slow spinning (redemption)
slow spinning (redemption)
taehyun/sulli
pg-15, 3301w
a/n: uhhh hi everyone I mean it's only been 1 year and 2 months since i've published anything but ayy. inspired by a prompt shida left on a ficathon 2 years ago lol. also on ao3
１月
They meet for the first time at an obscure party in an unremarkable flat in the middle of an inconspicuous neighbourhood. At least, they formally do. They really met a few years earlier where, through a crowd of flashily dressed people and confetti streaming from a ceiling as a host announced the end of another end of year idol extravaganza, f(x)’s Sulli happened to look right into his eyes and smiled before turning away.
She’s dressed more simply than he thought she would be, and he’s in his usual black. She smiles at him and he’s catapulted back to that moment in time, remembering the glimmer of the golden confetti fluttering in the air and getting caught in people’s hair. He remembers Seungyoon plucking a piece out of his own. Back then. Back when he was WINNER’s Taehyun and she was f(x)’s Sulli.
He sticks out a hand. “Hi. I’m Taehyun.” Just Taehyun.
She takes it. “I’m Jinri.” Just Jinri.
When their host comes looking for them to introduce them to the others, he finds them just standing there. Looking at each other with a knowing grin playing on their lips as if sharing a secret no one else in the room will ever know about.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Taehyun remarks as they lounge on the balcony overlooking a dark neighborhood. He’d excused himself saying he need a smoke but she followed him and now here they are; leaning against the metal railing on the balcony of an unremarkable flat in the middle of an inconspicuous neighbourhood, each with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. His, a can of beer. Hers, a glass of wine. Music thumps through the windows just behind them but it is only a muffled heartbeat in the frigid night.
“Had to have one every now and then,” she lifts her head and blows a long grey cloud into the frosty air. It hangs around for a second, a haze of impurity in an otherwise pristine night, then fades away. “Or else I’d lose it.” She turns to him and smiles again, that smile that he’s slowly beginning to associate with friend rather than sunbae. “Looks like you’re not such a good boy yourself.”
“The others weren’t that great either,” he replies. “Except maybe Jinwoo.” She laughs. He taps his cigarette against the railing and watches the ash fall into the dark beneath his feet.
“So is this the real you?”
He looks at her. “What?”
“The you who smokes and drinks and acts like a bad boy. Is this who you were from the start? Or is it the you they turned you into?”
“I… don’t get what you mean.” He looks out into the night. He knows exactly what she means.
“2 years since I left,” she says, and her voice feels like it’s coming from a distant place. She’s folded over the railing, resting her chin on the crook of one elbow. “And I’m still trying to convince myself that this is really me.” At the end of the arm, her wine glass dangles precariously in the air. Her other hand flicks the cigarette out of her fingers, and it sails down, down, down. She straightens and leaves him standing on the balcony, his own cigarette burning up between his fingers.
Taehyun takes a long, long inhale and releases it into the unknown.
He thinks she’s beautiful, funny, and just a touch crazy. He thinks he’s also good-looking, funny and just a touch crazy. Her, a former girl group member whose fall from grace was scrutinized, criticized and judged by just about everyone. Him, a former boy band member whose departure was announced out of the blue and then swept under the rug as if he never even existed. She wanted out. He wanted out. Same reason, different stories.
Same story, different reasons.
２月
"Tell me about a dream you've always had," Jinri whispers one night, lying on the couch with her head propped on one hand, the other absentmindedly scratching a large fluffy cat behind the ears.
Taehyun, lying on a mattress on the floor beside the couch with his arms behind his head, doesn't have to think twice. "I've always wanted to start a band," he breathes. It barely resonates around the room, passing over the heads of the others spread out around them, some on mattresses and some just passed out on the floor. The aftermath of the house party is hidden under the cover of the dark, but he can still smell the slightly rancid smell of alcohol in the air.
"A band," she muses. "That's so like you."
"Yeah?" He turns his head to look up at her. She's looking down at him with a strange gleaming tenderness behind her eyes. "Why do you say that?"
"Just a vibe I get." Her smile is close lipped but it sends a ripple of warmth through him all the same, spreading down to his fingers.
"Good thing you get that vibe then, because I've already pretty much found all the members for my band."
Her eyes widen. "No way!" He nods. Jinri pushes the cat away, and promptly rolls off the couch and lands on the mattress with a thump. He makes space for her as several people groan and turn over in their sleep. Jinri huddles closer to Taehyun, resting her head on his left arm, still curled up behind his head. Her hair tickles his skin and her smile is mischievous. "That’s amazing!” Her breath ghosts across his neck. He keeps his eyes fixated on the ceiling. “When do you debut?”
“We’re not sure yet… have to record some songs and stuff. You know how it goes.”
“Are you writing them?”
“Yeah.”
“Incredible!” she lowers her voice when someone mumbles something. “And you’ve always wanted to do this.”
“Well, yeah.”
“I'm glad to have met you, you know," she adds.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He can feel the intensity of her stare on his cheek. He pretends not to notice. "It's nice to be friends with someone who knows exactly who they are." He flushes, and hopes she can’t feel it. He turns his head slightly to look at her, and finds her smiling at him in the dark, her nose inches from his. Her head is still resting on his arm, but her body is curled up into herself, leaving a small gap between them. Close, but not too close. Touching, but not touching.
"I think you know who you are," he replies, slightly tongue tied. He's used to compliments on his singing, his appearance, his accomplishments. He's not used to someone praising, well, him.
She just smiles.
３月
It starts out innocently enough; house parties, personal film cameras flashing, cigarettes and empty beer cans. Fried chicken dinners in alleyways no one ever goes to. Falling asleep on each other’s couches when they’re too drunk to get home on their own. Sometimes if they’re in the right neighbourhood he walks her to her boyfriend’s house and goes home alone.
Then one day, when they’re in the right neighbourhood, she asks him if he wants to come over to her place instead. He doesn’t ask why, just remembers the copious amount of alcohol she had just downed in an unhealthy amount of time.
As soon as she closes the front door, Jinri catches the lapels of his jacket, pulls him down towards her in the middle of a pitch dark living room, and kisses him. It’s unexpected and yet totally expected, and Taehyun tastes cigarette smoke and peach flavoured soju. She stumbles slightly and he pulls her closer to steady her. She giggles giddily, one hand clutching his arm so tight he can feel her nails digging into his skin through his jacket.
“I’ve always wanted to kiss boys my age,” she whispers against his cheek, and the moment shatters into a million little shards around them. “But somehow I could never really fall in love with them.” And she walks towards her bedroom and closes the door.
Taehyun isn’t really in love with her either. That much of himself he is still sure about.
４月
“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” he tells her one night, “but it looks like we’re going to be debuting pretty soon. Next month, in fact.” They’re at his place, the remains of delivery fried chicken strewn around the table. He takes a swig of beer, lights up a cigarette. He offers one to her. She takes it.
“Congratulations!” She gets up and wraps her arms around him. He holds the cigarette away so he doesn’t burn her, and inhales the fruity scent of her shampoo. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” she slides a hand through his hair and smiles fondly. “I thought you were just playing on your bad boy image because that’s what you were known for but you stuck to your roots. I really admire that.” Taehyun’s arm still hangs loosely around her waist, and he discreetly removes it.
“You know this means we won’t be able to hang out as much anymore, right?” he asks carefully.
She drags her chair over and sits down. “Of course we will. I’ll come to all your gigs. And I’ll do your makeup! It’ll be like working again except I get to play cordi nuna!”
He looks at her. “Jinri.”
She folds her legs under her on the chair. “Taehyun.”
“You know - ”
She nods. “I know.”
He scoffs, take a drag of his cigarette. She never finishes a full one, he noticed quite some time ago. Usually just a couple of puffs, all the while looking completely out of place, and then she tosses it away or leaves it burning in the tray. As if she only takes it to prove that she’s not a wholesome teen idol anymore, but she can’t quite leave it behind her.
“… so let me know if you need me to do your makeup or whatever,” she’s saying, and he pulls his eyes away from her abandoned cigarette to her face.
“Even in the middle of the night when my makeup artist cancels on me and I have to be on stage in 15 minutes?” He draws his knees up to his chest and grins.
“I’ll come running,” she promises. “You can count on me.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he says, and snuffs out his cigarette.
５月
He has enough photos to be able to dedicate a whole show to her. Sitting at his tiny kitchen table, cigarette spiraling blue smoke towards the dim ceiling light, he spreads out each glossy memory and takes a good look at her.
There, Jinri; staring straight at the camera, head tilted to one side and a provocative tilt on her lips. Bold red lipstick. There, heavy lidded and pink cheeked, her top sliding off one shoulder, exposing a white collarbone. There, Curled on the sofa with a suggestive look in her eyes, one hand outstretched towards him as if to pull him into the photo towards her.
And here, Jinri; laughing unabashedly as she talks to someone just beyond the frame of the picture. Here, surprise in her face when she turns to find him standing there. Here, glee in her eyes as she tries to snatch the camera away from him. She did in the end, he remembers. Raised it to her eye and took a snap of him for a change.
She’s taken enough photos of him in secret too. He always finds them in the prints he gets back with his negatives. Here and there, his own face among others he is more familiar with. His face always takes him by surprise. It used to then, and it still does now. He takes the stack and lines it up on the side of the table, beside Jinri’s.
He recognizes the way his cigarettes always hang loose between his fingers. The head tilt and intense look perfected from years of training and photoshoots and being told that he could probably be a high fashion model. He’s seen it all a thousand times before, in studios and waiting rooms and brightly lit mirrors.
He doesn’t recognize his smile. How he looks when he’s caught off guard. How he looks when he laughs at a joke he genuinely found funny and wasn’t faking for the cameras. But he finds himself easier to look at when it’s through her eyes.
He draws invisible lines between their photos, connecting them. Two different people living the same parallel lives. Wanting to live in the future but unable to let go of the past. In this instance, an idol. In the same instance, just a normal human being. But all still Jinri. All still Taehyun.
He used to be so sure of himself. Now, as he stares at Jinri’s beguiling stare in one photo and the way her eyes squeeze shut when she laughs in another, he isn’t so sure anymore.
６月
“You know, they always used to dress me in skirts,” she says one night. They’re at a party and the host asked his band to perform. Jinri volunteers to do his makeup. Her touch is feather light against his skin as she carefully draws his eyeliner and her long, freshly permed hair tickles his knees every time she tilts her head to get a better angle.
“Hmm?” he manages, because he doesn’t want to move too much.
“Back then. I wasn’t even the youngest. Soojung was. But I was the bubbly little brat who always had to look cute, so they put me in flouncy skirts and hairstyles meant for children and that was my job.” She gestures for him to look down and he lowers his eyes.
“You started training really young didn’t you?” he asks his knees.
She blows lightly on his eyelids to dry the eyeliner. “Yeah. Sold my soul as a child for fame and fortune. The thing is that I did actually like wearing skirts. I still do. But I really hated looking like a toddler.”
“Is that why you’re behaving like this now?”
She pauses. Chucks his chin up so his eyes meet hers. “Like what?”
“All reckless and provocative. You didn’t get to experience any of that when we were teenagers, did you? So now you’re behaving like this to get back at them. You’re trying to tell them that this is who you really are. But it’s not is it?”
Her fingers are still rounding his jaw. “This is me.”
“No,” he says. “This isn’t the real you. This is the you you want to be, the you you wish you could have been. But it’s not. The real you is still that wholesome little girl, dreaming of fame and fortune. Who you are now is just somebody trying to convince everybody else that you’ve always been this way. And that’s a lie.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispers low. Dangerous. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know you,” he grabs her hand when she retracts it and straightens up to leave. “I’ve seen you when the cameras aren’t on you. I’m seeing you right here, right now. This is your game, but you’re still playing to their rules. Stop lying to yourself, Jinri. Just be you.”
She stares, curls falling wildly around her shoulders. Then she breaks out into a wide grin, soft and warm and just… Jinri. He’s always tried capturing this smile in a photo. He’s never been able to manage it. “Are you trying to make me fall in love with you?” she asks, squatting back down on the floor. Her wrist twists around in his hand, ends with her pressing her fingers against his.
“No,” he says. It’s the truth.
“I was away from my parents and around other kids for so long that I just always needed older people around to keep me sane,” she whispers. “That’s why I like older guys. That’s why I could keep up the childish act for so long. Because in the end, I’m still a little kid on the inside, just like you said. But I’m trying to grow up now. Don’t people change when they grow up?”
“Don’t think of it as a change,” he slides his fingers between hers and holds on tight. “Think of it as upgrading what you already have.”
She looks down at their hands and laughs. “That’s cute.” Getting to her feet, she leans in so close that Taehyun thinks she might kiss him just like she did all those months ago. He doesn’t know if he’ll resist her when she does. But she doesn’t. Instead, she presses her cheek to his and whispers, close to his ear: “Tell you what. When I find myself, I’ll fall in love with you. Okay?”
“Taehyun, you ready yet?” comes a voice from the door. Jinri straightens and smiles down at him. She doesn’t stay to hear his answer.
He looks at himself in the mirror and puts on his best, most well practiced stage smile. He hates how familiar it looks to him.
Later that night, the host sends him a photo someone snapped of Jinri bent over him, fingers fluttering over his eyelid, the utmost concentration in the curve of her eyebrows.
He posts it on Instagram. He doesn’t have to think twice about the caption.
I’m counting on you.
Not even a minute later, she likes it. He stares up at the ceiling of his room, then deletes the post. It’s enough.
７月
“Thought I’d find you here,” says a voice behind him, and Jinri appears on his right. She leans against the balcony railing in the same way she did the first night they formally met. The only exceptions being that she’s holding a can of cider in one hand, and is dressed quite daintily in a short, thin floral dress. Taehyun silently offers her the cigarette he was just about to light up. She declines. He tucks it behind his ear. He can't hide the relief threatening to burst out of his chest.
“Long time no see,” he clinks his bottle against hers and raises it to his lips. “How’s the boyfie? I mean… the man.”
“We broke up,” she stares out at the streetlights below them. “He acted a lot older than I thought he would. It was tiring.”
“I’m sorry,” he squeezes her shoulder sympathetically. “But hey, are you sure it isn’t because you’ve fallen in love with me?” he jokes.
She looks at him over her shoulder. Her hair is gathered over the other, and falls behind her face in a long, dark waterfall. The look she gives him is like one he’s seen dozens of times, immortalized in the photos of her he keeps in bound stacks in a box, but completely different. Less seductive, more thoughtful. There’s still that playful tilt to the corner of her lips but there’s a quiet maturity behind her eyes. It quietens him for a second. He’s suddenly aware that the person standing in front of him really is Jinri. Just. Jinri.
“Sorry, I still haven’t fallen in love with you yet,” she leans into him and flicks her finger against his cheek. Her smile is megawatt dazzling. “But you’re still counting on me, aren’t you?”
He grins back. “Always.”
Jinri laughs, folding herself over the balcony railing. She looks up at him from upside down, streetlights outlining her hair in a glowing orange haze. Behind them the music thumps through the windows, swallowed up into the balmy night. “When I do,” she unfolds herself and tosses her hair back, strands of it sticking to her forehead and neck with sweat, “I’ll come running.”
He believes it.
taehyun/sulli
pg-15, 3301w
a/n: uhhh hi everyone I mean it's only been 1 year and 2 months since i've published anything but ayy. inspired by a prompt shida left on a ficathon 2 years ago lol. also on ao3
１月
They meet for the first time at an obscure party in an unremarkable flat in the middle of an inconspicuous neighbourhood. At least, they formally do. They really met a few years earlier where, through a crowd of flashily dressed people and confetti streaming from a ceiling as a host announced the end of another end of year idol extravaganza, f(x)’s Sulli happened to look right into his eyes and smiled before turning away.
She’s dressed more simply than he thought she would be, and he’s in his usual black. She smiles at him and he’s catapulted back to that moment in time, remembering the glimmer of the golden confetti fluttering in the air and getting caught in people’s hair. He remembers Seungyoon plucking a piece out of his own. Back then. Back when he was WINNER’s Taehyun and she was f(x)’s Sulli.
He sticks out a hand. “Hi. I’m Taehyun.” Just Taehyun.
She takes it. “I’m Jinri.” Just Jinri.
When their host comes looking for them to introduce them to the others, he finds them just standing there. Looking at each other with a knowing grin playing on their lips as if sharing a secret no one else in the room will ever know about.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Taehyun remarks as they lounge on the balcony overlooking a dark neighborhood. He’d excused himself saying he need a smoke but she followed him and now here they are; leaning against the metal railing on the balcony of an unremarkable flat in the middle of an inconspicuous neighbourhood, each with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. His, a can of beer. Hers, a glass of wine. Music thumps through the windows just behind them but it is only a muffled heartbeat in the frigid night.
“Had to have one every now and then,” she lifts her head and blows a long grey cloud into the frosty air. It hangs around for a second, a haze of impurity in an otherwise pristine night, then fades away. “Or else I’d lose it.” She turns to him and smiles again, that smile that he’s slowly beginning to associate with friend rather than sunbae. “Looks like you’re not such a good boy yourself.”
“The others weren’t that great either,” he replies. “Except maybe Jinwoo.” She laughs. He taps his cigarette against the railing and watches the ash fall into the dark beneath his feet.
“So is this the real you?”
He looks at her. “What?”
“The you who smokes and drinks and acts like a bad boy. Is this who you were from the start? Or is it the you they turned you into?”
“I… don’t get what you mean.” He looks out into the night. He knows exactly what she means.
“2 years since I left,” she says, and her voice feels like it’s coming from a distant place. She’s folded over the railing, resting her chin on the crook of one elbow. “And I’m still trying to convince myself that this is really me.” At the end of the arm, her wine glass dangles precariously in the air. Her other hand flicks the cigarette out of her fingers, and it sails down, down, down. She straightens and leaves him standing on the balcony, his own cigarette burning up between his fingers.
Taehyun takes a long, long inhale and releases it into the unknown.
He thinks she’s beautiful, funny, and just a touch crazy. He thinks he’s also good-looking, funny and just a touch crazy. Her, a former girl group member whose fall from grace was scrutinized, criticized and judged by just about everyone. Him, a former boy band member whose departure was announced out of the blue and then swept under the rug as if he never even existed. She wanted out. He wanted out. Same reason, different stories.
Same story, different reasons.
２月
"Tell me about a dream you've always had," Jinri whispers one night, lying on the couch with her head propped on one hand, the other absentmindedly scratching a large fluffy cat behind the ears.
Taehyun, lying on a mattress on the floor beside the couch with his arms behind his head, doesn't have to think twice. "I've always wanted to start a band," he breathes. It barely resonates around the room, passing over the heads of the others spread out around them, some on mattresses and some just passed out on the floor. The aftermath of the house party is hidden under the cover of the dark, but he can still smell the slightly rancid smell of alcohol in the air.
"A band," she muses. "That's so like you."
"Yeah?" He turns his head to look up at her. She's looking down at him with a strange gleaming tenderness behind her eyes. "Why do you say that?"
"Just a vibe I get." Her smile is close lipped but it sends a ripple of warmth through him all the same, spreading down to his fingers.
"Good thing you get that vibe then, because I've already pretty much found all the members for my band."
Her eyes widen. "No way!" He nods. Jinri pushes the cat away, and promptly rolls off the couch and lands on the mattress with a thump. He makes space for her as several people groan and turn over in their sleep. Jinri huddles closer to Taehyun, resting her head on his left arm, still curled up behind his head. Her hair tickles his skin and her smile is mischievous. "That’s amazing!” Her breath ghosts across his neck. He keeps his eyes fixated on the ceiling. “When do you debut?”
“We’re not sure yet… have to record some songs and stuff. You know how it goes.”
“Are you writing them?”
“Yeah.”
“Incredible!” she lowers her voice when someone mumbles something. “And you’ve always wanted to do this.”
“Well, yeah.”
“I'm glad to have met you, you know," she adds.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He can feel the intensity of her stare on his cheek. He pretends not to notice. "It's nice to be friends with someone who knows exactly who they are." He flushes, and hopes she can’t feel it. He turns his head slightly to look at her, and finds her smiling at him in the dark, her nose inches from his. Her head is still resting on his arm, but her body is curled up into herself, leaving a small gap between them. Close, but not too close. Touching, but not touching.
"I think you know who you are," he replies, slightly tongue tied. He's used to compliments on his singing, his appearance, his accomplishments. He's not used to someone praising, well, him.
She just smiles.
３月
It starts out innocently enough; house parties, personal film cameras flashing, cigarettes and empty beer cans. Fried chicken dinners in alleyways no one ever goes to. Falling asleep on each other’s couches when they’re too drunk to get home on their own. Sometimes if they’re in the right neighbourhood he walks her to her boyfriend’s house and goes home alone.
Then one day, when they’re in the right neighbourhood, she asks him if he wants to come over to her place instead. He doesn’t ask why, just remembers the copious amount of alcohol she had just downed in an unhealthy amount of time.
As soon as she closes the front door, Jinri catches the lapels of his jacket, pulls him down towards her in the middle of a pitch dark living room, and kisses him. It’s unexpected and yet totally expected, and Taehyun tastes cigarette smoke and peach flavoured soju. She stumbles slightly and he pulls her closer to steady her. She giggles giddily, one hand clutching his arm so tight he can feel her nails digging into his skin through his jacket.
“I’ve always wanted to kiss boys my age,” she whispers against his cheek, and the moment shatters into a million little shards around them. “But somehow I could never really fall in love with them.” And she walks towards her bedroom and closes the door.
Taehyun isn’t really in love with her either. That much of himself he is still sure about.
４月
“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” he tells her one night, “but it looks like we’re going to be debuting pretty soon. Next month, in fact.” They’re at his place, the remains of delivery fried chicken strewn around the table. He takes a swig of beer, lights up a cigarette. He offers one to her. She takes it.
“Congratulations!” She gets up and wraps her arms around him. He holds the cigarette away so he doesn’t burn her, and inhales the fruity scent of her shampoo. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” she slides a hand through his hair and smiles fondly. “I thought you were just playing on your bad boy image because that’s what you were known for but you stuck to your roots. I really admire that.” Taehyun’s arm still hangs loosely around her waist, and he discreetly removes it.
“You know this means we won’t be able to hang out as much anymore, right?” he asks carefully.
She drags her chair over and sits down. “Of course we will. I’ll come to all your gigs. And I’ll do your makeup! It’ll be like working again except I get to play cordi nuna!”
He looks at her. “Jinri.”
She folds her legs under her on the chair. “Taehyun.”
“You know - ”
She nods. “I know.”
He scoffs, take a drag of his cigarette. She never finishes a full one, he noticed quite some time ago. Usually just a couple of puffs, all the while looking completely out of place, and then she tosses it away or leaves it burning in the tray. As if she only takes it to prove that she’s not a wholesome teen idol anymore, but she can’t quite leave it behind her.
“… so let me know if you need me to do your makeup or whatever,” she’s saying, and he pulls his eyes away from her abandoned cigarette to her face.
“Even in the middle of the night when my makeup artist cancels on me and I have to be on stage in 15 minutes?” He draws his knees up to his chest and grins.
“I’ll come running,” she promises. “You can count on me.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he says, and snuffs out his cigarette.
５月
He has enough photos to be able to dedicate a whole show to her. Sitting at his tiny kitchen table, cigarette spiraling blue smoke towards the dim ceiling light, he spreads out each glossy memory and takes a good look at her.
There, Jinri; staring straight at the camera, head tilted to one side and a provocative tilt on her lips. Bold red lipstick. There, heavy lidded and pink cheeked, her top sliding off one shoulder, exposing a white collarbone. There, Curled on the sofa with a suggestive look in her eyes, one hand outstretched towards him as if to pull him into the photo towards her.
And here, Jinri; laughing unabashedly as she talks to someone just beyond the frame of the picture. Here, surprise in her face when she turns to find him standing there. Here, glee in her eyes as she tries to snatch the camera away from him. She did in the end, he remembers. Raised it to her eye and took a snap of him for a change.
She’s taken enough photos of him in secret too. He always finds them in the prints he gets back with his negatives. Here and there, his own face among others he is more familiar with. His face always takes him by surprise. It used to then, and it still does now. He takes the stack and lines it up on the side of the table, beside Jinri’s.
He recognizes the way his cigarettes always hang loose between his fingers. The head tilt and intense look perfected from years of training and photoshoots and being told that he could probably be a high fashion model. He’s seen it all a thousand times before, in studios and waiting rooms and brightly lit mirrors.
He doesn’t recognize his smile. How he looks when he’s caught off guard. How he looks when he laughs at a joke he genuinely found funny and wasn’t faking for the cameras. But he finds himself easier to look at when it’s through her eyes.
He draws invisible lines between their photos, connecting them. Two different people living the same parallel lives. Wanting to live in the future but unable to let go of the past. In this instance, an idol. In the same instance, just a normal human being. But all still Jinri. All still Taehyun.
He used to be so sure of himself. Now, as he stares at Jinri’s beguiling stare in one photo and the way her eyes squeeze shut when she laughs in another, he isn’t so sure anymore.
６月
“You know, they always used to dress me in skirts,” she says one night. They’re at a party and the host asked his band to perform. Jinri volunteers to do his makeup. Her touch is feather light against his skin as she carefully draws his eyeliner and her long, freshly permed hair tickles his knees every time she tilts her head to get a better angle.
“Hmm?” he manages, because he doesn’t want to move too much.
“Back then. I wasn’t even the youngest. Soojung was. But I was the bubbly little brat who always had to look cute, so they put me in flouncy skirts and hairstyles meant for children and that was my job.” She gestures for him to look down and he lowers his eyes.
“You started training really young didn’t you?” he asks his knees.
She blows lightly on his eyelids to dry the eyeliner. “Yeah. Sold my soul as a child for fame and fortune. The thing is that I did actually like wearing skirts. I still do. But I really hated looking like a toddler.”
“Is that why you’re behaving like this now?”
She pauses. Chucks his chin up so his eyes meet hers. “Like what?”
“All reckless and provocative. You didn’t get to experience any of that when we were teenagers, did you? So now you’re behaving like this to get back at them. You’re trying to tell them that this is who you really are. But it’s not is it?”
Her fingers are still rounding his jaw. “This is me.”
“No,” he says. “This isn’t the real you. This is the you you want to be, the you you wish you could have been. But it’s not. The real you is still that wholesome little girl, dreaming of fame and fortune. Who you are now is just somebody trying to convince everybody else that you’ve always been this way. And that’s a lie.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispers low. Dangerous. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know you,” he grabs her hand when she retracts it and straightens up to leave. “I’ve seen you when the cameras aren’t on you. I’m seeing you right here, right now. This is your game, but you’re still playing to their rules. Stop lying to yourself, Jinri. Just be you.”
She stares, curls falling wildly around her shoulders. Then she breaks out into a wide grin, soft and warm and just… Jinri. He’s always tried capturing this smile in a photo. He’s never been able to manage it. “Are you trying to make me fall in love with you?” she asks, squatting back down on the floor. Her wrist twists around in his hand, ends with her pressing her fingers against his.
“No,” he says. It’s the truth.
“I was away from my parents and around other kids for so long that I just always needed older people around to keep me sane,” she whispers. “That’s why I like older guys. That’s why I could keep up the childish act for so long. Because in the end, I’m still a little kid on the inside, just like you said. But I’m trying to grow up now. Don’t people change when they grow up?”
“Don’t think of it as a change,” he slides his fingers between hers and holds on tight. “Think of it as upgrading what you already have.”
She looks down at their hands and laughs. “That’s cute.” Getting to her feet, she leans in so close that Taehyun thinks she might kiss him just like she did all those months ago. He doesn’t know if he’ll resist her when she does. But she doesn’t. Instead, she presses her cheek to his and whispers, close to his ear: “Tell you what. When I find myself, I’ll fall in love with you. Okay?”
“Taehyun, you ready yet?” comes a voice from the door. Jinri straightens and smiles down at him. She doesn’t stay to hear his answer.
He looks at himself in the mirror and puts on his best, most well practiced stage smile. He hates how familiar it looks to him.
Later that night, the host sends him a photo someone snapped of Jinri bent over him, fingers fluttering over his eyelid, the utmost concentration in the curve of her eyebrows.
He posts it on Instagram. He doesn’t have to think twice about the caption.
I’m counting on you.
Not even a minute later, she likes it. He stares up at the ceiling of his room, then deletes the post. It’s enough.
７月
“Thought I’d find you here,” says a voice behind him, and Jinri appears on his right. She leans against the balcony railing in the same way she did the first night they formally met. The only exceptions being that she’s holding a can of cider in one hand, and is dressed quite daintily in a short, thin floral dress. Taehyun silently offers her the cigarette he was just about to light up. She declines. He tucks it behind his ear. He can't hide the relief threatening to burst out of his chest.
“Long time no see,” he clinks his bottle against hers and raises it to his lips. “How’s the boyfie? I mean… the man.”
“We broke up,” she stares out at the streetlights below them. “He acted a lot older than I thought he would. It was tiring.”
“I’m sorry,” he squeezes her shoulder sympathetically. “But hey, are you sure it isn’t because you’ve fallen in love with me?” he jokes.
She looks at him over her shoulder. Her hair is gathered over the other, and falls behind her face in a long, dark waterfall. The look she gives him is like one he’s seen dozens of times, immortalized in the photos of her he keeps in bound stacks in a box, but completely different. Less seductive, more thoughtful. There’s still that playful tilt to the corner of her lips but there’s a quiet maturity behind her eyes. It quietens him for a second. He’s suddenly aware that the person standing in front of him really is Jinri. Just. Jinri.
“Sorry, I still haven’t fallen in love with you yet,” she leans into him and flicks her finger against his cheek. Her smile is megawatt dazzling. “But you’re still counting on me, aren’t you?”
He grins back. “Always.”
Jinri laughs, folding herself over the balcony railing. She looks up at him from upside down, streetlights outlining her hair in a glowing orange haze. Behind them the music thumps through the windows, swallowed up into the balmy night. “When I do,” she unfolds herself and tosses her hair back, strands of it sticking to her forehead and neck with sweat, “I’ll come running.”
He believes it.