the ballad of a fool
the ballad of a fool
~ 5,035 w, pg-13, (exo-k/fx - kai/krystal/baekhyun)
In between coke and rock, Jong In has an epiphany, a real eye opener too.
■ this is a late 60s, early 70s music scene inspired AU! fic (I've been listening to too much Bob Dylan)
■ since it's inspired by my fave music period, obvly there's going to be a soundtrack!
■ my first exo fic ever, please be nice and criticism about my writing of their personalities would be greatly appreciated
■ baekhyun/krystal anyone? I swear I'm the only who ships them
■ MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE IN ADVANCE! /mwah
VERSE #1
It takes half an hour to get indoors, there’s screaming fan girls on hands and knees for one single smile, there’s cameras flashing, there’s the glitz and glam of the life style.
Then there’s him - in the crowd, crushed between a two hundred pounds body guard and the gates that keep the desperate adolescent girls from ripping their clothes to shreds and trampling over them in the process.
Kim Jong In, just a fragment of the millions out there.
What a wonderful thought - a vivid image on him sitting in a shrunk office stall, reading over documents he can’t comprehend and making copies of it comes into mind. A simple, boring life that would be, he thinks to himself, all frowns.
“Kid, get moving,” the body guard mutters, clearly agitated.
He hesitantly meets the eyes of a beast, rather than a man and gave a small but firm nod, stumbling along the never ending line of other ‘nobodies’.
Jong In feels out of place, it’s almost as if someone had put him in the real world.
-
He watches the cracks on the ceiling like they’re fascinating and listens to the warm up routines being done from the other side of the wall. His hand reached for the small piece of neatly folded paper hidden away in his pocket with the marker that comes with it but retreated and fidget some more. Another try? No success. Jong In gives up once and for all and starts reading the graffiti on the wall instead.
Ten minutes pass and Jong In realizes there’s nothing to be anxious about, no one around here can see him, they act the part anyway.
“What are you doing?”
He hears the unpleasant sound long before he sees the pleasant source.
The first thing he sees are a pair of legs covered with ripped fishnet, then the faded denim shorts and the rolling stone shirt, followed by her pale face, hollowed cheeks and pouty red lips. Her eyes are a shade lighter than the coals covering her eye lids which are also the same shade as her pin straight hair.
She’s pretty, Jong In thinks as she gets closer in sight.
“Look now, pal,” her choice of words isn’t calm but her voice is. “Times are rough, we don’t have a penny to spare around this joint, do some work or you’re back on the road with rest of them slackers.”
Jong In frowns at her, “You’re tough talking for a girl, aren’t you?”
“That’s what my sis told me and I’m here while she’s still at home, baking potato cakes,” she says, a small triumphant smirk to match her triumphant statement, “Now quit blabbing and go carry those amps up on stage.”
As she rushes off, he almost expected her to turn around and snaps at him again. She didn’t though, it disappointed him a little, he doesn’t exactly know why. Jong In only knows he wants to keep talking to her.
“Who are you again? Miss Bossy?”
She doesn’t even give him a glance, doesn’t bother to pause on her track and keeps on charging to wherever she was heading to.
“I can be whoever you want to be, pal,” she yells back, tone icy but amused. “You want Miss Bossy? That I can do too.”
PRE-CHORUS #1
The concert went by smoothly - the band sounded sober, no fans made it onto stage, the critics don’t look too critical and the fireworks didn’t melt some one’s face. He still doesn’t know what he’s doing but then again, he doesn’t think anyone cares whether he’s doing something at all. Did they forget that they hired the kid that worked at the guitar store downtown? Or did they hire him to wander around and admire the choice of lightings being used on stage? What a waste of space, he’s becoming.
Some bald guy in his late fifties managed to whistle loud enough to shut everyone up, “After party, come along if you want, that’s all.”
Then he’s off with his clip board, all foul and grumpy.
“Standing there, looking hip, won’t get you to that party, buddy.”
“I know”
The guy cocked an eyebrow, “Get moving?”
“Do I have to go to the party or something?” he asked coolly.
“You don’t want to stay cooked up in here alone, live life, man, don’t let life live you,” Jong In could almost see the gleam of excitement in his eyes. “There’s drinking and they’re going to call in some girls too, sounding better, huh?”
He stiffens at ‘drinking’, then all there was in his mind was a long list of whiskey and vodka.
“Sounding a lot better”
-
By the time they get there, the front man of the celebrated band was partying like Mick Jagger, half on and off the couch, covered in his own spew but apparently, that’s all normal around this place. They left him there, rolled him around a little to make sure he doesn’t choke and they don’t lose a voice for the next tour.
“Sit, young one, sit.”
During the ten minutes’ walk to the drummer’s flat, Jong In learn a few things. The overenthusiastic, large living, wild party animal, fresh from college dude has a name, it’s Baekhyun. He’s been in it for a while now, a year at least and he doesn’t find being unacknowledged on the first day as an essential to a future career in this industry, Jong In would disagree. You just need to chill, man, he’d say and slap him on the back, hard to the point where he feels a twinge of pain.
“This chair you’re sitting on,” he points at the yellow armchair as if it isn’t obvious at all. “On this exact same chair, I got my first blowjob.”
Jong In gulps, regret picking the yellow over the red.
Baekhyun starts to laugh, his arms flapping around, rocking himself as he speaks between desperate gasps for oxygen, “Just kidding, bro! Your face made my evening, I swear!”
“Ok, now, getting down to business,” he clears his throat, fanning out his finger tips and pressing them together, looking pensive as his eyes darted around the room, searching for something, “See that?”
Jong In followed his line of vision; it leads him to the ever grand and outstanding that - a familiar figure with jet black hair and a baggy t-shirt.
“All you need to know about that feisty little thing is not to look at her, not to touch her, not even breath a word to her and you’d be fine,” Baekhyun says sternly, serious for the first time of the night.
“Why not?”
“That, right there, my friend, is Jung Krystal and she’ about to get her very own record deal.”
CHORUS #1
Her dress shines green-yellow in the moon light. She’s swaying her hips to ‘Leopard-skin Pillbox Hat’ and he’s in awe with how she can make such a hateful song into something so provocative, so arousing, so captivating. Jong In picks a spot, somewhere he could enjoy the show without being caught - that somewhere is behind an ice box on the trunk of the truck.
He untwists the cap, brings the whiskey to his lips, sigh. It’s his last bottle and he’s got less than a quarter left. To survive the night, he’ll need to be drunk and right now, the images he’s seeing aren’t even altered, there’s not enough Krystal for a threesome and Bob Dylan still sounds like death calling to him.
The amber liquid drains down his throat too quickly, the bottle is without any trace by the time he let out another sigh. Jong In rises with a groan and gingerly rambles through the ice box for any type of alcohol.
“Get me a beer.”
He smells ash and daisies and decides to turn around.
She raises an imperious eyebrow. “I said beer, not leer.”
Krystal’s soaked from head to toe, strands of hair stuck to her face, her eyes gleaming moonlight and she looks happy, smiling. He suddenly regretting the couple of minutes he spent in the dream land and leaving reality behind.
“Uh…of course, hold on for a sec,” he says dumbly, “I actually need to get some for myself too, you know? You sure you want beer by the way, we have vodka here, even bo -“
He sees the blood red on her nails when she presses a finger to his lip, her very own way of saying shut up, “You’re blabbering, just get the can next to that bottle of vodka you’re so fond of.”
Jong In keeps his eyes lock on hers, afraid that this moment was going to slip away from him if he looks away even for a fragment of a second. Krystal levels him with a dark glare, lips crest fallen and forehead creases, impatient. He easily scoop the can out of the box, his hands and fingers numb from ice as he hands it to her. The melted ice works as a cooler when they touch. Jong In watches as she gasps, her eyes wandering to their near fleeting hands, wondering if she feels the heat of their skins or the cold of the ice.
The night is dark, he can’t see much but the look in her eyes was unmissable, it was the same as his.
“You can go back in door now, pal,” she says quietly, her stare moving to the can, “Only musicians and special privileged staffs are allowed out here.”
She's so small that Jong In doesn't realize her silhouette isn't part of the skyline until she's far, far off from where he is.
-
Jong In complains to himself but anticipated it when someone wakes him up with instruction to clean up the flat.
The lifeless looking bodies occupy all the space there is, he never learns his lesson and trips over them numerous of time, the alcohol and lack of sleep impairing the ability for his eyes and legs to work together.
He opens the door, letting the morning air in and the smell of last night’s mess out. The place resembles a tragic accident, known as the forever fucked flat that will cost at least twice the amount of the original price to restore. Seems like wasted money to him but everyone knows they live to spend, they’re super stars after all.
When a Pepsi can hit the back of Jong In’s head, he doesn’t even feel it, he hears it drop to the floor, bent in the middle and see the liquid ooze out of it.
“Morning greetings to my favourite man,” the voice was sunshine to the ears, all bright and overenthusiastic. “Are you also a fellow early riser?”
It was Baekhyun, not that it surprise him.
“Nah,” Jong In replies with nonchalant shake of the head. “Some guy woke me up, told me to clean up.”
Baekhyun crouches down next to a random drunk girl, poking her on the rib and watches her stir, he says, “Hey, congrats, bro, someone knows your existence, problem solved.”
Jong In chuckles bitterly, “For the wrong reasons.”
He stood back up with a small groan, match box and a cig fished out of the girl’s clutch and now in his possession. Baekhyun lit one without any difficulty, handing Jong In the burnt match with a secret smile that says - I’m helping, aren’t I?
“When the boho chic wakes up,” he whispers, the smokes getting in Jong In’s eyes, “Do me a favour and don’t mention my name.”
“Sure”
“Smoke?”
Jong In tosses two cans of pabst blue ribbons the garage bag he picked up earlier on and says, “Grand dad died from cancer, don’t want to repeat the history.”
“You should, bro,” he murmurs between drags, “Give you a rock star image - you don’t smoke, you’re not considered cool.”
He expresses his disagreement in Baekhyun’s statement, “It’s about the music, if that’s good, all else doesn’t matter.”
“I smoke a lot,” Baekhyun says with a dreamy expression on his face, ignoring what he said completely. “That makes me cooler than John Lennon and Jesus put together.”
A slight smile crosses the younger man's face. “Yeah, you’re pretty cool.”
VERSE #2
He gets to the place an hour or so later than everyone else. Despite that he’s one of the only few that are here. It’s a hotel this time, one of those glamorous, overdramatic with a snobby age and celebrity reference written on a golden plate on the entrance of the place. You walk in and smell detergent and heavy perfume and know it’s that kind of the place for the rich. He sees teenage girls scratching at door of the assembly hall, Jong In makes assumption that the seats will be filled with underage girls and their deafening screams.
Krystal’s sitting on the stage this time, her feet swinging off the edge, stringing up a guitar and humming a tune to herself. Jong In doesn’t think she notices his appearance in the room and sat down on one of the seats in the audience.
She starts to sing at some point, the guitar riffs are sad but her voice is sadder. It’s a topic he’d never expect her to experience - a girl who lost her man, she’s reflecting over it by going over her ‘souvenirs’ and remembering all those memories they shared then go through raw pain because of it. Jong In can’t decide what’s worse - the song itself or her singing it.
“Why the face?” her voice echoes but she’s not looking at him. “I think I sing pretty well.”
He smiles a little, “Uh…yeah, yeah, you sing really well actually, play pretty well too.”
She looks directly at him this time, her eyes burning into his, “Then why are you giving me that look?”
“I guess I don’t expect you to sing such a song,” he pauses, “No offense or anything.”
“Well, pal,” she says, hopping off stage, “Everyone goes through the blues, I’m feeling it more than usual this morning so that’s all you’re going to get from me today.”
“Sing another?”
Her smile is absolutely radiant, “Even I don’t play for free, pal, wait till tonight.”
PRE-CHORUS #2
There’s a blonde guy, goes by the name of Sehun. He’s unaffected; don’t enjoy moving his mouth unless it’s opening up for bourbon and his eyes are worse than glacier. Jong In has learnt from the past five hours of lifting heavy weights with Sehun that despite his lack of opinions and social skill, he’s a nice fellow with a smile that reflects his inner lenient self (even if he barely flash those pearly whites).
The sound of heels clicking could be heard from miles away. Jong In finds it alarming that he recognizes the pattern of that strut. She never wear heels though, it’s always a pair of chucks or trainers.
“Hey, Sehun”, she greets the blonde with a polite smile and he did too in return.
“Krystal,” he gives a saluting nod, “Looking good for tonight’s show”
Jong In notices her glance directed at him, even though she thinks he didn’t spot it, “Thanks, can we run through I Want Someone Badly in fifteen?”
There’s a glint in Sehun’s eyes as he looks at Krystal, like she’s some kind of wondrous creature, a goddess, “Anything you want, you got it, sweetheart.”
She doesn’t say anything, only smile and nod then walks off with her guitar and studded heels.
“Mesmerizing, isn’t she?” Sehun finally says, taking another swig of his bourbon before pouring some in Jong In’s plastic cup.
He ponders over his answer, deciding he might as well be honest to them both, “Yeah, she really is.”
“You think she ever been in love before?”
Jong In is in desperate hope what he’s about to say isn’t a fact but merely just another assumption he makes, “I think so, she’s always got that repressing look in her eyes - like something or someone’s holding her with them, like she’s not nearly with herself.”
Sehun smiles, it’s not his kind smile but a bitter smile, the saddening kind, “We used to all be friends, you know, great friends that would stick together through thick and thin.”
“What happened?” he asks.
“She became something,” Sehun says, his eyes lingering over where she stood, “And we remained nothing.”
Jong In tips another bourbon back. Same shit different day.
CHORUS #2
She belongs on stage, most would agree and they belong in the audience, watching her.
“Whoo!” Baekhyun cheers, pumping his fist in the air. “What a bitch! Leaving us behind and making us witness out own failure.”
Jong In scoffs. “You love it, don’t lie.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he shakes his head, eyes still stuck on her. “You’re a little bit in love with her, I bet.”
He smiles, clapping - I bet I do, too, I bet.
-
The band’s sitting at the front and there’s a row of four of them sitting at the back.
They’re hitting the road to another town, another city, another group of intolerable fan girls. The bus is small and crampy, doesn’t smell that good neither. Jong In enjoys himself though, he enjoys the window seat and the breeze hitting him straight in the face. The company of Baekhyun isn’t too bad, he discovers.
“Seat available?” he hears Krystal asks Baekhyun.
“No need to ask, sweetheart,” Baekhyun replies, his voice inviting, “Always available for you.”
She rolls her eyes at him but chuckles nevertheless, “My, my, aren’t you a sweet talker?”
“That’s what I aim for,” Baekhyun shifts over, squishing Jong In to the door but he doesn’t complain, just keep his mouth shut, “Is it working on you though?”
“I’m immune to your charm, hon, you should know that by now.”
Krystal says so but doesn’t look the part, Baekhyun smirks but isn’t feeling smug, Jong In laughs but knows that it’s nothing funny at all.
-
There comes a day where the band needs to make some cut in staff and starts letting people go left and right. They don’t give no advance warnings, the park the tour bus in the middle of the road, the manager wake up the stoned singer and he starts making some bullshit apology. It was right there that their faith belong on a list in some coke head’s hand.
The night was dark, pitch black with no stars and only the cold. They make their own camp fire and sit around it, hands out against the fire. He thinks about how many people would be sleeping here tonight, familiar flashes in his mind and he remembers the number of ‘hey’ or ‘hi’ that has increase during these past few weeks.
Jong In knows he’s not going to get back on the bus, this terrifies him but he’s oddly calm about it - like he knows that everything’s going to be alright.
“I’m not going to make it.”
He hears from a distance and thinks it’s his mind but instead it’s Baekhyun.
Krystal’s sitting next to him, lighting him a cigarette, “You’re not going to die during this trip”
“I’m gonna go to my favourite pub and have a glass of cyanide,” he says miserably. “Or you could join me.”
Krystal glances at him, her eyes doubtful then looks away before she answers, “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to kill myself, Soo.”
“No,” she rolls her eyes a little, a hint of smile playing upon her lips nevertheless. “You’re not.”
Baekhyun holds her hand in his. Krystal lets him.
Jong In thinks he understands now.
BRIDGE
The name Jong In is never called.
Nevertheless, he’s lost about his purpose here.
-
She’s about to go on stage in that skimpy black dress. Her door is left open and Jong In finds himself wandering over there with a can of beer. Jong In’s convinced he’s drunk but still, he can make out who’s talking and what they’re saying. He regrets that.
“No, no, no, no,” Baekhyun’s sitting on the opposite to hers, looking numb as he moans the word over and over again, “Why, Jungie? Why would you do that?”
Krystal’s ice cold from head to toe, she’s emotionless, unmoved by whatever the situation is. She’s got her hair half rolled up and the other half in pretty curls. The lipstick she’s applying is blood red, her skin is porcelain in the light.
“I did what I had to,” she says firmly, brush on her brow. “They promised me a career, I wanted to make sure I will.”
Jong In could hear the light flicker, even the scent of the cig reaches his nose. Baekhyun slumps down on the couch, smoke leaving his mouth when he speaks again, “In all the years I’ve known you, Krystal, never did I expect you to -“
“To what?”
“To what? You ask?” he sounds incredulous then he laughs, as if it was some sick joke to him, “Now, sweetheart, you’ve done many things I know that, this though - this, sleeping with some dirty old scum for fame?” Baekhyun pauses, forcefully shove the cig back in his mouth, “Oh, sweetheart, you’re a sell-out even before they revamp you into cherry pies and ponies pop act.”
Silence.
Baekhyun turns his head and scoffs, he stops at the door then return to stroke her hair tenderly, “I love you, you know that?”
She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at him but at her eye shadows palette.
He leaves, eventually.
Jong In stays.
-
There’s something about a teary, train-wrecked of a Krystal. She becomes more of a dream rather than reality. That’s what makes her so much more treacherous because at that moment she looked delicate like a girl, not a rock star but just an ordinary girl that needs to be held.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch?”
Jong In cleared his throat. He doesn’t think it through, that’s probably why he takes a step into her territory where he’s forbidden himself from entering.
She wipes the tears away with the back of her hand, she says and it sounds like a whisper instead, “Never took you for a watcher, pal, thought you were more a do -er.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” he’s not thinking straight like every other time when she’s around, “Not even my name.”
Krystal chuckles, “Sure, I do, Kim Jong In.”
He’s quiet now, only listening.
“You’re the top of your Seoul Music Uni class, a popular kid,” she continues, “You can play all instruments required in any essential five men band, they told me you sing pretty well too. Maybe you’re even better than me.”
He finds his voice at some point, “How did you k -“
She smiles and she still looks so breath taking even with all the make up running, “When I call you ‘pal’, you really are one to me.”
“You picked me...”
“Sure did.”
“Why?” he asks.
“I saw your audition tape,” Krystal says, looking like she’s peering into his soul, “You’ve got that presence, the whole aura that draws people in when you perform. Not everyone’s got that - even Baekhyun, he’s talented and all but he doesn’t have that. Sehun doesn’t either, that’s why we let him go. But you - you’re going to be amazing something, I know that and that’s why I told them to hold on to you.”
“But I won’t get to perfor -“
“But you will get to someday, you’ll get to perform, Jong In.”
She gets up, slowly walk towards him like a predator invading his very own private space. He can’t find it in himself to move, it’s almost like he’s being compelled to stay grounded and stay right where she wants him to be.
“Even if I have to sell out?” Jong In says before he could stop his mouth from blabbing things he’ll regret.
Krystal doesn’t look angry like he expected, she only looks down at the ground with the secret smile she often gives him.
Then her hand’s caressing his face thumb gently gliding from his cheek to his jaw, “Some things are just the way they are, pal, for me it’s selling out.”
Her eyes flutter close and Jong In knows how this story goes.
“Don’t”
“Why?” her lips are brushing against his ear now, “It’s just a kiss.”
He lets his arms encircle around her waist and pull her closer. He allows himself to bite her lips just a little. He lets himself be lost in her kisses.
Jong In knows he’s falling into her trap.
So he falls and never recovers.
VERSE #3
Jong In gets on the bus before anyone else does, except Baekhyun gets there before him.
The brunette is lying on the backseat, his legs crossed, the usual smell of last night drinking and tobacco takes over the fresh morning air. Jong In sits down next to where Baekhyun head lies then starts humming a Rolling Stones song. Baekhyun sung this to him once, even played the drums with it and Sehun would jump on the keyboard while he would pick up a guitar. Together they’d yell the lyrics out until their throat burns then laugh about it afterwards with a drink or two or three.
“I predict,” Baekhyun begins, sitting up in the process, “That you, Kim Jong In, had a pretty swell time last night.”
Jong In chuckles, “How’d you guess?”
“It’s written all over your face”
He laughs. Not a small, mocking chuckle that signifies his amusement. But a great, big roar of laughter, one where one uses when one finds something utterly maddening but can do nothing, only laugh it off. Written all over his face? Guilt? Self-pity? Shame? Which was it? Or was it a combination of all three?
“You’re happy, even if you don’t know it yet,” Baekhyun arm reaches over and find its place on his shoulder where he squeezes it gently, It’s that kind of emotions where it’s hidden behind layers of many other feelings, all just to confuse you. What a rat bastard, yeah?”
Jong In sings again, the same song, the same tune.
Another stagnant pause. “She aches just like a woman.”
Jong In feels a stupid amount of relief. “But she breaks just like a little girl.”
CHORUS #3
Wednesday morning at five o'clock, Krystal climbs out of the bed, silently closing the bedroom door. She thinks he’s deep asleep but he’s not and he sits up when she’s gone, his hand resting where she lied.
He ends up in her bed; it’s the third time and the last time.
It’s her last performance with the tour and his first.
Krystal comes out of the bathroom, all dressed up in glitters and pearls. She smiles and say what she always say - leave when you want. No one tells you the secret code behind that message but he understands (come back when you want).
-
The after party’s cinematic. There are big names lined up outside the door and bigger names inside, laughing, drinking, getting high and all that business. And they’re all there for her.
She’s holding multi coloured bouquets and Jong In feels the resentment of what they’d later turn her into. He can imagine her two years from now singing about some teenage crush experience she never went through. They’re going to make her a pop tart, shiny, pastel shades, soul less, pop tart.
His gaze cuts back to where a figure stood in neon, spinning and laughing like she’s having the time of her life. That girl’s about to leave him and Baekhyun.
When the party’s done and everyone’s gone, he heads to a bar and gets high in the back room. In between coke and rock, Jong In has an epiphany, a real eye opener too. Baekhyun was right - Kim Jong In was happy, he was with Krystal and he was happy.
He cries and wakes up with his head in a toilette bowl.
MIDDLE EIGHT
Krystal never gets to tell Baekhyun she loves him.
Jong In’s too scared to let Krystal know he’s in love with her.
Baekhyun smokes too much and spends the rest of the summer missing her.
-
The day comes where people knows his name and stop calling him ‘pal’ or ‘buddy’ or ‘man’.
A little black book is somewhere in the pocket of one of his faded jeans. The memory of how he longed for that object every living moment of that summer burned in his mind. The girl with her ACDC t-shirt and her fishnets lives in his mind and never left. The first page starts with her and the last page ends with her. She was his muse.
That's what Krystal is to him - this distant flash of jet black hair and a glittered covered figure in a neon dress shining in the dark just out of sight, a memory before she became his reality.
SOUNDTRACK
Just Like A Woman - Bob Dylan
She's Leaving Home - The Beatles
Life On Mars - David Bowie
Please Mr. Sun - Johnnie Ray
All I Really Want To Do - Bob Dylan
I Walk The Line - Johnny Cash
I Want Someone Badly - Jeff Buckley
Play With Fire - The Rolling Stones
~ 5,035 w, pg-13, (exo-k/fx - kai/krystal/baekhyun)
In between coke and rock, Jong In has an epiphany, a real eye opener too.
■ this is a late 60s, early 70s music scene inspired AU! fic (I've been listening to too much Bob Dylan)
■ since it's inspired by my fave music period, obvly there's going to be a soundtrack!
■ my first exo fic ever, please be nice and criticism about my writing of their personalities would be greatly appreciated
■ baekhyun/krystal anyone? I swear I'm the only who ships them
■ MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE IN ADVANCE! /mwah
VERSE #1
It takes half an hour to get indoors, there’s screaming fan girls on hands and knees for one single smile, there’s cameras flashing, there’s the glitz and glam of the life style.
Then there’s him - in the crowd, crushed between a two hundred pounds body guard and the gates that keep the desperate adolescent girls from ripping their clothes to shreds and trampling over them in the process.
Kim Jong In, just a fragment of the millions out there.
What a wonderful thought - a vivid image on him sitting in a shrunk office stall, reading over documents he can’t comprehend and making copies of it comes into mind. A simple, boring life that would be, he thinks to himself, all frowns.
“Kid, get moving,” the body guard mutters, clearly agitated.
He hesitantly meets the eyes of a beast, rather than a man and gave a small but firm nod, stumbling along the never ending line of other ‘nobodies’.
Jong In feels out of place, it’s almost as if someone had put him in the real world.
-
He watches the cracks on the ceiling like they’re fascinating and listens to the warm up routines being done from the other side of the wall. His hand reached for the small piece of neatly folded paper hidden away in his pocket with the marker that comes with it but retreated and fidget some more. Another try? No success. Jong In gives up once and for all and starts reading the graffiti on the wall instead.
Ten minutes pass and Jong In realizes there’s nothing to be anxious about, no one around here can see him, they act the part anyway.
“What are you doing?”
He hears the unpleasant sound long before he sees the pleasant source.
The first thing he sees are a pair of legs covered with ripped fishnet, then the faded denim shorts and the rolling stone shirt, followed by her pale face, hollowed cheeks and pouty red lips. Her eyes are a shade lighter than the coals covering her eye lids which are also the same shade as her pin straight hair.
She’s pretty, Jong In thinks as she gets closer in sight.
“Look now, pal,” her choice of words isn’t calm but her voice is. “Times are rough, we don’t have a penny to spare around this joint, do some work or you’re back on the road with rest of them slackers.”
Jong In frowns at her, “You’re tough talking for a girl, aren’t you?”
“That’s what my sis told me and I’m here while she’s still at home, baking potato cakes,” she says, a small triumphant smirk to match her triumphant statement, “Now quit blabbing and go carry those amps up on stage.”
As she rushes off, he almost expected her to turn around and snaps at him again. She didn’t though, it disappointed him a little, he doesn’t exactly know why. Jong In only knows he wants to keep talking to her.
“Who are you again? Miss Bossy?”
She doesn’t even give him a glance, doesn’t bother to pause on her track and keeps on charging to wherever she was heading to.
“I can be whoever you want to be, pal,” she yells back, tone icy but amused. “You want Miss Bossy? That I can do too.”
PRE-CHORUS #1
The concert went by smoothly - the band sounded sober, no fans made it onto stage, the critics don’t look too critical and the fireworks didn’t melt some one’s face. He still doesn’t know what he’s doing but then again, he doesn’t think anyone cares whether he’s doing something at all. Did they forget that they hired the kid that worked at the guitar store downtown? Or did they hire him to wander around and admire the choice of lightings being used on stage? What a waste of space, he’s becoming.
Some bald guy in his late fifties managed to whistle loud enough to shut everyone up, “After party, come along if you want, that’s all.”
Then he’s off with his clip board, all foul and grumpy.
“Standing there, looking hip, won’t get you to that party, buddy.”
“I know”
The guy cocked an eyebrow, “Get moving?”
“Do I have to go to the party or something?” he asked coolly.
“You don’t want to stay cooked up in here alone, live life, man, don’t let life live you,” Jong In could almost see the gleam of excitement in his eyes. “There’s drinking and they’re going to call in some girls too, sounding better, huh?”
He stiffens at ‘drinking’, then all there was in his mind was a long list of whiskey and vodka.
“Sounding a lot better”
-
By the time they get there, the front man of the celebrated band was partying like Mick Jagger, half on and off the couch, covered in his own spew but apparently, that’s all normal around this place. They left him there, rolled him around a little to make sure he doesn’t choke and they don’t lose a voice for the next tour.
“Sit, young one, sit.”
During the ten minutes’ walk to the drummer’s flat, Jong In learn a few things. The overenthusiastic, large living, wild party animal, fresh from college dude has a name, it’s Baekhyun. He’s been in it for a while now, a year at least and he doesn’t find being unacknowledged on the first day as an essential to a future career in this industry, Jong In would disagree. You just need to chill, man, he’d say and slap him on the back, hard to the point where he feels a twinge of pain.
“This chair you’re sitting on,” he points at the yellow armchair as if it isn’t obvious at all. “On this exact same chair, I got my first blowjob.”
Jong In gulps, regret picking the yellow over the red.
Baekhyun starts to laugh, his arms flapping around, rocking himself as he speaks between desperate gasps for oxygen, “Just kidding, bro! Your face made my evening, I swear!”
“Ok, now, getting down to business,” he clears his throat, fanning out his finger tips and pressing them together, looking pensive as his eyes darted around the room, searching for something, “See that?”
Jong In followed his line of vision; it leads him to the ever grand and outstanding that - a familiar figure with jet black hair and a baggy t-shirt.
“All you need to know about that feisty little thing is not to look at her, not to touch her, not even breath a word to her and you’d be fine,” Baekhyun says sternly, serious for the first time of the night.
“Why not?”
“That, right there, my friend, is Jung Krystal and she’ about to get her very own record deal.”
CHORUS #1
Her dress shines green-yellow in the moon light. She’s swaying her hips to ‘Leopard-skin Pillbox Hat’ and he’s in awe with how she can make such a hateful song into something so provocative, so arousing, so captivating. Jong In picks a spot, somewhere he could enjoy the show without being caught - that somewhere is behind an ice box on the trunk of the truck.
He untwists the cap, brings the whiskey to his lips, sigh. It’s his last bottle and he’s got less than a quarter left. To survive the night, he’ll need to be drunk and right now, the images he’s seeing aren’t even altered, there’s not enough Krystal for a threesome and Bob Dylan still sounds like death calling to him.
The amber liquid drains down his throat too quickly, the bottle is without any trace by the time he let out another sigh. Jong In rises with a groan and gingerly rambles through the ice box for any type of alcohol.
“Get me a beer.”
He smells ash and daisies and decides to turn around.
She raises an imperious eyebrow. “I said beer, not leer.”
Krystal’s soaked from head to toe, strands of hair stuck to her face, her eyes gleaming moonlight and she looks happy, smiling. He suddenly regretting the couple of minutes he spent in the dream land and leaving reality behind.
“Uh…of course, hold on for a sec,” he says dumbly, “I actually need to get some for myself too, you know? You sure you want beer by the way, we have vodka here, even bo -“
He sees the blood red on her nails when she presses a finger to his lip, her very own way of saying shut up, “You’re blabbering, just get the can next to that bottle of vodka you’re so fond of.”
Jong In keeps his eyes lock on hers, afraid that this moment was going to slip away from him if he looks away even for a fragment of a second. Krystal levels him with a dark glare, lips crest fallen and forehead creases, impatient. He easily scoop the can out of the box, his hands and fingers numb from ice as he hands it to her. The melted ice works as a cooler when they touch. Jong In watches as she gasps, her eyes wandering to their near fleeting hands, wondering if she feels the heat of their skins or the cold of the ice.
The night is dark, he can’t see much but the look in her eyes was unmissable, it was the same as his.
“You can go back in door now, pal,” she says quietly, her stare moving to the can, “Only musicians and special privileged staffs are allowed out here.”
She's so small that Jong In doesn't realize her silhouette isn't part of the skyline until she's far, far off from where he is.
-
Jong In complains to himself but anticipated it when someone wakes him up with instruction to clean up the flat.
The lifeless looking bodies occupy all the space there is, he never learns his lesson and trips over them numerous of time, the alcohol and lack of sleep impairing the ability for his eyes and legs to work together.
He opens the door, letting the morning air in and the smell of last night’s mess out. The place resembles a tragic accident, known as the forever fucked flat that will cost at least twice the amount of the original price to restore. Seems like wasted money to him but everyone knows they live to spend, they’re super stars after all.
When a Pepsi can hit the back of Jong In’s head, he doesn’t even feel it, he hears it drop to the floor, bent in the middle and see the liquid ooze out of it.
“Morning greetings to my favourite man,” the voice was sunshine to the ears, all bright and overenthusiastic. “Are you also a fellow early riser?”
It was Baekhyun, not that it surprise him.
“Nah,” Jong In replies with nonchalant shake of the head. “Some guy woke me up, told me to clean up.”
Baekhyun crouches down next to a random drunk girl, poking her on the rib and watches her stir, he says, “Hey, congrats, bro, someone knows your existence, problem solved.”
Jong In chuckles bitterly, “For the wrong reasons.”
He stood back up with a small groan, match box and a cig fished out of the girl’s clutch and now in his possession. Baekhyun lit one without any difficulty, handing Jong In the burnt match with a secret smile that says - I’m helping, aren’t I?
“When the boho chic wakes up,” he whispers, the smokes getting in Jong In’s eyes, “Do me a favour and don’t mention my name.”
“Sure”
“Smoke?”
Jong In tosses two cans of pabst blue ribbons the garage bag he picked up earlier on and says, “Grand dad died from cancer, don’t want to repeat the history.”
“You should, bro,” he murmurs between drags, “Give you a rock star image - you don’t smoke, you’re not considered cool.”
He expresses his disagreement in Baekhyun’s statement, “It’s about the music, if that’s good, all else doesn’t matter.”
“I smoke a lot,” Baekhyun says with a dreamy expression on his face, ignoring what he said completely. “That makes me cooler than John Lennon and Jesus put together.”
A slight smile crosses the younger man's face. “Yeah, you’re pretty cool.”
VERSE #2
He gets to the place an hour or so later than everyone else. Despite that he’s one of the only few that are here. It’s a hotel this time, one of those glamorous, overdramatic with a snobby age and celebrity reference written on a golden plate on the entrance of the place. You walk in and smell detergent and heavy perfume and know it’s that kind of the place for the rich. He sees teenage girls scratching at door of the assembly hall, Jong In makes assumption that the seats will be filled with underage girls and their deafening screams.
Krystal’s sitting on the stage this time, her feet swinging off the edge, stringing up a guitar and humming a tune to herself. Jong In doesn’t think she notices his appearance in the room and sat down on one of the seats in the audience.
She starts to sing at some point, the guitar riffs are sad but her voice is sadder. It’s a topic he’d never expect her to experience - a girl who lost her man, she’s reflecting over it by going over her ‘souvenirs’ and remembering all those memories they shared then go through raw pain because of it. Jong In can’t decide what’s worse - the song itself or her singing it.
“Why the face?” her voice echoes but she’s not looking at him. “I think I sing pretty well.”
He smiles a little, “Uh…yeah, yeah, you sing really well actually, play pretty well too.”
She looks directly at him this time, her eyes burning into his, “Then why are you giving me that look?”
“I guess I don’t expect you to sing such a song,” he pauses, “No offense or anything.”
“Well, pal,” she says, hopping off stage, “Everyone goes through the blues, I’m feeling it more than usual this morning so that’s all you’re going to get from me today.”
“Sing another?”
Her smile is absolutely radiant, “Even I don’t play for free, pal, wait till tonight.”
PRE-CHORUS #2
There’s a blonde guy, goes by the name of Sehun. He’s unaffected; don’t enjoy moving his mouth unless it’s opening up for bourbon and his eyes are worse than glacier. Jong In has learnt from the past five hours of lifting heavy weights with Sehun that despite his lack of opinions and social skill, he’s a nice fellow with a smile that reflects his inner lenient self (even if he barely flash those pearly whites).
The sound of heels clicking could be heard from miles away. Jong In finds it alarming that he recognizes the pattern of that strut. She never wear heels though, it’s always a pair of chucks or trainers.
“Hey, Sehun”, she greets the blonde with a polite smile and he did too in return.
“Krystal,” he gives a saluting nod, “Looking good for tonight’s show”
Jong In notices her glance directed at him, even though she thinks he didn’t spot it, “Thanks, can we run through I Want Someone Badly in fifteen?”
There’s a glint in Sehun’s eyes as he looks at Krystal, like she’s some kind of wondrous creature, a goddess, “Anything you want, you got it, sweetheart.”
She doesn’t say anything, only smile and nod then walks off with her guitar and studded heels.
“Mesmerizing, isn’t she?” Sehun finally says, taking another swig of his bourbon before pouring some in Jong In’s plastic cup.
He ponders over his answer, deciding he might as well be honest to them both, “Yeah, she really is.”
“You think she ever been in love before?”
Jong In is in desperate hope what he’s about to say isn’t a fact but merely just another assumption he makes, “I think so, she’s always got that repressing look in her eyes - like something or someone’s holding her with them, like she’s not nearly with herself.”
Sehun smiles, it’s not his kind smile but a bitter smile, the saddening kind, “We used to all be friends, you know, great friends that would stick together through thick and thin.”
“What happened?” he asks.
“She became something,” Sehun says, his eyes lingering over where she stood, “And we remained nothing.”
Jong In tips another bourbon back. Same shit different day.
CHORUS #2
She belongs on stage, most would agree and they belong in the audience, watching her.
“Whoo!” Baekhyun cheers, pumping his fist in the air. “What a bitch! Leaving us behind and making us witness out own failure.”
Jong In scoffs. “You love it, don’t lie.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he shakes his head, eyes still stuck on her. “You’re a little bit in love with her, I bet.”
He smiles, clapping - I bet I do, too, I bet.
-
The band’s sitting at the front and there’s a row of four of them sitting at the back.
They’re hitting the road to another town, another city, another group of intolerable fan girls. The bus is small and crampy, doesn’t smell that good neither. Jong In enjoys himself though, he enjoys the window seat and the breeze hitting him straight in the face. The company of Baekhyun isn’t too bad, he discovers.
“Seat available?” he hears Krystal asks Baekhyun.
“No need to ask, sweetheart,” Baekhyun replies, his voice inviting, “Always available for you.”
She rolls her eyes at him but chuckles nevertheless, “My, my, aren’t you a sweet talker?”
“That’s what I aim for,” Baekhyun shifts over, squishing Jong In to the door but he doesn’t complain, just keep his mouth shut, “Is it working on you though?”
“I’m immune to your charm, hon, you should know that by now.”
Krystal says so but doesn’t look the part, Baekhyun smirks but isn’t feeling smug, Jong In laughs but knows that it’s nothing funny at all.
-
There comes a day where the band needs to make some cut in staff and starts letting people go left and right. They don’t give no advance warnings, the park the tour bus in the middle of the road, the manager wake up the stoned singer and he starts making some bullshit apology. It was right there that their faith belong on a list in some coke head’s hand.
The night was dark, pitch black with no stars and only the cold. They make their own camp fire and sit around it, hands out against the fire. He thinks about how many people would be sleeping here tonight, familiar flashes in his mind and he remembers the number of ‘hey’ or ‘hi’ that has increase during these past few weeks.
Jong In knows he’s not going to get back on the bus, this terrifies him but he’s oddly calm about it - like he knows that everything’s going to be alright.
“I’m not going to make it.”
He hears from a distance and thinks it’s his mind but instead it’s Baekhyun.
Krystal’s sitting next to him, lighting him a cigarette, “You’re not going to die during this trip”
“I’m gonna go to my favourite pub and have a glass of cyanide,” he says miserably. “Or you could join me.”
Krystal glances at him, her eyes doubtful then looks away before she answers, “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to kill myself, Soo.”
“No,” she rolls her eyes a little, a hint of smile playing upon her lips nevertheless. “You’re not.”
Baekhyun holds her hand in his. Krystal lets him.
Jong In thinks he understands now.
BRIDGE
The name Jong In is never called.
Nevertheless, he’s lost about his purpose here.
-
She’s about to go on stage in that skimpy black dress. Her door is left open and Jong In finds himself wandering over there with a can of beer. Jong In’s convinced he’s drunk but still, he can make out who’s talking and what they’re saying. He regrets that.
“No, no, no, no,” Baekhyun’s sitting on the opposite to hers, looking numb as he moans the word over and over again, “Why, Jungie? Why would you do that?”
Krystal’s ice cold from head to toe, she’s emotionless, unmoved by whatever the situation is. She’s got her hair half rolled up and the other half in pretty curls. The lipstick she’s applying is blood red, her skin is porcelain in the light.
“I did what I had to,” she says firmly, brush on her brow. “They promised me a career, I wanted to make sure I will.”
Jong In could hear the light flicker, even the scent of the cig reaches his nose. Baekhyun slumps down on the couch, smoke leaving his mouth when he speaks again, “In all the years I’ve known you, Krystal, never did I expect you to -“
“To what?”
“To what? You ask?” he sounds incredulous then he laughs, as if it was some sick joke to him, “Now, sweetheart, you’ve done many things I know that, this though - this, sleeping with some dirty old scum for fame?” Baekhyun pauses, forcefully shove the cig back in his mouth, “Oh, sweetheart, you’re a sell-out even before they revamp you into cherry pies and ponies pop act.”
Silence.
Baekhyun turns his head and scoffs, he stops at the door then return to stroke her hair tenderly, “I love you, you know that?”
She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at him but at her eye shadows palette.
He leaves, eventually.
Jong In stays.
-
There’s something about a teary, train-wrecked of a Krystal. She becomes more of a dream rather than reality. That’s what makes her so much more treacherous because at that moment she looked delicate like a girl, not a rock star but just an ordinary girl that needs to be held.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch?”
Jong In cleared his throat. He doesn’t think it through, that’s probably why he takes a step into her territory where he’s forbidden himself from entering.
She wipes the tears away with the back of her hand, she says and it sounds like a whisper instead, “Never took you for a watcher, pal, thought you were more a do -er.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” he’s not thinking straight like every other time when she’s around, “Not even my name.”
Krystal chuckles, “Sure, I do, Kim Jong In.”
He’s quiet now, only listening.
“You’re the top of your Seoul Music Uni class, a popular kid,” she continues, “You can play all instruments required in any essential five men band, they told me you sing pretty well too. Maybe you’re even better than me.”
He finds his voice at some point, “How did you k -“
She smiles and she still looks so breath taking even with all the make up running, “When I call you ‘pal’, you really are one to me.”
“You picked me...”
“Sure did.”
“Why?” he asks.
“I saw your audition tape,” Krystal says, looking like she’s peering into his soul, “You’ve got that presence, the whole aura that draws people in when you perform. Not everyone’s got that - even Baekhyun, he’s talented and all but he doesn’t have that. Sehun doesn’t either, that’s why we let him go. But you - you’re going to be amazing something, I know that and that’s why I told them to hold on to you.”
“But I won’t get to perfor -“
“But you will get to someday, you’ll get to perform, Jong In.”
She gets up, slowly walk towards him like a predator invading his very own private space. He can’t find it in himself to move, it’s almost like he’s being compelled to stay grounded and stay right where she wants him to be.
“Even if I have to sell out?” Jong In says before he could stop his mouth from blabbing things he’ll regret.
Krystal doesn’t look angry like he expected, she only looks down at the ground with the secret smile she often gives him.
Then her hand’s caressing his face thumb gently gliding from his cheek to his jaw, “Some things are just the way they are, pal, for me it’s selling out.”
Her eyes flutter close and Jong In knows how this story goes.
“Don’t”
“Why?” her lips are brushing against his ear now, “It’s just a kiss.”
He lets his arms encircle around her waist and pull her closer. He allows himself to bite her lips just a little. He lets himself be lost in her kisses.
Jong In knows he’s falling into her trap.
So he falls and never recovers.
VERSE #3
Jong In gets on the bus before anyone else does, except Baekhyun gets there before him.
The brunette is lying on the backseat, his legs crossed, the usual smell of last night drinking and tobacco takes over the fresh morning air. Jong In sits down next to where Baekhyun head lies then starts humming a Rolling Stones song. Baekhyun sung this to him once, even played the drums with it and Sehun would jump on the keyboard while he would pick up a guitar. Together they’d yell the lyrics out until their throat burns then laugh about it afterwards with a drink or two or three.
“I predict,” Baekhyun begins, sitting up in the process, “That you, Kim Jong In, had a pretty swell time last night.”
Jong In chuckles, “How’d you guess?”
“It’s written all over your face”
He laughs. Not a small, mocking chuckle that signifies his amusement. But a great, big roar of laughter, one where one uses when one finds something utterly maddening but can do nothing, only laugh it off. Written all over his face? Guilt? Self-pity? Shame? Which was it? Or was it a combination of all three?
“You’re happy, even if you don’t know it yet,” Baekhyun arm reaches over and find its place on his shoulder where he squeezes it gently, It’s that kind of emotions where it’s hidden behind layers of many other feelings, all just to confuse you. What a rat bastard, yeah?”
Jong In sings again, the same song, the same tune.
Another stagnant pause. “She aches just like a woman.”
Jong In feels a stupid amount of relief. “But she breaks just like a little girl.”
CHORUS #3
Wednesday morning at five o'clock, Krystal climbs out of the bed, silently closing the bedroom door. She thinks he’s deep asleep but he’s not and he sits up when she’s gone, his hand resting where she lied.
He ends up in her bed; it’s the third time and the last time.
It’s her last performance with the tour and his first.
Krystal comes out of the bathroom, all dressed up in glitters and pearls. She smiles and say what she always say - leave when you want. No one tells you the secret code behind that message but he understands (come back when you want).
-
The after party’s cinematic. There are big names lined up outside the door and bigger names inside, laughing, drinking, getting high and all that business. And they’re all there for her.
She’s holding multi coloured bouquets and Jong In feels the resentment of what they’d later turn her into. He can imagine her two years from now singing about some teenage crush experience she never went through. They’re going to make her a pop tart, shiny, pastel shades, soul less, pop tart.
His gaze cuts back to where a figure stood in neon, spinning and laughing like she’s having the time of her life. That girl’s about to leave him and Baekhyun.
When the party’s done and everyone’s gone, he heads to a bar and gets high in the back room. In between coke and rock, Jong In has an epiphany, a real eye opener too. Baekhyun was right - Kim Jong In was happy, he was with Krystal and he was happy.
He cries and wakes up with his head in a toilette bowl.
MIDDLE EIGHT
Krystal never gets to tell Baekhyun she loves him.
Jong In’s too scared to let Krystal know he’s in love with her.
Baekhyun smokes too much and spends the rest of the summer missing her.
-
The day comes where people knows his name and stop calling him ‘pal’ or ‘buddy’ or ‘man’.
A little black book is somewhere in the pocket of one of his faded jeans. The memory of how he longed for that object every living moment of that summer burned in his mind. The girl with her ACDC t-shirt and her fishnets lives in his mind and never left. The first page starts with her and the last page ends with her. She was his muse.
That's what Krystal is to him - this distant flash of jet black hair and a glittered covered figure in a neon dress shining in the dark just out of sight, a memory before she became his reality.
SOUNDTRACK
Just Like A Woman - Bob Dylan
She's Leaving Home - The Beatles
Life On Mars - David Bowie
Please Mr. Sun - Johnnie Ray
All I Really Want To Do - Bob Dylan
I Walk The Line - Johnny Cash
I Want Someone Badly - Jeff Buckley
Play With Fire - The Rolling Stones