13 Flown ( 2/2 )
Title: 13 Flown
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): f(x) Amber centric + Amber/Krystal; side Baekhyun/Taeyeon
Warnings: language, alcohol, sexual content, mentions of Amber/OC and Krystal/Eric Nam
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, written just for fun.
Summary: "Let me just say it's a bad idea, my friend. It'll wreck you if you have a summer fling and fall for her along the way..."
A/N: Originally posted at the u unnideul 2015 exchange for bluedreaming, thank you for the awesome prompts! The text dividers are direct quotes taken from two poems; the purple lines are from Ernest Christopher Dowson’s “Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae”, and the blue lines are from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The City in the Sea”. Thanks bunches and bunches to my beta chuyeol for helping me out on this fic ! ( all mistakes are mine ) Also thanks to hailynx for the quote about saying "apology accepted instead of it's okay", you always challenge me to think deeper <3
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
September
Summer has faded from vermilion to a washed out candy red, the same shade at the back of Amber's eyelids when her closed eyes tilt into the sun glare. The chipping red on her nails and the flaking rust on her car door don't match, though.
Not that color coordination has ever mattered much to Amber. She keeps the cottage apartment in a style Taeyeon's mother calls 'eclectic' and Baekhyun once called 'thrift store deluxe.' Something piecemeal and vibrant that reflects the rainbow jumble in her heart.
The sun is out, the mist asphyxiating in the light, but the air rolling off the bay is cool against Amber's eyelids. They still haven't turned off the AC in the hotel lobby and Taeyeon huddles behind the front desk in the mornings in a navy wool cardigan that makes her look like a bored librarian.
Amber works up enough of a sweat dragging her cart up and down the halls, but she regrets leaving her jacket at home now. She'll just make this a quick trip though, pull over at the Shell station for a soda and a hot dog off the rotisserie rack.
The parking lot is empty. She rolls the windows up but leaves the keys dangling from the ignition, navigating around a large fan only to get hit with a blast of aircon in the doorway.
"Welcome to--oh hey, Amber!"
Amber stops short, flip flops squeaking on the welcome mat, and the glass door hits the back of her heels when it swings shut. "Hey there." She waves at Jongdae and he waves back. He looks even skinnier than usual in the red uniform polo buttoned up to his throat. The visor with S H E L L embroidered across the brim obscures his eyes and most of the awful perm he got at the end of summer, the week before--
"Long time no see! You haven't hung out with the gang in weeks."
"Yeah, well, I'm busy." Amber returns his smile but looks away to scan the refrigerator cases. The rows of red label vodka and cheap whiskey tempt her for a moment but it's not worth it. She has to head back to work in twenty.
"Tourist season's over, it's almost October. What's keeping you from the loving arms of your best mates?"
Amber shrugs. Her hand cups the aluminum shoulders of a Pepsi Classic for a moment before pulling down a 12 oz. bottle. Coke Zero, because she actually ate breakfast today, Cocoa Puffs and 2%. She hasn't bought eggs in three weeks.
"There's no reason to hide, you know. No one's mad at you, and we'll give you all the space you need." Jongdae's voice is small. It matches his size, barely tall enough to reach the packs of cigarettes stocked above his head behind the wide counter.
"I know that. I'm sorry, but it's just...it didn't go the way I planned, I'm still figuring myself out right now." Amber misses them too. She even misses Byun Baekhyun and his loud, obnoxious laughter. It's nice to know they miss her, really fucking nice, but even if she showed up for Tequila night on Friday it wouldn't be the same. They wouldn't get the same Amber Jongdae thinks he's inviting.
"Ok." Jongdae smiles, and Amber has no idea what he's thinking, no idea what anyone thinks anymore, but at least it looks real. He seems genuine, and that's enough for now.
"If you didn't think I was stupid before, you must really think I'm an idiot now, huh." Amber sets her bottle on the counter. The scanner chirps with a red laser flash. $1.89. 45 mg of sodium. 0 kcal.
"I don't think that." The receipt chugs out of the printer, eight and a half inches of bleached paper for one item of sale.
Amber doesn't meet his eyes because she's sure he's heard, if not from Taeyeon then from the town rumor mill. Everyone knows about the same wrong turn she loses herself with every weekend and also on some Tuesdays, swallowing down her darkness and letting strangers’ teeth bruise her skin into a garden of roses and violets.
"Really, Ambs. We just don't want you to get hurt." He holds out the receipt but Amber shakes her head.
"Too late. But thanks, man."
"You know," he says, and Amber's sandals squeak on the welcome mat and her fingers streak the glass. "Some things are learned after practice and practice, like saying 'apology accepted' rather than 'it's okay'. And that's not stupid at all."
"I thought this is when you were supposed to say, 'have a nice day.'" Amber laughs at her own joke but doesn't check to see if Jongdae even smiles.
"Go check Facebook. Wish her a happy autumnal equinox. Ask her what's she's doing for her birthday. Just take a small step, and it might make you feel better."
"Bye, Jongdae." Amber lunges out the door and gulps down her coke in the parking lot.
She waits to log onto Facebook until she's alone in her room, the storm shutters opened to the burgeoning twilight. Her fingers rattle the keys. It takes her two tries to remember the password, a quiet smile in the airport lobby rushing her limbic system and blocking out the rest.
She had let Krystal board the flight to New York with only a wave. Taeyeon smiled in the car back to the hotel from the airport, satisfied that they were fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, enough time to stop at Cracker Barrel instead of In-N-Out for lunch.
Amber threw up her hamburger and strawberry milkshake in the hotel parking lot behind the yellow rose bush. Taeyeon's mother gave her the weekend off to recover from the flu and Amber didn't correct her misassumption because she needed a day of hibernation, anyway.
Now Amber curls into the same sweat stained comforter she hasn't bothered to wash since then. She chews on the ragged edge while she waits for the wifi to load the page, first the blue header at the top, then the sidebar showing friends online.
Just a small step, Jongdae told her, but Amber's not backing down now. Her resolve tastes like iron under her tongue and the beat of moth wings in her heart stir her stagnant feelings into spun sugar, dandelion gossamer, the color of dreams coming true.
She pulls up the chat window. The online indicator next to Krystal’s name glows like a green light for what Amber's about to do. She ignores the slow stream of posts popping up on the home feed and starts typing.
Krystal, I know I should have said this weeks ago, hell months ago if I'm completely honest, and now I want to be 100% honest about everything with you, about the way I--
The cursor blinks like a pennant in a stiff breeze as she holds down the backspace.
Krystal, I lov--
Another post unfolds at the top of the page and Amber's thumb slips on the touchpad, minimizing the chat window. She curses the computer in her lap, glaring at the photo that rudely interrupted her confession.
She stops short when the haze of anger clears from her vision and Krystal's smile comes into focus at the top of her screen. White teeth and caramel hair. Black cocktail dresses and a tan suit. Fluorescent glare off the rims of champagne glasses and a diamond ring. Amber clicks.
Krystal Jung and Eric Nam engagement party, the caption reads. After three bittersweet years, our love has matured into something rare and beautiful, a fairy tale ending to our dark chocolate dreams. We've had our share of misunderstandings, but absence truly does make the heart grow fonder, and the sign of a truly loyal partner is someone who always accepts you back just the way you are. Please join us this New Year's Eve, Thursday, January 31st, 2015, to help us celebrate our--
Amber pops the battery pack out from the back of her laptop and carefully closes the lid. She shoves it under her bed before feeling under the covers for her phone.
hey Tae, rly sorry but Im coming down with some kinda flu. Im taking a sick day 2morrow. love ya bye.
The answer she's looking for comes less than a minute later. Amber checks it without unlocking the screen. kk, feel better! chu~
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
March
"What's this one from?" Taeyeon flicks the yellowed postcard with her thumbnail and licks the froth from her upper lip.
"Chicago World's Fair, 1893."
"That old?" Taeyeon's next mouthful dribbles back into the mug. She rubs her fingertip in apology over the abused corner of faded cardstock.
"Nah, it's a reissue from 1954. Still old enough to treat it with respect, though."
"Hmm." Taeyeon hums in the back of her throat but Amber's not sure if it's an acknowledgement or vague dismissal. Not that it matters, because her attention wanders from the crisscrossing nylon ropes of clipped on images as she strays closer to the window overlooking the sand.
"Are these storm shutters new?" She flicks at the weathered wood through the mesh of the window screen and Amber is amazed she hasn't chipped her hot pink nail polish by now with all the flicking.
"They've been here longer than I have."
"Hmm..."
Amber's fingers still over the snapshots she's sorting through when Taeyeon comes up behind her to rest a hand on her hunched shoulder. Taeyeon uses the leverage to lower herself onto her knees beside Amber at the coffee table, but doesn't remove her hand even once she's safely sitting on the ground.
"Why don't you put that one up?" Taeyeon takes a slow sip and Amber gives her a look.
"This one?" Her fingers skim the blurry image, another faded polaroid of Krystal like dozens of others that Amber keeps boxed up under her bed. Krystal is curled in the covers piled on Amber's mattress. Her hair spreads like a gauzy veil over the planes of her face and the coiled lines of her body extend like an arabesque in reverse, a flower blooming inwards like the soft introverted spirit of woman herself.
"She looks like a snail napping," Taeyeon comments with a halfhearted laugh echoing into her drained glass. "It's cute. Can I keep it?"
Amber doesn't say anything as Taeyeon gathers the textured margin of the snapshot in a delicate pinch of her fingers. Taeyeon pushes off the edge of the table to lay her mug upside down in the sink basic to drain.
"It looks like a graveyard in here." Taeyeon's lingering in front of the picture wall again, the fragmented mosaic of Amber's heart, the collage of her dreams. "Why do you have all these monochrome photos of dead people you don't even know?"
ffWhack.
Taeyeon's fingernail smacks against a posed wedding portrait. There's no name or date on the back. Amber picked it up at a flea market from a bin of abandoned and homeless family photographs, but she knows it's circa 1930 from the drop waist gown and tulle veil gathered in bunches at the bride's temples.
"To cultivate a sense of the here and now, the urgency of living life full steam ahead." Amber speaks the words with conviction like she hadn't read the same phrase on an inspirational scented candle at the same flea market and scoffed.
"Well I don't think it's healthy." Taeyeon licks at the cold sore on her upper lip, stripping it of the milk foam lingering on the cracked skin. "You need to brighten this place up."
"Nah, that's ok." Amber shakes her head and shuffles a few more photos of dead people to the top of the pile in front of her, before Taeyeon can spot any more gems she'll want to take home with her.
"I'm still hungry. You have any peanut butter in here? We could make sandwiches with the jam in your fridge."
"Nope. Just the jam. But you're welcome to it if you still want a sandwich." Amber turns to face the window to hide her grimace. Taeyeon's been her supposed best friend for how many years now? And she still can't remember Amber's aversion to the sticky stuff.
"Hey, didn't I take this one?" Amber's heart stops for the briefest of moments, the way it does every morning when she passes the photos on her way into the kitchen for a glass of pool flavored tap water. "Both of these, right?"
Amber nods, a heavy rhythmed death knell tolled by wary features. She printed the two in question from the facebook album Taeyeon posted the night after their outing. The first is a group shot Jongdae took for them, kneeling in the sand while the girls posed in matching flip flops. As soon as the official 'photo shoot' ended Taeyeon took back her camera and pestered them for the rest of the day, snapping candids of Jongdae's volleyball serve and the simple poem Sehun had traced in the sand, but mostly of of her boyfriend's ridiculous face.
The second picture Taeyeon is fingering with a look of interest is Amber's favorite. Her absolute favorite - not including the scrap of a cereal box signed a Tony the Tiger mascot when she was in grade school. It's another candid Taeyeon snapped on the sly, of Amber and Krystal walking hand in hand into the sunset, the glimmer of moisture on the sand setting their feet aglow in the periwinkle haze of twilight.
"You guys kinda looked cute together." Taeyeon shrugs, and shakes a slice of sandwich bread out of the bag on the counter. "Too bad it wasn't real."
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers- / Up many and many a marvellous shrine
May
"Hey, I brought beer!" Baekhyun breezes in with the wind off the sea, screen door slamming behind him.
"Who invited you?" Amber groans, slamming her diet coke onto the coffee table with a tired glare.
"Me, myself, and I!" Baekhyun announces with a laugh, like he's expecting Amber should be happy to see him.
"Aw, let him chill with us, Amber." Taeyeon's hard lemonade is sweating in her hands. A stream of fat droplets slides from the glass onto Amber's T-shirt and Amber can't tell Taeyeon no. This is Taeyeon's parents' cottage apartment after all, which Amber is staying in by virtue of being on their payroll and also being their only daughter's best friend.
"Hey, is it cool if my cousin comes to hang out a bit later? She's visiting Cali for the summer, some research gig, and doesn't have any friends up here. So I promised to introduce her to some people."
"Yeah..." Amber nods, more focused on watching Baekhyun scrounge through her cabinets for a bottle opener than what Taeyeon is saying.
"Cool! I'll text her to come over then. I think you'll like her, the both of you will. Krystal's really fun."
"Krystal?" Amber blinks at Taeyeon's glittering eyes over the sparkle of dewy glass under her fingers.
"My cousin," Taeyeon glares, "who I said is coming over?"
"Oh, right. Sorry." Amber rubs the fatigue from her eyes (or rubs it in) with the heels of her hands.
"Ahah! Found it!" Baekhyun hums a familiar tune to himself as he slams the kitchen drawers and tiptoes over to the coffee table Amber's slumped over.
"Are we drinking this straight?" Taeyeon clinks a turquoise nail into the the cap of the beer bottle in her boyfriend's hands. Baekhyun grunts, accenting the tune he's humming with soft puffs of intent air.
"I sure am. Your lemonade's already spiked, honey."
"That's not what I meant and you know it!" Taeyeon twists out of his grip with a hoarse laugh, eyeing Amber's coke can.
Amber clutches her soda to her chest. She only has one can left in her fridge, and she needs it to wake herself up tomorrow morning. She will be pissed if Taeyeon decides, on one of her whims, to sacrifice Amber's caffeine for a Tuesday afternoon alcoholic soiree.
"You're so weird," Baekhyun complains, throwing emphasis onto the last word til the 'r' trills in his throat. "Coke and beer, lemonade and beer, nasty!" He shakes his head like a dog, scrunching up his nose and letting his tongue hang out a bit.
Taeyeon smacks him in the arm, and then the back of the head when he snickers at her. Amber is sympathetic to his feelings, though. Weird drinking habits was something Taeyeon brought back with her after her year abroad in Berlin, along with a chunk of mortar she claims is from the remnants of the wall and a pair of polarized aviators to rival John Lennon's.
"You want one?" Baekhyun offers the opened bottle to Amber but she shakes her head. The fermented grain stings sour when she inhales.
"Lemme go find the vodka stash, if you two are really set on getting smashed in the middle of the afternoon. On a Tuesday of all days."
"Who cares what day of the week it is?" Baekhyun shoots her an incredulous glare as she hauls herself up and into the kitchenette area. "It's summer, isn't it? No school, no schedule, just the sunshine and the water and love." He stares into Taeyeon's eyes with a sickening grin and Taeyeon (the freak) actually stares back with a smitten blush rising in her cheeks.
"I never have school," Amber points out.
Baekhyun, like the brilliant and overachieving chemical engineering student he is, just grins. "Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you're footloose and fancy free now. Bye bye college degree dreams, and all that."
"Baekhyun," Taeyeon warns in a low voice, but he just winks at her and knocks back a swig.
"So, when is your cousin getting here?" Amber turns to Taeyeon, watching in distaste as Baekhyun nudges his girlfriend's legs apart to settle crosslegged on the floor between them.
"I dunno. Soon, probably." Taeyeon doesn't look up from her phone. Amber can't see from her seat on the floor who it is she's texting.
"Because I have to go to bed early tonight. Your mom wants help setting up the parish fundraiser in the morning and--"
"Chill, 'Ber, it is 3:00 in the afternoon. I'm supposed to help out with that too, but there's plenty of time to get smashed and sleep it off before then."
"Mm," Amber grunts into her coke can. She plucks at the tab with the blunt edge of her fingernail, wondering how long many flicks it would take for the aluminum to snap free.
"Baek, would you quit that!" Taeyeon smacks her boyfriend's hands away from her thighs, where he's shamelessly nuzzling the inside of her knee. "It tickles. I swear to--!"
The doorbell sounds, a gentle blend of chimes that echoes in the empty front hall.
"I'll get it!" Baekhyun hops to his feet as Amber drops the lid off the vodka onto the coffee table.
"Hello?" he yells in greeting before he even gets the door open. Amber cringes in embarrassment, hoping it isn't the cranky FedEx driver who would no doubt deliver her packages to the wrong doorstep for months in retaliation for rudeness. "Oh hey! Come on in, you!"
"Hey," Amber hears a soft voice answer, then the click of stilettos or maybe heeled sandals on tile.
"Amber, meet Krystal. Soojungie, this is Tae's bff, Amber." Baekhyun comes back into view, leading a thin girl in cut offs and a lacy top with an arm around her waist.
"Don't call me that, Baek." She shoves Baekhyun off of her with a gentle punch to his shoulder, which he takes as an opportunity to hiss and moan in exaggerated pain as he slinks back to his spot between Taeyeon's feet.
"Hey, girl!" Taeyeon waves til her bangles jingle. Krystal waves back, slipping a pair of pushed back sunglasses out of her long hair.
"Can I get you anything to drink?" Amber stands on unsteady feet, toes pulsing as the blood rushes back to them. "Or get you...anything?" Amber's not used to playing host except when forced, but she's learned the basics of service and hospitality in the 18 months she's worked in the hotel.
"Nah, thanks though. I'll just..." She looks around for a place to sit, the stems of her sunglasses clinking as she taps them. The spot beside Taeyeon on the sofa is empty, but she'd have to climb over Baekhyun. That would put Amber in much the same intimate position as Baekhyun is occupying in his girlfriend's bubble, Amber realizes with a start, and hastens to drag a chair over from the other side of the narrow room.
"First, have a seat of your choosing," Amber gestures between the sofa and the wicker armchair, "and then please, lemme mix you a drink. Or there's beer if you'd rather?"
"I'll just..." Krystal glances to Taeyeon, who is still preoccupied with the keyboard on her iPhone. "I'll have what everyone else is having." She settles on the edge of the sofa cushion, knees spread boyishly and long fingers twined in a demure fold in her lap. Amber grins, relieved to recognize her guest's hesitation must be because she's shy, not because she's snobbish about being in the humble cottage.
"Great, I'll pour you one of everything, then!" she answers with a wink. Krystal blushes pinker than Taeyeon assaulted by Baekhyun's tongue and snatches up a quilted throw pillow to prop in her lap.
Amber pulls down a stack of juice glasses to mix the vodka in and grabs the pretzels from the top of the fridge while she's at it.
"So, uh, what brings you to these parts?" Amber gives the red Koolaid a stir before dribbling it into the glasses.
"Research," Krystal says, sitting up straighter until the edge of the cushion nestles just under her bustline, defining the round shape of her small breasts through the loose top. "Marine biology. I'm working on a seasonal team with one of my professors."
"Ooh, biology, huh?" Amber smiles, trying to think of a way to extend the conversation and draw Krystal out of her shell since neither Baekhyun nor Taeyeon seemed interested in trying. They're both busy on their phones. "As in, ichthyology? Do you study giant squids?"
Baekhyun perks up at that, glancing over with his mouth hanging open until Krystal's surprised laugh sidetracks his deep sea interest.
"No, nothing like that. We're studying the life cycle of Nereocystis subspecies. Northern California has some of the largest cold water colonies."
"Nero-cystic-what?" Baekhyun takes a noisy slurp and knocks his forehead into Taeyeon's knee with a frown.
"Nereocystis, Baek." Krystal repeats herself with a sigh but doesn't sound particularly put out with him. She probably has to face uneducated questions about her work every day, Amber realizes.
"What?" Baekhyun curls his hand around the first drink as soon as Amber has it mixed, gulping the top inch down with a greedy suck instead of offering it to the guest.
"Seaweed, Baek, she studies seaweed."
"Oh!" Baekhyun shivers, his face contorting into a disgusted face that draws another giggle from Krystal.
"I thought I explained at Christmas, Baek. Were you so drunk on the eggnog you weren't listening, hm?" Krystal props her elbows on her knees, accepting the next glass from Amber with a nod of thanks.
Perhaps Baekhyun doesn't consider her a guest, Amber thinks next. Maybe she's the odd one out in this circle of intimates, even if she's known Taeyeon since sixth grade and Baekhyun since 8th when he'd started dating her best friend. Of course he would have met Krystal, he's been flying out to New York with Taeyeon's family every Christmas since senior year of high school.
"Was that eggnog even spiked?" Baekhyun twists around to look at Taeyeon. She just shrugs in response, leaning away when he tries to poke her in the cheek.
"Aunt Clarissa made it and she's a Baptist, so I doubt it. Baek gets drunk on the atmosphere without any help from liquor," she adds to others with a laugh.
"Then why is he still sober," Krystal deadpans, mouth red from the dye that's wet on her lips.
"Because y'all are no fun, obviously." Baekhyun's snort is interrupted by a louder one from Taeyeon, who mutters something about his poor taste in friends.
Amber knocks back a straight shot before mixing the next with a dash of red from the pitcher. She's too used to the couple's bickering to let their grouchiness burn bitter on the back of her tongue. She'd much rather focus her attention on Krystal's musical laugh, which deepens with every gulp from her glass.
Amber can feel the stress of the day loosening, starting from the pinch in her elbows and floating free in her wrists and ribcage until she's laughing along, too. Her fifth glass makes the sunbeams waver in the air, shifting helices like cords of rising smoke from Taeyeon's incense burner. Krystal's fingers skid across the slick damask of the cushion cover but her laugh rings true through throaty grunts of amusement that Baekhyun belts out in spurts.
They all end up on the floor, propped up on cushions around the coffee table when Baekhyun proposes a drinking game that everyone will be regretting in the morning. He pulls a resistant Taeyeon into his lap and nuzzles into her neck until she concedes to his rules, but ends up taking her penalty shots for her anyway.
Krystal slides into Amber like kelp washing in with the tide, limp limbs plastered across the boulders of Amber's propped up knees, when Taeyeon steals her pillow. Slick strands of red tangle like mermaid's hair in the sunset in Krystal's dangly earrings, and Amber can't stop her fingers from curling up on the waves of laughter to brush them behind her ear.
"'Ber, you ok? You need some water?"
Amber shakes her head at Taeyeon's slanting frown, but heaves herself out of Krystal's sprawling embrace anyway. They've polished off the pretzel sticks and Amber's stomach is glowing with a warm hunger vibrating in her nerves.
The floor tips up, Amber's toes pressing through the linoleum like a wire egg slicer through yolk when she stands to hunt for the bag of stale potato chips that probably won't taste that stale when they're this drunk. Her feet carry her to the bathroom instead though, and Amber takes that as a heavenly sign to use the toilet and splash some water into her eyes and mouth.
She leans her forehead against the wall as she collects the gravity to twist the door open. Her forehead presses heavy against tile, melting through the porcelain ice as her own laughter echoes in her ears. She hasn't felt this spectacular in the loosest sort of way since winter, but then it was cold and now it's the end of spring and summer is waiting for her on the horizon and along the beach and perhaps curled up on a cushion next to her coffee table.
Amber moonwalks down the hall to the kitchen, feet lighter than the foam on the surf until Taeyeon drags her back to earth with a yank from fingers tight on her elbow.
"She's hands off, so ask first before you start tying girl scout knots in my cousin's hair." Taeyeon's glare wavers in the rippling tide of the water glass she shoves into Amber's hand and up to Amber's lips.
"What?" Amber gurgles through her first swallow. The water tastes like a swimming pool and not like the ocean and Amber doesn't know if that means she should laugh or cry.
"Krystal. She's hands off because she dumped Eric over Easter break but he still wants her back. Now do you get it?" Taeyeon's fingers are gentle on Amber's cheek, brushing away droplets of water and setting them free. Her stare burns into Amber's retina's like a foreign sun, black and relentless, and Amber nods through the haze of Taeyeon's words like she understands.
"I'll hands off," she agrees, "as soon as Krystal tells me to."
"You--!"
Amber never finds out if Taeyeon would have actually called her a bitch, or something worse, or something in Korean perhaps, because Baekhyun stumbles into the fridge and knocks down a hailstorm of magnets with his elbow.
"Sorry," he says, lips wavering between a dazed smile and a tearful sob. Taeyeon helps him up from the floor as Krystal careens into the doorpost, her laughter flowing from the tips of her vermillion sunset hair into Amber's currents.
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free- / Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
January
"How are you doing?" Taeyeon dips her toes into the stagnant pantyhose pooled on Amber's living room floor. She kicks them across the linoleum to the TV with a disgusted click of her tongue.
"I'm managing." Amber slams the fridge door. "Beer?"
"Is that Natty Lite? Did Sehunnie leave that here? I'll pass." Taeyeon waves a glib hand, purple zebra stripes on her nails stinging Amber's eyes. "You got milk? I'll drink that as long as it's not whole."
"You want that vanilla soy stuff your mom drinks?" Amber wrinkles up her nose and lets the folds of her pushed up sleeves tumble down her forearms in a gray waterfall.
"I don't imagine you stock that here!"
"You are right," Amber says, and shoves a stack of junk mail into the silverware drawer before Taeyeon can paw through it.
"Two percent. I started drinking it last month because of the vitamins, or something. That's what you have, right?"
Amber has half a quart of vitamin D fortified 2% setting in her fridge. And a slice of American cheese in filmy plastic. And a heart as fermented and pungent as the kimchi on the bottom shelf. Whole milk is brain healthy but Amber feels sick sucking down the rich cream drifting at the top. She still hasn't managed to feel whole again, her mosaic a kaleidoscope in the bottom of the drained bathtub instead of cemented into a something.
"Here." The milk is cold and it isn't sour. Amber checks with a short sniff at the mouth of the carton before she fills Taeyeon's glass. It isn't sweet though. The cabbage leaves packed in garlic and fermenting in pepper paste at the back of the fridge make sure of that the day she opens a new bottle of it.
"Goodness gracious, 'Ber! Do you care to explain this?" Taeyeon raises a stray pair of silk shorts drifted behind the drooping arm of the sofa like a flag of Amber's unabashed indecency. "Who on earth have you been bringing in here?"
"Those are mine," Amber cuts in a hard voice. Taeyeon might have believed her if she didn't blush as she said it, though the words are true. As soon as Alejandro dropped them there and blazed out of her life on his motorbike, they became hers.
"Don't make me laugh." Taeyeon scoffs through her teeth, mouth wet, lips glistening.
"Finders keepers." "I'm keeping this one, because it looks like the curve of your ear. I like your ears, Amber. Did I tell you that last night in bath? I can't remember, but it's true."
"Losers weepers," Taeyeon says, and drops the boxers into the open trash bag of recycling sagging next to the back door. Mostly crushed cans empty and sour with the remnants of Sehun's disgusting cheap beer. "Just let me help you clean out the cottage. Throw out the trash at least, sort the laundry."
"Thanks, but I'm managing." The stainless steel neck of the faucet clutched in Amber's fist outlines the dankness of her own sweat on her palm.
"Fine," Taeyeon says, and leaves her empty glass next to the sink. The screen door slams behind her and Amber shivers in the draft.
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
another May
A storm wakes her, and for once it's the violence of spring forcing the earth awake, pouring down life whether the grass wants it or not. For once it's not the darkness nestled between her organs taking her apart, one colored chip of tile at a time, dream by dream.
No hints of moonlight make it through the purple oppressing the sky, but the blasts of lightning stabbing from cloud to cloud illuminate the starburst scars on Amber's neck and the vines that twine in the furrows of her ribs. The blue blooms whisper in the flashes in the mirror.
forget me not, my (once upon a sometime) love~
She throws on a T-shirt and throws open the window, biting into her tongue. The sand is wet against her soles when she hits the ground numb. She can't feel the shells slice into her feet while she runs with the wind.
The sky is on fire and Amber is drowning in freedom as acid rain soaks her hair, fills up her mouth and her ears and her lungs. The world is dark wherever it isn't burning, and Amber sprints out of a dream on the fine line between flood and flame.
She won’t burn tonight. She chases the surf, combs the curling waves in search of red swirls of mermaid hair, shell pink ears buried in the sand, starfish fingers folded demurely in the jagged rock lap of the cliffs.
The sky is on fire. The FM broadcast signals must be haywire from the buzz of electricity latent in the air. Only static plays on the radio when her alarm goes off, but Amber isn't there to hear it.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
(part one here)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): f(x) Amber centric + Amber/Krystal; side Baekhyun/Taeyeon
Warnings: language, alcohol, sexual content, mentions of Amber/OC and Krystal/Eric Nam
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, written just for fun.
Summary: "Let me just say it's a bad idea, my friend. It'll wreck you if you have a summer fling and fall for her along the way..."
A/N: Originally posted at the u unnideul 2015 exchange for bluedreaming, thank you for the awesome prompts! The text dividers are direct quotes taken from two poems; the purple lines are from Ernest Christopher Dowson’s “Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae”, and the blue lines are from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The City in the Sea”. Thanks bunches and bunches to my beta chuyeol for helping me out on this fic ! ( all mistakes are mine ) Also thanks to hailynx for the quote about saying "apology accepted instead of it's okay", you always challenge me to think deeper <3
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
September
Summer has faded from vermilion to a washed out candy red, the same shade at the back of Amber's eyelids when her closed eyes tilt into the sun glare. The chipping red on her nails and the flaking rust on her car door don't match, though.
Not that color coordination has ever mattered much to Amber. She keeps the cottage apartment in a style Taeyeon's mother calls 'eclectic' and Baekhyun once called 'thrift store deluxe.' Something piecemeal and vibrant that reflects the rainbow jumble in her heart.
The sun is out, the mist asphyxiating in the light, but the air rolling off the bay is cool against Amber's eyelids. They still haven't turned off the AC in the hotel lobby and Taeyeon huddles behind the front desk in the mornings in a navy wool cardigan that makes her look like a bored librarian.
Amber works up enough of a sweat dragging her cart up and down the halls, but she regrets leaving her jacket at home now. She'll just make this a quick trip though, pull over at the Shell station for a soda and a hot dog off the rotisserie rack.
The parking lot is empty. She rolls the windows up but leaves the keys dangling from the ignition, navigating around a large fan only to get hit with a blast of aircon in the doorway.
"Welcome to--oh hey, Amber!"
Amber stops short, flip flops squeaking on the welcome mat, and the glass door hits the back of her heels when it swings shut. "Hey there." She waves at Jongdae and he waves back. He looks even skinnier than usual in the red uniform polo buttoned up to his throat. The visor with S H E L L embroidered across the brim obscures his eyes and most of the awful perm he got at the end of summer, the week before--
"Long time no see! You haven't hung out with the gang in weeks."
"Yeah, well, I'm busy." Amber returns his smile but looks away to scan the refrigerator cases. The rows of red label vodka and cheap whiskey tempt her for a moment but it's not worth it. She has to head back to work in twenty.
"Tourist season's over, it's almost October. What's keeping you from the loving arms of your best mates?"
Amber shrugs. Her hand cups the aluminum shoulders of a Pepsi Classic for a moment before pulling down a 12 oz. bottle. Coke Zero, because she actually ate breakfast today, Cocoa Puffs and 2%. She hasn't bought eggs in three weeks.
"There's no reason to hide, you know. No one's mad at you, and we'll give you all the space you need." Jongdae's voice is small. It matches his size, barely tall enough to reach the packs of cigarettes stocked above his head behind the wide counter.
"I know that. I'm sorry, but it's just...it didn't go the way I planned, I'm still figuring myself out right now." Amber misses them too. She even misses Byun Baekhyun and his loud, obnoxious laughter. It's nice to know they miss her, really fucking nice, but even if she showed up for Tequila night on Friday it wouldn't be the same. They wouldn't get the same Amber Jongdae thinks he's inviting.
"Ok." Jongdae smiles, and Amber has no idea what he's thinking, no idea what anyone thinks anymore, but at least it looks real. He seems genuine, and that's enough for now.
"If you didn't think I was stupid before, you must really think I'm an idiot now, huh." Amber sets her bottle on the counter. The scanner chirps with a red laser flash. $1.89. 45 mg of sodium. 0 kcal.
"I don't think that." The receipt chugs out of the printer, eight and a half inches of bleached paper for one item of sale.
Amber doesn't meet his eyes because she's sure he's heard, if not from Taeyeon then from the town rumor mill. Everyone knows about the same wrong turn she loses herself with every weekend and also on some Tuesdays, swallowing down her darkness and letting strangers’ teeth bruise her skin into a garden of roses and violets.
"Really, Ambs. We just don't want you to get hurt." He holds out the receipt but Amber shakes her head.
"Too late. But thanks, man."
"You know," he says, and Amber's sandals squeak on the welcome mat and her fingers streak the glass. "Some things are learned after practice and practice, like saying 'apology accepted' rather than 'it's okay'. And that's not stupid at all."
"I thought this is when you were supposed to say, 'have a nice day.'" Amber laughs at her own joke but doesn't check to see if Jongdae even smiles.
"Go check Facebook. Wish her a happy autumnal equinox. Ask her what's she's doing for her birthday. Just take a small step, and it might make you feel better."
"Bye, Jongdae." Amber lunges out the door and gulps down her coke in the parking lot.
She waits to log onto Facebook until she's alone in her room, the storm shutters opened to the burgeoning twilight. Her fingers rattle the keys. It takes her two tries to remember the password, a quiet smile in the airport lobby rushing her limbic system and blocking out the rest.
She had let Krystal board the flight to New York with only a wave. Taeyeon smiled in the car back to the hotel from the airport, satisfied that they were fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, enough time to stop at Cracker Barrel instead of In-N-Out for lunch.
Amber threw up her hamburger and strawberry milkshake in the hotel parking lot behind the yellow rose bush. Taeyeon's mother gave her the weekend off to recover from the flu and Amber didn't correct her misassumption because she needed a day of hibernation, anyway.
Now Amber curls into the same sweat stained comforter she hasn't bothered to wash since then. She chews on the ragged edge while she waits for the wifi to load the page, first the blue header at the top, then the sidebar showing friends online.
Just a small step, Jongdae told her, but Amber's not backing down now. Her resolve tastes like iron under her tongue and the beat of moth wings in her heart stir her stagnant feelings into spun sugar, dandelion gossamer, the color of dreams coming true.
She pulls up the chat window. The online indicator next to Krystal’s name glows like a green light for what Amber's about to do. She ignores the slow stream of posts popping up on the home feed and starts typing.
Krystal, I know I should have said this weeks ago, hell months ago if I'm completely honest, and now I want to be 100% honest about everything with you, about the way I--
The cursor blinks like a pennant in a stiff breeze as she holds down the backspace.
Krystal, I lov--
Another post unfolds at the top of the page and Amber's thumb slips on the touchpad, minimizing the chat window. She curses the computer in her lap, glaring at the photo that rudely interrupted her confession.
She stops short when the haze of anger clears from her vision and Krystal's smile comes into focus at the top of her screen. White teeth and caramel hair. Black cocktail dresses and a tan suit. Fluorescent glare off the rims of champagne glasses and a diamond ring. Amber clicks.
Krystal Jung and Eric Nam engagement party, the caption reads. After three bittersweet years, our love has matured into something rare and beautiful, a fairy tale ending to our dark chocolate dreams. We've had our share of misunderstandings, but absence truly does make the heart grow fonder, and the sign of a truly loyal partner is someone who always accepts you back just the way you are. Please join us this New Year's Eve, Thursday, January 31st, 2015, to help us celebrate our--
Amber pops the battery pack out from the back of her laptop and carefully closes the lid. She shoves it under her bed before feeling under the covers for her phone.
hey Tae, rly sorry but Im coming down with some kinda flu. Im taking a sick day 2morrow. love ya bye.
The answer she's looking for comes less than a minute later. Amber checks it without unlocking the screen. kk, feel better! chu~
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
March
"What's this one from?" Taeyeon flicks the yellowed postcard with her thumbnail and licks the froth from her upper lip.
"Chicago World's Fair, 1893."
"That old?" Taeyeon's next mouthful dribbles back into the mug. She rubs her fingertip in apology over the abused corner of faded cardstock.
"Nah, it's a reissue from 1954. Still old enough to treat it with respect, though."
"Hmm." Taeyeon hums in the back of her throat but Amber's not sure if it's an acknowledgement or vague dismissal. Not that it matters, because her attention wanders from the crisscrossing nylon ropes of clipped on images as she strays closer to the window overlooking the sand.
"Are these storm shutters new?" She flicks at the weathered wood through the mesh of the window screen and Amber is amazed she hasn't chipped her hot pink nail polish by now with all the flicking.
"They've been here longer than I have."
"Hmm..."
Amber's fingers still over the snapshots she's sorting through when Taeyeon comes up behind her to rest a hand on her hunched shoulder. Taeyeon uses the leverage to lower herself onto her knees beside Amber at the coffee table, but doesn't remove her hand even once she's safely sitting on the ground.
"Why don't you put that one up?" Taeyeon takes a slow sip and Amber gives her a look.
"This one?" Her fingers skim the blurry image, another faded polaroid of Krystal like dozens of others that Amber keeps boxed up under her bed. Krystal is curled in the covers piled on Amber's mattress. Her hair spreads like a gauzy veil over the planes of her face and the coiled lines of her body extend like an arabesque in reverse, a flower blooming inwards like the soft introverted spirit of woman herself.
"She looks like a snail napping," Taeyeon comments with a halfhearted laugh echoing into her drained glass. "It's cute. Can I keep it?"
Amber doesn't say anything as Taeyeon gathers the textured margin of the snapshot in a delicate pinch of her fingers. Taeyeon pushes off the edge of the table to lay her mug upside down in the sink basic to drain.
"It looks like a graveyard in here." Taeyeon's lingering in front of the picture wall again, the fragmented mosaic of Amber's heart, the collage of her dreams. "Why do you have all these monochrome photos of dead people you don't even know?"
ffWhack.
Taeyeon's fingernail smacks against a posed wedding portrait. There's no name or date on the back. Amber picked it up at a flea market from a bin of abandoned and homeless family photographs, but she knows it's circa 1930 from the drop waist gown and tulle veil gathered in bunches at the bride's temples.
"To cultivate a sense of the here and now, the urgency of living life full steam ahead." Amber speaks the words with conviction like she hadn't read the same phrase on an inspirational scented candle at the same flea market and scoffed.
"Well I don't think it's healthy." Taeyeon licks at the cold sore on her upper lip, stripping it of the milk foam lingering on the cracked skin. "You need to brighten this place up."
"Nah, that's ok." Amber shakes her head and shuffles a few more photos of dead people to the top of the pile in front of her, before Taeyeon can spot any more gems she'll want to take home with her.
"I'm still hungry. You have any peanut butter in here? We could make sandwiches with the jam in your fridge."
"Nope. Just the jam. But you're welcome to it if you still want a sandwich." Amber turns to face the window to hide her grimace. Taeyeon's been her supposed best friend for how many years now? And she still can't remember Amber's aversion to the sticky stuff.
"Hey, didn't I take this one?" Amber's heart stops for the briefest of moments, the way it does every morning when she passes the photos on her way into the kitchen for a glass of pool flavored tap water. "Both of these, right?"
Amber nods, a heavy rhythmed death knell tolled by wary features. She printed the two in question from the facebook album Taeyeon posted the night after their outing. The first is a group shot Jongdae took for them, kneeling in the sand while the girls posed in matching flip flops. As soon as the official 'photo shoot' ended Taeyeon took back her camera and pestered them for the rest of the day, snapping candids of Jongdae's volleyball serve and the simple poem Sehun had traced in the sand, but mostly of of her boyfriend's ridiculous face.
The second picture Taeyeon is fingering with a look of interest is Amber's favorite. Her absolute favorite - not including the scrap of a cereal box signed a Tony the Tiger mascot when she was in grade school. It's another candid Taeyeon snapped on the sly, of Amber and Krystal walking hand in hand into the sunset, the glimmer of moisture on the sand setting their feet aglow in the periwinkle haze of twilight.
"You guys kinda looked cute together." Taeyeon shrugs, and shakes a slice of sandwich bread out of the bag on the counter. "Too bad it wasn't real."
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers- / Up many and many a marvellous shrine
May
"Hey, I brought beer!" Baekhyun breezes in with the wind off the sea, screen door slamming behind him.
"Who invited you?" Amber groans, slamming her diet coke onto the coffee table with a tired glare.
"Me, myself, and I!" Baekhyun announces with a laugh, like he's expecting Amber should be happy to see him.
"Aw, let him chill with us, Amber." Taeyeon's hard lemonade is sweating in her hands. A stream of fat droplets slides from the glass onto Amber's T-shirt and Amber can't tell Taeyeon no. This is Taeyeon's parents' cottage apartment after all, which Amber is staying in by virtue of being on their payroll and also being their only daughter's best friend.
"Hey, is it cool if my cousin comes to hang out a bit later? She's visiting Cali for the summer, some research gig, and doesn't have any friends up here. So I promised to introduce her to some people."
"Yeah..." Amber nods, more focused on watching Baekhyun scrounge through her cabinets for a bottle opener than what Taeyeon is saying.
"Cool! I'll text her to come over then. I think you'll like her, the both of you will. Krystal's really fun."
"Krystal?" Amber blinks at Taeyeon's glittering eyes over the sparkle of dewy glass under her fingers.
"My cousin," Taeyeon glares, "who I said is coming over?"
"Oh, right. Sorry." Amber rubs the fatigue from her eyes (or rubs it in) with the heels of her hands.
"Ahah! Found it!" Baekhyun hums a familiar tune to himself as he slams the kitchen drawers and tiptoes over to the coffee table Amber's slumped over.
"Are we drinking this straight?" Taeyeon clinks a turquoise nail into the the cap of the beer bottle in her boyfriend's hands. Baekhyun grunts, accenting the tune he's humming with soft puffs of intent air.
"I sure am. Your lemonade's already spiked, honey."
"That's not what I meant and you know it!" Taeyeon twists out of his grip with a hoarse laugh, eyeing Amber's coke can.
Amber clutches her soda to her chest. She only has one can left in her fridge, and she needs it to wake herself up tomorrow morning. She will be pissed if Taeyeon decides, on one of her whims, to sacrifice Amber's caffeine for a Tuesday afternoon alcoholic soiree.
"You're so weird," Baekhyun complains, throwing emphasis onto the last word til the 'r' trills in his throat. "Coke and beer, lemonade and beer, nasty!" He shakes his head like a dog, scrunching up his nose and letting his tongue hang out a bit.
Taeyeon smacks him in the arm, and then the back of the head when he snickers at her. Amber is sympathetic to his feelings, though. Weird drinking habits was something Taeyeon brought back with her after her year abroad in Berlin, along with a chunk of mortar she claims is from the remnants of the wall and a pair of polarized aviators to rival John Lennon's.
"You want one?" Baekhyun offers the opened bottle to Amber but she shakes her head. The fermented grain stings sour when she inhales.
"Lemme go find the vodka stash, if you two are really set on getting smashed in the middle of the afternoon. On a Tuesday of all days."
"Who cares what day of the week it is?" Baekhyun shoots her an incredulous glare as she hauls herself up and into the kitchenette area. "It's summer, isn't it? No school, no schedule, just the sunshine and the water and love." He stares into Taeyeon's eyes with a sickening grin and Taeyeon (the freak) actually stares back with a smitten blush rising in her cheeks.
"I never have school," Amber points out.
Baekhyun, like the brilliant and overachieving chemical engineering student he is, just grins. "Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you're footloose and fancy free now. Bye bye college degree dreams, and all that."
"Baekhyun," Taeyeon warns in a low voice, but he just winks at her and knocks back a swig.
"So, when is your cousin getting here?" Amber turns to Taeyeon, watching in distaste as Baekhyun nudges his girlfriend's legs apart to settle crosslegged on the floor between them.
"I dunno. Soon, probably." Taeyeon doesn't look up from her phone. Amber can't see from her seat on the floor who it is she's texting.
"Because I have to go to bed early tonight. Your mom wants help setting up the parish fundraiser in the morning and--"
"Chill, 'Ber, it is 3:00 in the afternoon. I'm supposed to help out with that too, but there's plenty of time to get smashed and sleep it off before then."
"Mm," Amber grunts into her coke can. She plucks at the tab with the blunt edge of her fingernail, wondering how long many flicks it would take for the aluminum to snap free.
"Baek, would you quit that!" Taeyeon smacks her boyfriend's hands away from her thighs, where he's shamelessly nuzzling the inside of her knee. "It tickles. I swear to--!"
The doorbell sounds, a gentle blend of chimes that echoes in the empty front hall.
"I'll get it!" Baekhyun hops to his feet as Amber drops the lid off the vodka onto the coffee table.
"Hello?" he yells in greeting before he even gets the door open. Amber cringes in embarrassment, hoping it isn't the cranky FedEx driver who would no doubt deliver her packages to the wrong doorstep for months in retaliation for rudeness. "Oh hey! Come on in, you!"
"Hey," Amber hears a soft voice answer, then the click of stilettos or maybe heeled sandals on tile.
"Amber, meet Krystal. Soojungie, this is Tae's bff, Amber." Baekhyun comes back into view, leading a thin girl in cut offs and a lacy top with an arm around her waist.
"Don't call me that, Baek." She shoves Baekhyun off of her with a gentle punch to his shoulder, which he takes as an opportunity to hiss and moan in exaggerated pain as he slinks back to his spot between Taeyeon's feet.
"Hey, girl!" Taeyeon waves til her bangles jingle. Krystal waves back, slipping a pair of pushed back sunglasses out of her long hair.
"Can I get you anything to drink?" Amber stands on unsteady feet, toes pulsing as the blood rushes back to them. "Or get you...anything?" Amber's not used to playing host except when forced, but she's learned the basics of service and hospitality in the 18 months she's worked in the hotel.
"Nah, thanks though. I'll just..." She looks around for a place to sit, the stems of her sunglasses clinking as she taps them. The spot beside Taeyeon on the sofa is empty, but she'd have to climb over Baekhyun. That would put Amber in much the same intimate position as Baekhyun is occupying in his girlfriend's bubble, Amber realizes with a start, and hastens to drag a chair over from the other side of the narrow room.
"First, have a seat of your choosing," Amber gestures between the sofa and the wicker armchair, "and then please, lemme mix you a drink. Or there's beer if you'd rather?"
"I'll just..." Krystal glances to Taeyeon, who is still preoccupied with the keyboard on her iPhone. "I'll have what everyone else is having." She settles on the edge of the sofa cushion, knees spread boyishly and long fingers twined in a demure fold in her lap. Amber grins, relieved to recognize her guest's hesitation must be because she's shy, not because she's snobbish about being in the humble cottage.
"Great, I'll pour you one of everything, then!" she answers with a wink. Krystal blushes pinker than Taeyeon assaulted by Baekhyun's tongue and snatches up a quilted throw pillow to prop in her lap.
Amber pulls down a stack of juice glasses to mix the vodka in and grabs the pretzels from the top of the fridge while she's at it.
"So, uh, what brings you to these parts?" Amber gives the red Koolaid a stir before dribbling it into the glasses.
"Research," Krystal says, sitting up straighter until the edge of the cushion nestles just under her bustline, defining the round shape of her small breasts through the loose top. "Marine biology. I'm working on a seasonal team with one of my professors."
"Ooh, biology, huh?" Amber smiles, trying to think of a way to extend the conversation and draw Krystal out of her shell since neither Baekhyun nor Taeyeon seemed interested in trying. They're both busy on their phones. "As in, ichthyology? Do you study giant squids?"
Baekhyun perks up at that, glancing over with his mouth hanging open until Krystal's surprised laugh sidetracks his deep sea interest.
"No, nothing like that. We're studying the life cycle of Nereocystis subspecies. Northern California has some of the largest cold water colonies."
"Nero-cystic-what?" Baekhyun takes a noisy slurp and knocks his forehead into Taeyeon's knee with a frown.
"Nereocystis, Baek." Krystal repeats herself with a sigh but doesn't sound particularly put out with him. She probably has to face uneducated questions about her work every day, Amber realizes.
"What?" Baekhyun curls his hand around the first drink as soon as Amber has it mixed, gulping the top inch down with a greedy suck instead of offering it to the guest.
"Seaweed, Baek, she studies seaweed."
"Oh!" Baekhyun shivers, his face contorting into a disgusted face that draws another giggle from Krystal.
"I thought I explained at Christmas, Baek. Were you so drunk on the eggnog you weren't listening, hm?" Krystal props her elbows on her knees, accepting the next glass from Amber with a nod of thanks.
Perhaps Baekhyun doesn't consider her a guest, Amber thinks next. Maybe she's the odd one out in this circle of intimates, even if she's known Taeyeon since sixth grade and Baekhyun since 8th when he'd started dating her best friend. Of course he would have met Krystal, he's been flying out to New York with Taeyeon's family every Christmas since senior year of high school.
"Was that eggnog even spiked?" Baekhyun twists around to look at Taeyeon. She just shrugs in response, leaning away when he tries to poke her in the cheek.
"Aunt Clarissa made it and she's a Baptist, so I doubt it. Baek gets drunk on the atmosphere without any help from liquor," she adds to others with a laugh.
"Then why is he still sober," Krystal deadpans, mouth red from the dye that's wet on her lips.
"Because y'all are no fun, obviously." Baekhyun's snort is interrupted by a louder one from Taeyeon, who mutters something about his poor taste in friends.
Amber knocks back a straight shot before mixing the next with a dash of red from the pitcher. She's too used to the couple's bickering to let their grouchiness burn bitter on the back of her tongue. She'd much rather focus her attention on Krystal's musical laugh, which deepens with every gulp from her glass.
Amber can feel the stress of the day loosening, starting from the pinch in her elbows and floating free in her wrists and ribcage until she's laughing along, too. Her fifth glass makes the sunbeams waver in the air, shifting helices like cords of rising smoke from Taeyeon's incense burner. Krystal's fingers skid across the slick damask of the cushion cover but her laugh rings true through throaty grunts of amusement that Baekhyun belts out in spurts.
They all end up on the floor, propped up on cushions around the coffee table when Baekhyun proposes a drinking game that everyone will be regretting in the morning. He pulls a resistant Taeyeon into his lap and nuzzles into her neck until she concedes to his rules, but ends up taking her penalty shots for her anyway.
Krystal slides into Amber like kelp washing in with the tide, limp limbs plastered across the boulders of Amber's propped up knees, when Taeyeon steals her pillow. Slick strands of red tangle like mermaid's hair in the sunset in Krystal's dangly earrings, and Amber can't stop her fingers from curling up on the waves of laughter to brush them behind her ear.
"'Ber, you ok? You need some water?"
Amber shakes her head at Taeyeon's slanting frown, but heaves herself out of Krystal's sprawling embrace anyway. They've polished off the pretzel sticks and Amber's stomach is glowing with a warm hunger vibrating in her nerves.
The floor tips up, Amber's toes pressing through the linoleum like a wire egg slicer through yolk when she stands to hunt for the bag of stale potato chips that probably won't taste that stale when they're this drunk. Her feet carry her to the bathroom instead though, and Amber takes that as a heavenly sign to use the toilet and splash some water into her eyes and mouth.
She leans her forehead against the wall as she collects the gravity to twist the door open. Her forehead presses heavy against tile, melting through the porcelain ice as her own laughter echoes in her ears. She hasn't felt this spectacular in the loosest sort of way since winter, but then it was cold and now it's the end of spring and summer is waiting for her on the horizon and along the beach and perhaps curled up on a cushion next to her coffee table.
Amber moonwalks down the hall to the kitchen, feet lighter than the foam on the surf until Taeyeon drags her back to earth with a yank from fingers tight on her elbow.
"She's hands off, so ask first before you start tying girl scout knots in my cousin's hair." Taeyeon's glare wavers in the rippling tide of the water glass she shoves into Amber's hand and up to Amber's lips.
"What?" Amber gurgles through her first swallow. The water tastes like a swimming pool and not like the ocean and Amber doesn't know if that means she should laugh or cry.
"Krystal. She's hands off because she dumped Eric over Easter break but he still wants her back. Now do you get it?" Taeyeon's fingers are gentle on Amber's cheek, brushing away droplets of water and setting them free. Her stare burns into Amber's retina's like a foreign sun, black and relentless, and Amber nods through the haze of Taeyeon's words like she understands.
"I'll hands off," she agrees, "as soon as Krystal tells me to."
"You--!"
Amber never finds out if Taeyeon would have actually called her a bitch, or something worse, or something in Korean perhaps, because Baekhyun stumbles into the fridge and knocks down a hailstorm of magnets with his elbow.
"Sorry," he says, lips wavering between a dazed smile and a tearful sob. Taeyeon helps him up from the floor as Krystal careens into the doorpost, her laughter flowing from the tips of her vermillion sunset hair into Amber's currents.
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free- / Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
January
"How are you doing?" Taeyeon dips her toes into the stagnant pantyhose pooled on Amber's living room floor. She kicks them across the linoleum to the TV with a disgusted click of her tongue.
"I'm managing." Amber slams the fridge door. "Beer?"
"Is that Natty Lite? Did Sehunnie leave that here? I'll pass." Taeyeon waves a glib hand, purple zebra stripes on her nails stinging Amber's eyes. "You got milk? I'll drink that as long as it's not whole."
"You want that vanilla soy stuff your mom drinks?" Amber wrinkles up her nose and lets the folds of her pushed up sleeves tumble down her forearms in a gray waterfall.
"I don't imagine you stock that here!"
"You are right," Amber says, and shoves a stack of junk mail into the silverware drawer before Taeyeon can paw through it.
"Two percent. I started drinking it last month because of the vitamins, or something. That's what you have, right?"
Amber has half a quart of vitamin D fortified 2% setting in her fridge. And a slice of American cheese in filmy plastic. And a heart as fermented and pungent as the kimchi on the bottom shelf. Whole milk is brain healthy but Amber feels sick sucking down the rich cream drifting at the top. She still hasn't managed to feel whole again, her mosaic a kaleidoscope in the bottom of the drained bathtub instead of cemented into a something.
"Here." The milk is cold and it isn't sour. Amber checks with a short sniff at the mouth of the carton before she fills Taeyeon's glass. It isn't sweet though. The cabbage leaves packed in garlic and fermenting in pepper paste at the back of the fridge make sure of that the day she opens a new bottle of it.
"Goodness gracious, 'Ber! Do you care to explain this?" Taeyeon raises a stray pair of silk shorts drifted behind the drooping arm of the sofa like a flag of Amber's unabashed indecency. "Who on earth have you been bringing in here?"
"Those are mine," Amber cuts in a hard voice. Taeyeon might have believed her if she didn't blush as she said it, though the words are true. As soon as Alejandro dropped them there and blazed out of her life on his motorbike, they became hers.
"Don't make me laugh." Taeyeon scoffs through her teeth, mouth wet, lips glistening.
"Finders keepers." "I'm keeping this one, because it looks like the curve of your ear. I like your ears, Amber. Did I tell you that last night in bath? I can't remember, but it's true."
"Losers weepers," Taeyeon says, and drops the boxers into the open trash bag of recycling sagging next to the back door. Mostly crushed cans empty and sour with the remnants of Sehun's disgusting cheap beer. "Just let me help you clean out the cottage. Throw out the trash at least, sort the laundry."
"Thanks, but I'm managing." The stainless steel neck of the faucet clutched in Amber's fist outlines the dankness of her own sweat on her palm.
"Fine," Taeyeon says, and leaves her empty glass next to the sink. The screen door slams behind her and Amber shivers in the draft.
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
another May
A storm wakes her, and for once it's the violence of spring forcing the earth awake, pouring down life whether the grass wants it or not. For once it's not the darkness nestled between her organs taking her apart, one colored chip of tile at a time, dream by dream.
No hints of moonlight make it through the purple oppressing the sky, but the blasts of lightning stabbing from cloud to cloud illuminate the starburst scars on Amber's neck and the vines that twine in the furrows of her ribs. The blue blooms whisper in the flashes in the mirror.
forget me not, my (once upon a sometime) love~
She throws on a T-shirt and throws open the window, biting into her tongue. The sand is wet against her soles when she hits the ground numb. She can't feel the shells slice into her feet while she runs with the wind.
The sky is on fire and Amber is drowning in freedom as acid rain soaks her hair, fills up her mouth and her ears and her lungs. The world is dark wherever it isn't burning, and Amber sprints out of a dream on the fine line between flood and flame.
She won’t burn tonight. She chases the surf, combs the curling waves in search of red swirls of mermaid hair, shell pink ears buried in the sand, starfish fingers folded demurely in the jagged rock lap of the cliffs.
The sky is on fire. The FM broadcast signals must be haywire from the buzz of electricity latent in the air. Only static plays on the radio when her alarm goes off, but Amber isn't there to hear it.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
(part one here)