better in dreams - jinwoo/irene - canonteapowderApril 1 2016, 08:05:58 UTC
They debuted within a month of each other (precisely: 16 days). When they are doing their rounds of greetings, Jinwoo bends at such an exact angle of ninety degrees that he knocks his head on a folding chair. Irene gasps. He lifts his eyes just in time to see the crinkle of her laughing eyes behind the divide of her hand. She smiles and he catches it without meaning to, carrying it with him out of the room, then on stage, and the places beyond.
*
”You can call me Joohyun,” her voice is brighter than he remembers, “we’re the same age, right? Let’s be friends.” She presses a small piece of paper into his hand that sends the rest of his bandmates hooting in the rehearsal room for weeks after while the note lays uselessly, untouched, on Jinwoo’s dresser for an equal amount of time - until Mino and Seunghoon forget to mention it, then forget it entirely. Jinwoo doesn’t but relocates the paper to the back of a book he bought once and intended to read, but knows he won’t ever look at again.
*
Irene, with her soft, white hands and cheeks that bloom pale spring blossoms, speaks to a nostalgia Jinwoo can’t pinpoint. Was it the missing of a school romance he never had? Did her face recall first loves his fate had inadvertently avoid? He has a hard time not staring at her when she walks by him backstage, her red lips in a laughing smile, and he imagines the smell of her in an innocent way, sugared flowers and the skin of fruits as he falls asleep. He is afraid to talk to her beyond the pithy small talk they exchange backstage. He figures her eyes have an expectant, waiting look when she greets him, an observation he shares with no one.
He sees her once (“In the wild,” he thinks, stupidly), her scarf pulled up to right underneath her nose. If she fell, she would feel nothing, that’s how thick he gauges her jacket to be, which is appropriate given that Seoul winters are brutal, chilling affairs. Her arms are full of convenience store snacks, and he imagines her sneaking out, breaking diet to bring home high-sodium sustenance to her group members, the strange nobleness in it. He watches her as her breath frosts in the air like an evaporating spiderweb and imagines if he said hello, what she would do. How she would be so surprised to see him, how she would smile (shyly) and he would offer to carry her things, walk her back to her dorm. He seriously contemplates it, but then realizes he would have to walk himself home from her dorm and he has a terrible sense of direction, even now, and by then, the light changes. He watches Irene cross the street, not even looking at him once, and then as the snow crusts on his own scarf, he turns and goes home. Fifteen minutes later than he said he would, but home on his own all the same.
*
The next comeback, they greet each other without much incident but he senses Irene’s eyes watching him after he’s turned his back, like pinpricks under his shoulders, at his scalp. He is anxious for the possibility that she might bring up the note with her number, how he never texted her to just say hi, or joined in any of the 91-liner outings he heard through the grapevine but purposely avoided in order to miss her. He misses Irene acutely, though he doesn’t know Joohyun at all, and this is what he prefers. But she does not bring it up, and he finds himself turning to look at her. She is not looking at him.
Maybe he should have talked to her, he thinks later when dizzying images of Irene carousel in his head in those odd, vulnerable moments before sleep. But he thinks it is for the best he does not, though it seems regrettable. There are parts of him that want to know more about her, that want to realize the small fantasies he has (Irene walking beside him on a spring afternoon, Irene on the beach, banal bullshit he thought about over and over).
But although Jinwoo is simple, he is not stupid. There is no point in shattering an unfair ideal when he knows she could not measure up.
Let’s never be friends, Jinwoo thinks, for both our sake.
*
”You can call me Joohyun,” her voice is brighter than he remembers, “we’re the same age, right? Let’s be friends.” She presses a small piece of paper into his hand that sends the rest of his bandmates hooting in the rehearsal room for weeks after while the note lays uselessly, untouched, on Jinwoo’s dresser for an equal amount of time - until Mino and Seunghoon forget to mention it, then forget it entirely. Jinwoo doesn’t but relocates the paper to the back of a book he bought once and intended to read, but knows he won’t ever look at again.
*
Irene, with her soft, white hands and cheeks that bloom pale spring blossoms, speaks to a nostalgia Jinwoo can’t pinpoint. Was it the missing of a school romance he never had? Did her face recall first loves his fate had inadvertently avoid? He has a hard time not staring at her when she walks by him backstage, her red lips in a laughing smile, and he imagines the smell of her in an innocent way, sugared flowers and the skin of fruits as he falls asleep. He is afraid to talk to her beyond the pithy small talk they exchange backstage. He figures her eyes have an expectant, waiting look when she greets him, an observation he shares with no one.
He sees her once (“In the wild,” he thinks, stupidly), her scarf pulled up to right underneath her nose. If she fell, she would feel nothing, that’s how thick he gauges her jacket to be, which is appropriate given that Seoul winters are brutal, chilling affairs. Her arms are full of convenience store snacks, and he imagines her sneaking out, breaking diet to bring home high-sodium sustenance to her group members, the strange nobleness in it. He watches her as her breath frosts in the air like an evaporating spiderweb and imagines if he said hello, what she would do. How she would be so surprised to see him, how she would smile (shyly) and he would offer to carry her things, walk her back to her dorm. He seriously contemplates it, but then realizes he would have to walk himself home from her dorm and he has a terrible sense of direction, even now, and by then, the light changes. He watches Irene cross the street, not even looking at him once, and then as the snow crusts on his own scarf, he turns and goes home. Fifteen minutes later than he said he would, but home on his own all the same.
*
The next comeback, they greet each other without much incident but he senses Irene’s eyes watching him after he’s turned his back, like pinpricks under his shoulders, at his scalp. He is anxious for the possibility that she might bring up the note with her number, how he never texted her to just say hi, or joined in any of the 91-liner outings he heard through the grapevine but purposely avoided in order to miss her. He misses Irene acutely, though he doesn’t know Joohyun at all, and this is what he prefers. But she does not bring it up, and he finds himself turning to look at her. She is not looking at him.
Maybe he should have talked to her, he thinks later when dizzying images of Irene carousel in his head in those odd, vulnerable moments before sleep. But he thinks it is for the best he does not, though it seems regrettable. There are parts of him that want to know more about her, that want to realize the small fantasies he has (Irene walking beside him on a spring afternoon, Irene on the beach, banal bullshit he thought about over and over).
But although Jinwoo is simple, he is not stupid. There is no point in shattering an unfair ideal when he knows she could not measure up.
Let’s never be friends, Jinwoo thinks, for both our sake.
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