round 06, challenge five: entry #01
Title: beautyplasty
Fandom and Pairing: 2ne1; bom-centric
Rating: pg13
Word Count: 723
Prompt/s Used: poem
Summary: just because her decision is reactionary doesn't mean it's any better or worse. it just is.
Warnings: none
"You shouldn't look at that stuff, noona," Seunghyun tells her in an uncharacteristic show of gravitas the first time it happens. "Everyone on the Internet is a critic. Don't take it to heart."
It's so much easier said than done, of course. It's harder to deal with because even though she doesn't know any of these invisible people, each new negative comment-she doesn't deserve to share anything with them, let alone two music videos-seems to reinforce everything she'd heard trying to get to where she is now. You're good, but not good enough. You're good, but you aren't what we're looking for. You're good, but you don't have the right face.
Maybe it's because Jiyong and Seunghyun are boys, and already famous. To their fans, Bom is nothing more than a punching bag for their ire, a sad sack of mediocrity upon which to unload all their vitriol-and it doesn't let up, not in a month or six.
"There will always be haters," Jiyong murmurs quietly, looking at her in a way that says he wants to make it right but doesn't know how. "We have them, too. I'm sorry."
He doesn't have to be. It's not his responsibility, anyway. It's not his fault.
The second time, it's because she's sharing a simple cell phone commercial with Hyori, who is endlessly confident and effortlessly beautiful. It feels far worse to be compared to her and found lacking, because Bom cannot chalk it up to the petty jealousy of fangirls anymore.
"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" Hyunsuk asks, when she comes to him with her plan.
"Yes," she says, voice laced through with conviction. He doesn't stop her.
The doctor smiles when she walks into the clinic, cap pulled low over her forehead, huge shades obscuring two-thirds of her face. "Park Bom-sshi? Right this way."
They meet twice: once with the surgeon, and the second time with an anesthesiologist. The third visit is for the surgery itself, on a fine spring morning in April. She lies down on the operating table in the billowy gown they give her, breath held taut in her chest. It is too late now to change her mind.
It takes less time than she imagined it would. Nip and tuck and right back out the door with gauze over her face and stitches in her eyelids, floating in a haze of medication-induced euphoria.
Goeun is waiting for her in the lobby. She drives both of them home, her hand a warm, reassuring presence on the small of Bom's back as she leads her to her room.
She gets her stitches out forty-eight hours after the operation. The pain goes away quickly, but the stretch of skin across her face still feels strange no matter how much she moves it.
Hyunsuk lets her stay at home to recuperate for a month, and so she wears sunglasses indoors and reads a new chapter of Norwegian Wood every day, drops ten pounds in the first week because she can barely muster up the appetite for anything more than porridge for breakfast. Even the grainy rice tastes different, as if the surgery's somehow messed with her taste buds, too.
She finally gets a good look at herself in the mirror after three weeks of bed rest. The dark circles around her eyes are fading fast, though some of the bloating remains. She steps back, the heel of her foot bouncing off the far wall-and sees someone she doesn't recognize, a stranger peering back at her. The realization is not revolutionary. It does not set her world off-kilter forever. It dawns on her almost objectively, as if she is watching herself from someone else's point of view: here is Park Bom, 23 years young, with a new face. She is a new person. Everything is coming up roses.
The morning she's scheduled to resume training, Bom pulls her phone out and deletes all her old photos. Her thumb hesitates over the confirm button for one pregnant moment before she brings it down, pixels brushed away like cobwebs.
She has a clean slate. She is going to stand on stage in clothes tailor-made for her, with a voice of gold, and sing like her life depends on it.
From here on out, things will be better.
Fandom and Pairing: 2ne1; bom-centric
Rating: pg13
Word Count: 723
Prompt/s Used: poem
Summary: just because her decision is reactionary doesn't mean it's any better or worse. it just is.
Warnings: none
"You shouldn't look at that stuff, noona," Seunghyun tells her in an uncharacteristic show of gravitas the first time it happens. "Everyone on the Internet is a critic. Don't take it to heart."
It's so much easier said than done, of course. It's harder to deal with because even though she doesn't know any of these invisible people, each new negative comment-she doesn't deserve to share anything with them, let alone two music videos-seems to reinforce everything she'd heard trying to get to where she is now. You're good, but not good enough. You're good, but you aren't what we're looking for. You're good, but you don't have the right face.
Maybe it's because Jiyong and Seunghyun are boys, and already famous. To their fans, Bom is nothing more than a punching bag for their ire, a sad sack of mediocrity upon which to unload all their vitriol-and it doesn't let up, not in a month or six.
"There will always be haters," Jiyong murmurs quietly, looking at her in a way that says he wants to make it right but doesn't know how. "We have them, too. I'm sorry."
He doesn't have to be. It's not his responsibility, anyway. It's not his fault.
The second time, it's because she's sharing a simple cell phone commercial with Hyori, who is endlessly confident and effortlessly beautiful. It feels far worse to be compared to her and found lacking, because Bom cannot chalk it up to the petty jealousy of fangirls anymore.
"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" Hyunsuk asks, when she comes to him with her plan.
"Yes," she says, voice laced through with conviction. He doesn't stop her.
The doctor smiles when she walks into the clinic, cap pulled low over her forehead, huge shades obscuring two-thirds of her face. "Park Bom-sshi? Right this way."
They meet twice: once with the surgeon, and the second time with an anesthesiologist. The third visit is for the surgery itself, on a fine spring morning in April. She lies down on the operating table in the billowy gown they give her, breath held taut in her chest. It is too late now to change her mind.
It takes less time than she imagined it would. Nip and tuck and right back out the door with gauze over her face and stitches in her eyelids, floating in a haze of medication-induced euphoria.
Goeun is waiting for her in the lobby. She drives both of them home, her hand a warm, reassuring presence on the small of Bom's back as she leads her to her room.
She gets her stitches out forty-eight hours after the operation. The pain goes away quickly, but the stretch of skin across her face still feels strange no matter how much she moves it.
Hyunsuk lets her stay at home to recuperate for a month, and so she wears sunglasses indoors and reads a new chapter of Norwegian Wood every day, drops ten pounds in the first week because she can barely muster up the appetite for anything more than porridge for breakfast. Even the grainy rice tastes different, as if the surgery's somehow messed with her taste buds, too.
She finally gets a good look at herself in the mirror after three weeks of bed rest. The dark circles around her eyes are fading fast, though some of the bloating remains. She steps back, the heel of her foot bouncing off the far wall-and sees someone she doesn't recognize, a stranger peering back at her. The realization is not revolutionary. It does not set her world off-kilter forever. It dawns on her almost objectively, as if she is watching herself from someone else's point of view: here is Park Bom, 23 years young, with a new face. She is a new person. Everything is coming up roses.
The morning she's scheduled to resume training, Bom pulls her phone out and deletes all her old photos. Her thumb hesitates over the confirm button for one pregnant moment before she brings it down, pixels brushed away like cobwebs.
She has a clean slate. She is going to stand on stage in clothes tailor-made for her, with a voice of gold, and sing like her life depends on it.
From here on out, things will be better.