, mysterious and dark, they giggle, painfully shy, scribbling in hard-back notebooks, the words he never said in between the lines -
She never read his dollar.
“Smoking turns your lungs to shit,” she says, randomly. He keeps his eyes trained outside, the grey sky watery in the window. It is undoubtedly cold out there, like autumn ought to be. He thinks it was silly, looking down at his father’s coat, to believe it would brave the wind. Winter will only follow suit.
He shifts in his seat. “That’s why I quit after high school.” He didn’t, really. She says nothing to question his statement.
“Then why’d you even start?” She’s laughing a little, but it is a polite, controlled kind of laughter - not the kind he is used to, not the kind she let out when their parents were fighting (rather comically) over the bill for their graduation dinner. She’s laughing a little, but it is not a laugh at all, it is a forced, trite little thing that is searching. For what, for what, for what, he blinks and she’s looking at him again.
“All the other boys were starting,” he begins. Stops there. What more is there to say? He does not know. Words, ephemeral syllables aloud, eternal characters on paper, abandon him in space. He lets them be.
She opens her mouth, closes it, tries to laugh again (polite, controlled) but nothing comes out. “So you did, too, is that what it was?” It sounds accusing, though he doubts she intended it to. That, he thinks, is the problem with words aloud, under-thought, rash. He lets them be.
“They all did it to buy from you, you know.” His fingers feel clammy inside the still-damp pockets of his coat. His gaze flits to her, goes back down, hopes she will look at him once more. She doesn’t, shakes her head.
She doesn’t understand. That, he thinks, is the problem with word aloud, on paper, a tragic thing among countless others. She doesn’t understand. He wishes she did.
He keeps his eyes trained outside, the grey sky watery in the window.
The city is approaching now, skyscrapers looming. Seoul, intimidating, so many places to get lost, to lose yourself, to find yourself once more. The traffic is horrible now and they are stuck in the crush of other cars trying to commute. Seoul, she thinks, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, where he, he who sits so still beside her that she almost believes he is asleep, goes to school. Last year, wistfully, jealous. Last year.
“What do you do?” she asks, vague. His answer is not surprising.
“I’m a writer. You?” She inhales. He is so different, Bang Sungjoon, from her, Park Minha, always Sungjoon and books and books and Sungjoon, it’s no wonder that he got into Seoul National, he always helped her with her math homework after all, nudged her awake at two in the morning when she fell asleep in the middle of typing an essay because he had already finished his, stayed awake with her until she finished hers anyway. He is, was - she exhales. His poetry books, too many of them, they’d be all over the place when she went to his house for homework help. Words, too many of them, too little said, she wouldn’t have anything he recommended her to read. Should she have taken those books he offered? She exhales and forgets to inhale. It comes unconsciously.
He is so different, Bang Sungjoon, so good, too good, for her, Park Minha, always two steps behind, only the girl, the conquest, the girl who sells smokes and those are disposable, smoke but wisps in the morning, nothing more. She shrugs and her nose burns, like she wants to cry. “I don’t know.” (i’m nothing compared to you) “Taking the year off.”
His eyes narrow, thoughtfully, philosophically, like Plato, she joked once when she was falling into one AM delirium over a crash course of Calculus. “You’ll be fine,” he says, like he believes it. She wants to, wistfully, jealous.
“I hope so.” Her nose burns. She swallows instead. “I hope so.”
He takes his left hand out from his pocket, and for a moment, she almost thinks he will place it over hers. It hesitates. He places it in front of the heater instead. She stares at it, hot air blowing in, wistfully, jealous.
Autumn is when things begin to die. She is staring straight ahead, streets congested, like she never said the words. She did, though. She did.
But does that not make the coming spring more worthwhile, to see their rebirth? he replies. They are in the midst of downtown traffic, drivers to either side, front, behind, two lanes away from them cursing and honking, but they, they are smiling.
She read his dollar at midnight, rifling through the cash register after he left, scent of ash on his t-shirt. The one time he bought cigarettes from her, standing in line on a weekend night behind all the other senior boys when he could easily just grab a pack for himself and stick the two fifty in the cash register whenever he remembered. Autumn is when - she rereads it once more. Autumn, but he was there, late spring, early summer sunset setting a fiery halo behind his silhouette.
He was there.
She’s pursing her lips, Park Minha, alias smokes girl - or so he likes to remember. She lets him turn on the radio, lets him turn through the stations, silence insatiable with the rain a mere dull drizzle. He likes that, her, smokes girl, then and still now, or so he’d like to think.
How long, he imagines she’d ask him and he her. I don’t know, he knows she would say because that is Park Minha, smokes girl, the reason for decay, and every time he has a Marlboro stuck between his teeth, he thinks of her as his lungs go to shit.
Now what, now what, now what, the thought repeats because he cannot think, overthink, anything else. The future, a supplied answer. He rejects it as trite.
Now, rain a hollow pang on the roof of the car, they wait.
There is this song he knows by heart that he thinks about a lot, and as it comes on the radio a stoplight away from his school, he remembers the tune. He thinks about it a lot, the parts he remembers and the parts he doesn’t, it goes something like this.
She rolls down a window even though the rain is starting up again, and he can see it soaking the passenger seat he vacated. See you around, Sungjoon. See you around, Minha.
(smokes girl, the reason for decay, Marlboros or Camels, Marlboros or Camels)
His father’s coat, almost dry, is slick again. He can hear that line as she drives away, slowly, carefully, picking up speed, it goes something like this. Life, like the billions claiming to have it in their grasp, is lovely, so lovely, without death as its companion.
He thinks about it a lot.
(they’re still waiting.)
1,922w; pg (sungjoon/minha)
autumn's a killer.
a/n: because i enjoy my crackships too much.
There is this song he knows by heart that he thinks about a lot, but if you asked him the tune, he wouldn’t remember. He thinks about it a lot, the parts he remembers, it goes something like this. Life, like the billions claiming to have it in their grasp, is lonely, so lonely, without death as its companion.
He thinks about it a lot.
She’s pursing her lips, Park Minha, alias smokes girl - or so he likes to remember. They look clean, devoid of the color and gloss the girls he sees on the bus like to slather on. He likes that, her, smokes girl, or so he likes to remember. They sit in (un)comfortable silence.
“Where to?” Her fingers are drumming against the steering wheel, windshield wipers scraping trails through the rain pelting down. She sounds the same, the same as she did when she asked what kind? Marlboros or Camels? from the tiny window of his and her family’s joint supermarket. Park Minha, smokes girl, why the senior boys would line up after six o’clock, why all their lungs turned to shit. He is no exception.
His palms are slick from his hold on his soaking coat, black and shiny from the rain, two sizes too big and ten years over worn. His father’s, he thinks, as she glances at him, annoyed. Or tired. He cannot tell with her, smokes girl, enigma in a puff of white smoke and trail of grey ash. “Can you just drive?” he asks, voice thick and quiet from underuse. He does not remember the last time he spoke so intimately, so alone. The words are like tasteless taffy on his tongue.
She sighs. The light goes green before she can say anything more. The engine hums, vroom vroom, subtle, domesticated. He imagines it’s black like soot, like ash, like his lungs - shit. A time lapse on his x-ray would show a slow decay in his thoracic cavity.
And she (reason for the decay: smokes girl) just sighs.
When they were younger, Minha remembers everyone in their town thought Bang Sungjoon was autistic. That, or painfully shy, and after his seventh year with a word barely uttered, only subtle smiles that you would miss if you didn’t watch carefully, like he was forcing you to observe him (and minha did) - it was a foregone conclusion that he was. A few years and a diagnosis test later, they found out he just didn’t like to talk, he liked to listen. His parents were embarrassed over the misunderstanding for a while, but that passed, and middle, high school came, and people gradually forgot about it.
She looks over at him from the corner of her eye, now, not quite the same, not that different. He feels familiar in the passenger seat even though he’s never been in her car before, it’s like they’re walking to school together again, every morning (he’d wake her up taciturnly if she didn’t), the girls in her homeroom finding him attractive before he left for his class two wings away (mysterious and dark, they’d giggle, and she’d bite down the urge to correct them with an example of his awkwardness). She remembers confronting him one night after they closed up the supermarket, you don’t have to walk me to class, I’m fine by myself. He only shrugged and took out the trash (when it was her day to do so).
She remembers the one time he bought cigarettes from her, standing in line on a weekend night behind all the other senior boys when he could easily just grab a pack for himself and stick the two fifty in the cash register whenever he remembered. But he was there, last of the six o’clock pack, late spring, early summer sunset setting a fiery halo behind his silhouette. You don’t smoke, she wanted to say, when he held out the money. Marlboros or Camels? came out instead. You don’t even have a lighter, she thought as she handed him the pack he pointed at, the creased dollars in her hands. There was some writing in black felt tip marker on the underside of the first bill like some of the other boys liked to give her, with I love you’s and Park Minha’s all over the backs. Him, not like the other boys, Sungjoon, Bang Sungjoon, mysterious and dark, they giggle, painfully shy, scribbling in hard-back notebooks, the words he never said in between the lines -
She never read his dollar.
“Smoking turns your lungs to shit,” she says, randomly. He keeps his eyes trained outside, the grey sky watery in the window. It is undoubtedly cold out there, like autumn ought to be. He thinks it was silly, looking down at his father’s coat, to believe it would brave the wind. Winter will only follow suit.
He shifts in his seat. “That’s why I quit after high school.” He didn’t, really. She says nothing to question his statement.
“Then why’d you even start?” She’s laughing a little, but it is a polite, controlled kind of laughter - not the kind he is used to, not the kind she let out when their parents were fighting (rather comically) over the bill for their graduation dinner. She’s laughing a little, but it is not a laugh at all, it is a forced, trite little thing that is searching. For what, for what, for what, he blinks and she’s looking at him again.
“All the other boys were starting,” he begins. Stops there. What more is there to say? He does not know. Words, ephemeral syllables aloud, eternal characters on paper, abandon him in space. He lets them be.
She opens her mouth, closes it, tries to laugh again (polite, controlled) but nothing comes out. “So you did, too, is that what it was?” It sounds accusing, though he doubts she intended it to. That, he thinks, is the problem with words aloud, under-thought, rash. He lets them be.
“They all did it to buy from you, you know.” His fingers feel clammy inside the still-damp pockets of his coat. His gaze flits to her, goes back down, hopes she will look at him once more. She doesn’t, shakes her head.
She doesn’t understand. That, he thinks, is the problem with word aloud, on paper, a tragic thing among countless others. She doesn’t understand. He wishes she did.
He keeps his eyes trained outside, the grey sky watery in the window.
The city is approaching now, skyscrapers looming. Seoul, intimidating, so many places to get lost, to lose yourself, to find yourself once more. The traffic is horrible now and they are stuck in the crush of other cars trying to commute. Seoul, she thinks, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, where he, he who sits so still beside her that she almost believes he is asleep, goes to school. Last year, wistfully, jealous. Last year.
“What do you do?” she asks, vague. His answer is not surprising.
“I’m a writer. You?” She inhales. He is so different, Bang Sungjoon, from her, Park Minha, always Sungjoon and books and books and Sungjoon, it’s no wonder that he got into Seoul National, he always helped her with her math homework after all, nudged her awake at two in the morning when she fell asleep in the middle of typing an essay because he had already finished his, stayed awake with her until she finished hers anyway. He is, was - she exhales. His poetry books, too many of them, they’d be all over the place when she went to his house for homework help. Words, too many of them, too little said, she wouldn’t have anything he recommended her to read. Should she have taken those books he offered? She exhales and forgets to inhale. It comes unconsciously.
He is so different, Bang Sungjoon, so good, too good, for her, Park Minha, always two steps behind, only the girl, the conquest, the girl who sells smokes and those are disposable, smoke but wisps in the morning, nothing more. She shrugs and her nose burns, like she wants to cry. “I don’t know.” (i’m nothing compared to you) “Taking the year off.”
His eyes narrow, thoughtfully, philosophically, like Plato, she joked once when she was falling into one AM delirium over a crash course of Calculus. “You’ll be fine,” he says, like he believes it. She wants to, wistfully, jealous.
“I hope so.” Her nose burns. She swallows instead. “I hope so.”
He takes his left hand out from his pocket, and for a moment, she almost thinks he will place it over hers. It hesitates. He places it in front of the heater instead. She stares at it, hot air blowing in, wistfully, jealous.
Autumn is when things begin to die. She is staring straight ahead, streets congested, like she never said the words. She did, though. She did.
But does that not make the coming spring more worthwhile, to see their rebirth? he replies. They are in the midst of downtown traffic, drivers to either side, front, behind, two lanes away from them cursing and honking, but they, they are smiling.
She read his dollar at midnight, rifling through the cash register after he left, scent of ash on his t-shirt. The one time he bought cigarettes from her, standing in line on a weekend night behind all the other senior boys when he could easily just grab a pack for himself and stick the two fifty in the cash register whenever he remembered. Autumn is when - she rereads it once more. Autumn, but he was there, late spring, early summer sunset setting a fiery halo behind his silhouette.
He was there.
She’s pursing her lips, Park Minha, alias smokes girl - or so he likes to remember. She lets him turn on the radio, lets him turn through the stations, silence insatiable with the rain a mere dull drizzle. He likes that, her, smokes girl, then and still now, or so he’d like to think.
How long, he imagines she’d ask him and he her. I don’t know, he knows she would say because that is Park Minha, smokes girl, the reason for decay, and every time he has a Marlboro stuck between his teeth, he thinks of her as his lungs go to shit.
Now what, now what, now what, the thought repeats because he cannot think, overthink, anything else. The future, a supplied answer. He rejects it as trite.
Now, rain a hollow pang on the roof of the car, they wait.
There is this song he knows by heart that he thinks about a lot, and as it comes on the radio a stoplight away from his school, he remembers the tune. He thinks about it a lot, the parts he remembers and the parts he doesn’t, it goes something like this.
She rolls down a window even though the rain is starting up again, and he can see it soaking the passenger seat he vacated. See you around, Sungjoon. See you around, Minha.
(smokes girl, the reason for decay, Marlboros or Camels, Marlboros or Camels)
His father’s coat, almost dry, is slick again. He can hear that line as she drives away, slowly, carefully, picking up speed, it goes something like this. Life, like the billions claiming to have it in their grasp, is lovely, so lovely, without death as its companion.
He thinks about it a lot.
(they’re still waiting.)