coexist (1/8): prologue
coexist (1/8): prologue
797w, PG
[pairing]Jonghyun/IU
A/N: I am so bad with mystery I swear I tried to be even a tiny bit mysterious about this but failed miserably
Amazing aren’t they? Weddings?
07.48 pm
Jieun had always thought that weddings scream of hypocrisy. Do they not? A wedding is where hundreds of people - who probably only know a few other - gather to celebrate two human beings getting tied to each other and both their families for the rest of their lives.
Some kind of celebration, she thinks, more like a farewell and sending off to the world where freedom is scarce. Or a welcoming, I guess, if you see it from the perspectives of married couples. She snaps out of her mind when she realises that it’s an awfully inappropriate time and place to think the way she’s thinking, when she’s at one and has just attended the ceremony.
She scans around the room to see to what extent can she recognize the guests. There’s the family of the groom. Those over there are friends at work, and some other people she can’t recognize, probably work colleagues. To the far corners she can see the college friends, some of them also the high school friends. She realises then that if most people brings a plus one, then brides and grooms of the world would probably only know half to three quarters of the guests. The guests who are supposedly celebrating their getting together, to love and cherish, till death do them part.
She spots a friend whom she had just seen two days ago, who had been complaining about The Life of Being a Secret Lover of a Married Woman. She sees the said woman at the other side of the room, mingling while her friend looks at the woman longingly. Oh we’re celebrating alright, she thinks.
07.49 pm
He’s looking at the band performing Michael Bublé’s Everything, when he caught eyes with a friend who has his arm around his wife while they are talking to some men around 50 years of age. That touch is probably one of the very few skinships they’ve had for a long while. His friend smiles at him, so he smiles back. What else can he do? Glare at him for not giving his best friend her ideal marriage? Probably not the best idea.
Call him a hopeless romantic, but Jonghyun never gets it when someone enters a relationship they don’t even have the will to nurture. There’s always the option not to marry, so why marry at all if you don’t want it? I guess that could also mean I’m a sceptic, then, he corrects himself.
10.12 pm
The last of the guests leaves the wedding hall, some to their family homes, some going somewhere else to party some more, some to the embrace of their loved ones, and some back to the aloneness of their hollow apartments.
Jieun doesn’t want to think about which category she falls into, where she’s going after the wedding’s over. Or rather, she knows where she will be going, but it feels so foreign after being among a jumble of people with various relationships, both gone right and wrong. She’s anxious to move on, to say the least.
10.15 pm
Jonghyun approaches the woman sitting on the edge of the stage taking off her high heels, and sits beside her. She stares at him, her eyes tired (and also worried?) but still round and beautiful like they always have been. She leans her head on his shoulder.
“I’m so tired”, she said
“We can stay like this for a while if you want”
And they just stay there for a little while.
10.25 pm
There’s no point in not moving on, she knows that, but she still feels heavy for whatever unknown reasons.
“I can’t stop thinking about relationships, jjong,” she addresses him with his nickname. “Why is that?”, he asked.
She knows that he understands, but she answers anyway. “You know, our relationship, other people’s. Whether they work or not. If ours are going to end up like one of those miserable ones”, she laughed a tiny laugh and continued, “am I childish? I know I shouldn’t be thinking about this, especially not now when I just became your lawfully wedded wife.”
“No, you’re not childish. It’s totally understandable.”
She sighs, “are we going to be like them?”, she asked while playing with the tulle on the bottom part of her wedding gown. “I don’t want us to be. I don’t know if this will calm you, but I will try to maintain and nurture this relationship. I want to help us. I want to help our relationship.”
“Me too,” she feels some of the binds suffocating her heart go away with his words. “Thank you for telling me how you feel,” he said, she can feel him starting to lose himself in his thoughts.
“Okay, now I’m ready to go,” she sits up straight, holds his hand and stands up.
797w, PG
[pairing]Jonghyun/IU
A/N: I am so bad with mystery I swear I tried to be even a tiny bit mysterious about this but failed miserably
Amazing aren’t they? Weddings?
07.48 pm
Jieun had always thought that weddings scream of hypocrisy. Do they not? A wedding is where hundreds of people - who probably only know a few other - gather to celebrate two human beings getting tied to each other and both their families for the rest of their lives.
Some kind of celebration, she thinks, more like a farewell and sending off to the world where freedom is scarce. Or a welcoming, I guess, if you see it from the perspectives of married couples. She snaps out of her mind when she realises that it’s an awfully inappropriate time and place to think the way she’s thinking, when she’s at one and has just attended the ceremony.
She scans around the room to see to what extent can she recognize the guests. There’s the family of the groom. Those over there are friends at work, and some other people she can’t recognize, probably work colleagues. To the far corners she can see the college friends, some of them also the high school friends. She realises then that if most people brings a plus one, then brides and grooms of the world would probably only know half to three quarters of the guests. The guests who are supposedly celebrating their getting together, to love and cherish, till death do them part.
She spots a friend whom she had just seen two days ago, who had been complaining about The Life of Being a Secret Lover of a Married Woman. She sees the said woman at the other side of the room, mingling while her friend looks at the woman longingly. Oh we’re celebrating alright, she thinks.
07.49 pm
He’s looking at the band performing Michael Bublé’s Everything, when he caught eyes with a friend who has his arm around his wife while they are talking to some men around 50 years of age. That touch is probably one of the very few skinships they’ve had for a long while. His friend smiles at him, so he smiles back. What else can he do? Glare at him for not giving his best friend her ideal marriage? Probably not the best idea.
Call him a hopeless romantic, but Jonghyun never gets it when someone enters a relationship they don’t even have the will to nurture. There’s always the option not to marry, so why marry at all if you don’t want it? I guess that could also mean I’m a sceptic, then, he corrects himself.
10.12 pm
The last of the guests leaves the wedding hall, some to their family homes, some going somewhere else to party some more, some to the embrace of their loved ones, and some back to the aloneness of their hollow apartments.
Jieun doesn’t want to think about which category she falls into, where she’s going after the wedding’s over. Or rather, she knows where she will be going, but it feels so foreign after being among a jumble of people with various relationships, both gone right and wrong. She’s anxious to move on, to say the least.
10.15 pm
Jonghyun approaches the woman sitting on the edge of the stage taking off her high heels, and sits beside her. She stares at him, her eyes tired (and also worried?) but still round and beautiful like they always have been. She leans her head on his shoulder.
“I’m so tired”, she said
“We can stay like this for a while if you want”
And they just stay there for a little while.
10.25 pm
There’s no point in not moving on, she knows that, but she still feels heavy for whatever unknown reasons.
“I can’t stop thinking about relationships, jjong,” she addresses him with his nickname. “Why is that?”, he asked.
She knows that he understands, but she answers anyway. “You know, our relationship, other people’s. Whether they work or not. If ours are going to end up like one of those miserable ones”, she laughed a tiny laugh and continued, “am I childish? I know I shouldn’t be thinking about this, especially not now when I just became your lawfully wedded wife.”
“No, you’re not childish. It’s totally understandable.”
She sighs, “are we going to be like them?”, she asked while playing with the tulle on the bottom part of her wedding gown. “I don’t want us to be. I don’t know if this will calm you, but I will try to maintain and nurture this relationship. I want to help us. I want to help our relationship.”
“Me too,” she feels some of the binds suffocating her heart go away with his words. “Thank you for telling me how you feel,” he said, she can feel him starting to lose himself in his thoughts.
“Okay, now I’m ready to go,” she sits up straight, holds his hand and stands up.