cola with the burnt-out taste
automatons in liplock
301w; pg (myungsoo/suzy)
who am i to say i'm yours?
a/n: for jaes, from a long time ago!
They meet in 2010, at the beginning and end of life, as they knew it.
“I’m Suzy,” she whispers, eyes red and nose runny. She doesn’t offer him a hand. He doesn’t hold out his to fill in the space.
“Myungsoo.”
They aren’t really anything, she’d like to think. She packs and labels her relations with others into their respective Tupperware, but with him, there is no ultimatum. They play the roles of friends, confidants, and (maybe, just maybe) lovers - skirt around the criteria and end up right back where they began. They are phone conversations before falling asleep, too busy for face-to-face contact, too complacent with hiding behind a receiver. It hits her one day when she’s exhausted and staring at her reflection in the mirror, dark circles corrugating the once-smooth spaces beneath her eyes, smell of bleach from the toilet sinking into the walls. This life is not forever. He is not forever.
“One day, I’ll break up with you,” she says. He doesn’t feel himself cracking beneath the words.
“Hopefully,” she continues, “it won’t be over the phone.” The static behind her voice is drowning him.
He sees her on tv one day and she seems so tiny and far away - not that she was ever within his reach. Her lips are red, eyes rimmed with black, voice like bubblegum, traits of a heartbreaker. They’re friends, confidants, lovers, people who love but cannot love consistently. They are not the idyllic adolescent first love, not the broken that get saved by one another, not the ones who find comfort in physical displays. They’re in love, five feet apart, personal space daunting. Somehow, sometimes, this makes him hurt more than he thinks it should.
She never broke his heart. She never broke his heart.
It was never hers to break.
the intricate anatomy of an unadulterated audio cassette tape
616w; pg (changmin/yoona)
you wait for a silence, i wait for a word.
a/n: for aoza, using this prompt. there needs to be more changyoon in the world, really!
two days after she leaves him:
I miss you, he says, breathe reeking of alcohol, eyes closed, palms bathing the lids in complete darkness. Cassette tapes all over his desk, rack full of cds and vinyl records half empty, always that way ever since she moved in - she never reciprocated his feverish need to collect. That space is the least startling.
I miss you. He throws the tapes onto the floor, sighs, sobs, breathes - just reflexes and bruising.
three weeks before:
Her legs are crossed under their dining table, lips pressed together as she reads the newspaper. She doesn’t look up when he walks into the kitchen - somewhere in between the business and comics section, she flicks her eyes over him, like he’s another piece of news to click her tongue at.
Do you want anything from the market? he attempts. Plums? It’s December, snow dusting the windows, sealing in the soot she told him to wipe away during the summer. She used to tell him lots of things but the static has long ceased in favor of silence.
Her knees bang against the table as she uncrosses her legs. Recrosses them.
Right before he walks out the door: plums aren’t even in season anymore.
seven days after:
He picks those tapes off the floor. Pops them into the stereo.
He’s ok, he’s ok. Dry eyes paired with memories and background music. He doesn’t feel anything.
He doesn’t get drunk.
two months before:
Her lips are moving, rapid fire and gatling gun. He stares, headphones in his ears, Changmin, you promised you’d stop wearing those every time we go out, hey, Changmin, her words filtering in through the new album he put onto his phone the night before, muffled, like hearing children’s screams underwater at a public pool.
Changmin. The light is red, painting an unnatural flush over the left side of her face. Hey. Watches her hand reach for his headphones, lets her rip them off, her lips never stop moving.
The light goes green but her eyes are on his, reflecting neon street lights over him. “Are you even listening?”
sixteen days after:
Hey, it’s Yoona - and Changmin! We’re not here right now, so please leave us a message after the tone - and never bother us again. What the - beep.
The tapes are on the floor again, whiskey on the table, eyes closed, palms bathing the lids in complete darkness. He could rip the tape out of its reel, crack the plastic coverings, burn the tracklist, but it wouldn’t change anything because she’s there - when he closes his eyes, when he’s walking to the market with earbuds in his ears, when he’s listening to anything - because he finds her there in the crevices, between flats and sharps and harmonies,
because she’s everywhere.
three weeks before:
Her legs are crossed under their dining table, lips pressed together as she reads the newspaper. He notices the way she doesn’t look up when he walks into the kitchen, and somewhere in between the business and comics section, he notices she flicks her eyes over him, like he’s another piece of news to click her tongue at.
What he doesn’t notice is her fingers, clutching the paper so hard that Snoopy wrinkles, and her curled toes, either bracing for impact or trying to hold all the pieces together with two miniscule attempts of pressure.
now:
She is every song he listens to, phantom of the opera and every pop song on the radio all the same.
He is just another boy, another boy that everything didn’t work out with but another boy that she can’t bring herself to stop thinking about.
(they are still very much in love.)
the progression of still life subjects
706w; pg (jr/suzy)
paranoia, jieun teased when she told her about it, but suzy's not afraid.
a/n: not the jr/suzy fic i wanted to write, but it's here so whatever.
it is noon. unbeknownst to some, two people are in orbit around their lives, satellites rooted in mundane routines, directions encoded into their flesh, their bones, their genetic code. nothing but machinery.
this is a normal thursday. it is noon.
12:01 PM
he sits at a park bench, Tolstoy tucked under his right arm, leaves orange and red settling into the seat beside him, eyes tired, face numb, and looks up. the trees are skeletons, slight, bark black, sky frost blue. he feels kind of like those trees - bare and tired and waiting for spring - up and locked himself out of the apartment, forgot the keys but remembered the Tolstoy. it’s a curse, leans all the way back so his eyes are trained up, up towards the sky - frost blue through the spider webs of branches - though on who, he’s not so sure.
he tries to think about it.
her soul leaves through her fingertips. she thinks she loses a little bit more of it every time she showers, water lukewarm against her skin, when she walks out the bathroom door discovering the skin on her fingers feels pulled a little tighter over the bones, looks down and finds her fingertips corrugated with a few parallel lines. paranoia, jieun teased when she told her about it, but suzy’s not afraid. she stares at those lines now, hair dripping onto the tiles, wondering what if should the trepidation seize her?
contemplates for a moment. she feels nothing.
her hair keeps dripping.
1:36 PM
the wind starts up - the combination of the bustle in the city that stirred the air during lunch break whipping around the city. he has long let the Tolstoy fall onto the bench, face up, hands too cold to close the cover so the wind takes that too, rifling through the pages. the words swim, the wind engulfs, flips the page.
he wonders if she called. wouldn’t know. forgot the keys, forgot everything, but remembered the Tolstoy. keeps his eyes trained up, up towards the sky - frost blue through the spider webs of branches. warped priorities, he tries to laugh it off as.
his lips are numb.
the steam is waning, has been waning, will dissipate as the food grows cold, as he decides not to come home. she has moved from her seat at the dining table to lean against the wall near the light switches - too pathetic to just wait, staring at an empty seat. the distance from the scene clears her mind, makes it less tragic. sometimes she thinks it’s sad, other times she doesn’t think at all (she doesn’t know if it’s nonchalance or conditioning at this point). they hold on, hold out - isn’t that enough?
the wind rattles the windows. stares a little longer. the food has gone cold. just how long has she been standing there?
contemplates for a moment. she feels nothing.
she turns off the light.
2:45 PM
he feels frozen. they take walks at three. he flips the pages with stiff fingers.
maybe then she’ll find him.
she shrugs on her coat. they take walks at three. she looks at the clock.
today, she decides to walk alone.
3:03 PM
jinyoung? and she’s there, looking over him. her gaze shifts, taking in the book beside him, shadow crossing her face briefly before being carried away by the wind, and the wind blows, whistling through the skeletons of trees, rising up into the frost blue sky. he smiles as best as he can, face numb, taking a hand out of his pocket to reach for hers. she gives it easily, mittened, lukewarm like the cold is just getting to it.
suzy.
he kisses her, hands freezing against her cheeks, lips so cold she feels like she’s kissing death. contemplates a moment - she might be, symbolically. she presses closer to him and feels the warmth of his chest against her heart. the leaves crunch beneath her feet as she takes a step forward.
his lips are numb.
2:54 PM
frost blue through the spider webs of branches, bark black, bare and tired, waiting for spring, skeletons coming to life for the winter. they look up.
it’s beautiful, in a way.
unbeknownst to some, this a normal thursday.
301w; pg (myungsoo/suzy)
who am i to say i'm yours?
a/n: for jaes, from a long time ago!
They meet in 2010, at the beginning and end of life, as they knew it.
“I’m Suzy,” she whispers, eyes red and nose runny. She doesn’t offer him a hand. He doesn’t hold out his to fill in the space.
“Myungsoo.”
They aren’t really anything, she’d like to think. She packs and labels her relations with others into their respective Tupperware, but with him, there is no ultimatum. They play the roles of friends, confidants, and (maybe, just maybe) lovers - skirt around the criteria and end up right back where they began. They are phone conversations before falling asleep, too busy for face-to-face contact, too complacent with hiding behind a receiver. It hits her one day when she’s exhausted and staring at her reflection in the mirror, dark circles corrugating the once-smooth spaces beneath her eyes, smell of bleach from the toilet sinking into the walls. This life is not forever. He is not forever.
“One day, I’ll break up with you,” she says. He doesn’t feel himself cracking beneath the words.
“Hopefully,” she continues, “it won’t be over the phone.” The static behind her voice is drowning him.
He sees her on tv one day and she seems so tiny and far away - not that she was ever within his reach. Her lips are red, eyes rimmed with black, voice like bubblegum, traits of a heartbreaker. They’re friends, confidants, lovers, people who love but cannot love consistently. They are not the idyllic adolescent first love, not the broken that get saved by one another, not the ones who find comfort in physical displays. They’re in love, five feet apart, personal space daunting. Somehow, sometimes, this makes him hurt more than he thinks it should.
She never broke his heart. She never broke his heart.
It was never hers to break.
the intricate anatomy of an unadulterated audio cassette tape
616w; pg (changmin/yoona)
you wait for a silence, i wait for a word.
a/n: for aoza, using this prompt. there needs to be more changyoon in the world, really!
two days after she leaves him:
I miss you, he says, breathe reeking of alcohol, eyes closed, palms bathing the lids in complete darkness. Cassette tapes all over his desk, rack full of cds and vinyl records half empty, always that way ever since she moved in - she never reciprocated his feverish need to collect. That space is the least startling.
I miss you. He throws the tapes onto the floor, sighs, sobs, breathes - just reflexes and bruising.
three weeks before:
Her legs are crossed under their dining table, lips pressed together as she reads the newspaper. She doesn’t look up when he walks into the kitchen - somewhere in between the business and comics section, she flicks her eyes over him, like he’s another piece of news to click her tongue at.
Do you want anything from the market? he attempts. Plums? It’s December, snow dusting the windows, sealing in the soot she told him to wipe away during the summer. She used to tell him lots of things but the static has long ceased in favor of silence.
Her knees bang against the table as she uncrosses her legs. Recrosses them.
Right before he walks out the door: plums aren’t even in season anymore.
seven days after:
He picks those tapes off the floor. Pops them into the stereo.
He’s ok, he’s ok. Dry eyes paired with memories and background music. He doesn’t feel anything.
He doesn’t get drunk.
two months before:
Her lips are moving, rapid fire and gatling gun. He stares, headphones in his ears, Changmin, you promised you’d stop wearing those every time we go out, hey, Changmin, her words filtering in through the new album he put onto his phone the night before, muffled, like hearing children’s screams underwater at a public pool.
Changmin. The light is red, painting an unnatural flush over the left side of her face. Hey. Watches her hand reach for his headphones, lets her rip them off, her lips never stop moving.
The light goes green but her eyes are on his, reflecting neon street lights over him. “Are you even listening?”
sixteen days after:
Hey, it’s Yoona - and Changmin! We’re not here right now, so please leave us a message after the tone - and never bother us again. What the - beep.
The tapes are on the floor again, whiskey on the table, eyes closed, palms bathing the lids in complete darkness. He could rip the tape out of its reel, crack the plastic coverings, burn the tracklist, but it wouldn’t change anything because she’s there - when he closes his eyes, when he’s walking to the market with earbuds in his ears, when he’s listening to anything - because he finds her there in the crevices, between flats and sharps and harmonies,
because she’s everywhere.
three weeks before:
Her legs are crossed under their dining table, lips pressed together as she reads the newspaper. He notices the way she doesn’t look up when he walks into the kitchen, and somewhere in between the business and comics section, he notices she flicks her eyes over him, like he’s another piece of news to click her tongue at.
What he doesn’t notice is her fingers, clutching the paper so hard that Snoopy wrinkles, and her curled toes, either bracing for impact or trying to hold all the pieces together with two miniscule attempts of pressure.
now:
She is every song he listens to, phantom of the opera and every pop song on the radio all the same.
He is just another boy, another boy that everything didn’t work out with but another boy that she can’t bring herself to stop thinking about.
(they are still very much in love.)
the progression of still life subjects
706w; pg (jr/suzy)
paranoia, jieun teased when she told her about it, but suzy's not afraid.
a/n: not the jr/suzy fic i wanted to write, but it's here so whatever.
it is noon. unbeknownst to some, two people are in orbit around their lives, satellites rooted in mundane routines, directions encoded into their flesh, their bones, their genetic code. nothing but machinery.
this is a normal thursday. it is noon.
12:01 PM
he sits at a park bench, Tolstoy tucked under his right arm, leaves orange and red settling into the seat beside him, eyes tired, face numb, and looks up. the trees are skeletons, slight, bark black, sky frost blue. he feels kind of like those trees - bare and tired and waiting for spring - up and locked himself out of the apartment, forgot the keys but remembered the Tolstoy. it’s a curse, leans all the way back so his eyes are trained up, up towards the sky - frost blue through the spider webs of branches - though on who, he’s not so sure.
he tries to think about it.
her soul leaves through her fingertips. she thinks she loses a little bit more of it every time she showers, water lukewarm against her skin, when she walks out the bathroom door discovering the skin on her fingers feels pulled a little tighter over the bones, looks down and finds her fingertips corrugated with a few parallel lines. paranoia, jieun teased when she told her about it, but suzy’s not afraid. she stares at those lines now, hair dripping onto the tiles, wondering what if should the trepidation seize her?
contemplates for a moment. she feels nothing.
her hair keeps dripping.
1:36 PM
the wind starts up - the combination of the bustle in the city that stirred the air during lunch break whipping around the city. he has long let the Tolstoy fall onto the bench, face up, hands too cold to close the cover so the wind takes that too, rifling through the pages. the words swim, the wind engulfs, flips the page.
he wonders if she called. wouldn’t know. forgot the keys, forgot everything, but remembered the Tolstoy. keeps his eyes trained up, up towards the sky - frost blue through the spider webs of branches. warped priorities, he tries to laugh it off as.
his lips are numb.
the steam is waning, has been waning, will dissipate as the food grows cold, as he decides not to come home. she has moved from her seat at the dining table to lean against the wall near the light switches - too pathetic to just wait, staring at an empty seat. the distance from the scene clears her mind, makes it less tragic. sometimes she thinks it’s sad, other times she doesn’t think at all (she doesn’t know if it’s nonchalance or conditioning at this point). they hold on, hold out - isn’t that enough?
the wind rattles the windows. stares a little longer. the food has gone cold. just how long has she been standing there?
contemplates for a moment. she feels nothing.
she turns off the light.
2:45 PM
he feels frozen. they take walks at three. he flips the pages with stiff fingers.
maybe then she’ll find him.
she shrugs on her coat. they take walks at three. she looks at the clock.
today, she decides to walk alone.
3:03 PM
jinyoung? and she’s there, looking over him. her gaze shifts, taking in the book beside him, shadow crossing her face briefly before being carried away by the wind, and the wind blows, whistling through the skeletons of trees, rising up into the frost blue sky. he smiles as best as he can, face numb, taking a hand out of his pocket to reach for hers. she gives it easily, mittened, lukewarm like the cold is just getting to it.
suzy.
he kisses her, hands freezing against her cheeks, lips so cold she feels like she’s kissing death. contemplates a moment - she might be, symbolically. she presses closer to him and feels the warmth of his chest against her heart. the leaves crunch beneath her feet as she takes a step forward.
his lips are numb.
2:54 PM
frost blue through the spider webs of branches, bark black, bare and tired, waiting for spring, skeletons coming to life for the winter. they look up.
it’s beautiful, in a way.
unbeknownst to some, this a normal thursday.