Round 24: one step closer : one step back
Title: one step closer : one step back
Team: Canon/AR
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3657
Fandom: Got7/Miss A
Pairing: Jr/Suzy
Warnings: none
Summary: The nation’s first love can only really belong to the nation.
Author's Note: First of all, please note that this is fiction, so naturally, liberties are therefore taken with characterization! Secondly, I LOVE YOU TEAM SPY.
Prompt Used: History - What am I to You and supplementary prompt #2
She’s drunk.
“You love me, don’t you?” she asks, pulling on the material of his shirt, fingers skirting under the hem and burning against his skin. She smiles and then leans forward, pressing her lips against the corner of his mouth. He can’t tell if she meant to miss or not.
“You’ve been drinking,” he tells her, putting his hands on her shoulders and pushing her backwards. He scans the street for a wayward paparazzi or zealous fan, but the night seems empty, and she is not deterred.
“What does it matter, Jinyoung?” she asks. “You want me. You’ve wanted me. Everyone wants me.” Her eyes go blank and dark at the last statement and now her hands are fisted in his shirt like she’s holding herself up. Jinyoung is a good guy. He knows better than to believe whatever comes out of the mouth of the nation’s favorite starlet when she’s drunk, and lonely.
“I’m going to take you home,” he says, wrapping his arm around her waist to hold her up. “Before we end up being someone’s blackmail material.”
Suddenly she shakes him off and stumbles backward. “Do you love me or not?” she demands.
“Suji-”
“I’m the fucking nation’s first love,” she laughs, but it breaks in the middle and then she’s crying. Staring at him and laughing and crying all at once. She turns her face up to the sky, shaking her head and stumbling a little. “I thought I could trust you,” she says. “I thought-” She laughs again, wipes away her tears, and starts walking away.
And Jinyoung, watching her stumble down the sidewalk, gets to make a choice. He can either have the pieces of her that are left over when the nation is done with her, or he can let his heart grow cold, and forget about his first love.
He’d be better off choosing the second option.
--------
When they were trainees-when she wasn’t Suzy, the nation’s first love, but Suji, his best friend-they used to sit around the practice rooms and play a game called “When I’m famous I will…”
“When I’m famous,” Suji would say, slumping back against the wall with well-earned exhaustion, “I’ll never open any doors for myself. I’ll just hire a guy whose job is to open doors for me.” She looked over at Jinyoung, eyebrows raised and huge grin on her face. He laughed at her.
“And then whenever he opens the door he can have a little speaker that he plays your theme song from,” he teased. “I’m-so-hot!” He sang the Wonder Girls’ single in an exaggerated voice, batting his eyelashes at Suji, who fell over onto the floor, laughing.
“You know Jinyoung,” she said, “You’re really good at this. Maybe I’ll just hire you?” She poked a finger at his knee. With every prod of her fingertip, Jinyoung felt like he was getting closer to agreeing. So he shrugged away and turned his face up to the ceiling.
“When I’m famous you think I’ll have to take a job as a door-opener? Is my career going that badly in your imaginary future?” He looked back at Suji, who was still grinning at him, her hair fanned out behind her. His heart gave a weak thump and he flicked his eyes away.
“You’ll just do it for me. Out of joy. In all your interviews you’ll talk about how fulfilling it is, opening doors part-time for Bae Suji.”
“You think so little of me,” Jinyoung grinned at her, then stood and offered her a hand to get up. She took it and stood, and her hand lingered in his for just a moment after she was standing. When her hand slid away, he could still feel the warmth of her skin like a ghost on his hand. He stood still and watched her walk away. Maybe he would end up being her personal door-opener. Sometimes he felt like he was that far gone.
Years later and they’re in a practice room with twenty other people. The girls are practicing for their version of “A.D.T.O.Y.,” walking up to the chairs where all of 2PM sits waiting. Suzy sticks her foot on Chansung’s chair, throws her hair around in a vague gesture toward what will eventually be a sexy performance on stage, and then looks up. When she sees Jinyoung watching her, she winks.
“Isn’t this performance a little too much?” Jinyoung asks, later, when they’re all standing around drinking water and goofing off. Fei shoots him a look, her eyebrow arched, and Jinyoung holds up his hands in defense. “I’m just saying, for A-yeon’s sake, and Suji’s-”
“My sake?” Suzy laughs. He glances at her. Even with her hair pulled back in a sweaty ponytail, all the traces of Suzy are still evident. The sparkle in her eye is camera-ready. She walks over and pats his head, her bottom lip pouted out. It’s hard not to stare. “Jinyoungie thinks I’m still a little girl, doesn’t he?”
He reels a bit as she stares him down, a challenge evident in her eyes. I am not really the nation’s little sister, is what the look in her eyes says. Jinyoung pushes her hand away.
“Just thinking of your image,” he says good-naturedly. Fei’s eyebrows lift almost imperceptibly, but when he looks back at Suzy, her smile is still there, only a little bit frozen.
“PR agent Jinyoung, always working overtime.” Her eyes darken, and with another grin, she walks away, sipping on her water bottle. And Jinyoung is stuck just watching.
It’s not like he doesn’t know. Doesn’t hear things. Everyone hears things.
But she is-or, was-his best friend. And she always insists she hasn’t changed, when she calls him to come over and keep her company on nights when she can’t sleep in her big empty apartment all by herself. He goes because he wants to, has to, craves those hours that she says are “just like old times” even if they aren’t. Even if he’s always missing pieces of the puzzle of what her life is like now. She has stories she never fully discloses and he can’t ask-like when and why and with whom she lost her virginity, and it’s not that he cares but if he’s being terribly honest (which he tries to avoid) on some level he always expected that was something that would happen with each other, when he confessed his love at the right time, but of course Suji became Suzy and whatever stories he spun in his head were just fantasies he’d have been better off without. He is not in love. Maybe when he was younger, he didn’t know any better. But he is old enough now to know that love is an amorphous thing, and if he calls whatever he feels for Suzy “love,” he’s just joining in with the rest of the nation.
She asks him to come over, 11 PM on a Friday. He has schedules the next morning. But he goes.
She puts on a movie, something innocuous and animated, and they sit on her couch eating grapes-because they’re celebrities now. Maybe Jinyoung could eat potato chips or fried chicken, but then, he’s not nearly as famous as she. They’re not sitting close, but fifteen minutes in she sticks her bare feet under his thigh. He looks at her.
“My toes are cold,” she explains. Her face is lit by the light of her cellphone. He starts to protest, but something about the way she smiles, with her lips pressed together, makes him stop. It’s an imitation of a smile, not the real thing. She goes back to texting.
After enduring her wiggling toes for a while, he looks over at her again. “Who are you texting so much?”
A long pause follows. She keeps looking at her phone, then finally clicks the screen to black, and turns back to the movie. “Friends,” she says.
Jinyoung stares at the hard set of her jaw, the movie reflecting in her eyes. Then he looks at the screen again. He lost track of the plot half an hour ago. They watch it for a moment, and then Suzy speaks again.
“I don’t have a sponsor, don’t worry,” she says.
Jinyoung manages to clear his throat and respond, “I wasn’t.”
Suzy starts picking at her nails. “I meet a lot of rich men,” she says. He listens to the sound of her nails clicking together. “You know,” she continues, “They’ll give me gifts even if I don’t give anything in return. They just want to be close to me.”
Her voice hollows out in the end. Jinyoung can still feel her cold toes underneath his thigh. He steadies his nerves. Imagines himself walking into one of the fancy parties she goes to and punching every man in a suit he comes across. Then, immediately, pushes that image away.
“You can get one, too,” she says, almost like she’s joking. He looks over and realizes that she’s trying to joke, judging by the quirk of her smile. “I’ve heard they’re even more generous with pretty boys than they are with pretty girls, since it’s more scandalous if you get caught and all.”
Jinyoung doesn’t know if he’s supposed to laugh or not. Suzy obviously is waiting for him to, so he manages a flat “ha,” and she looks satisfied.
“It’s not really anything,” she says. Her cell phone lights up again and she goes back to flirting over text message, or whatever it is she’s doing. Her toes start wriggling underneath his thigh again. He reminds himself that he’s not in love with her. Doesn’t know what “love” really is. But he doesn’t get up and leave, or ask her what happened to make it so that she’s not surprised by anything anymore. Instead he waits for her to put her cell phone down and start joking around again. When the old jokes come back he can almost forget how much things have changed.
Only he can’t really forget when he’s out to eat and there she is staring at him from glowing posters in the window of a skin care shop, smiling silently.
“Let it go,” Mark says, clapping him gently on the shoulder.
“Let what go?” Jinyoung returns. Jackson and Bambam start singing “Let it go!” and the sound is so awful that even if Mark wanted to keep pushing the question, he couldn’t. Instead he gets pulled into the fray and Jinyoung is left standing there, sipping on his coffee and looking at the posters.
He wants to believe in love. Søren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth century Danish theologian Jinyoung has been reading on his march through European philosophers, wrote that “Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see.” Jinyoung thinks that might be true.
And he thinks that everyone who wants the girl on this poster is in love with the person they prefer. Not the real thing. And he thinks he knows a whole lot about her, a lot of things that other people cannot see. But he doesn’t know if he loves her-loves her properly or well, or really loves her at all. Because lately he sees more of this girl on the poster than he does of the real thing.
But the girl on the posters doesn’t really exist, or if she does, she’s such a small part of the real person that she is only a facade. If he loves her, Jinyoung does not love this girl-he loves the girl who calls him in the middle of the night because she’s depressed and she thinks she’s all alone in the world. He loves the girl who texts him weird, incomprehensible jokes just because she says they “made her think of him.” He loves the girl he first met as a trainee, too many years ago, when they were young and fame was little more than a pipe dream.
Bambam and Jackson are trying in vain to hit the high note in “Let it Go,” and shoppers are starting to give them odd looks. Jinyoung takes one last look at Suzy’s smiling poster face, and then goes off to deal with his friends.
She calls him one night, 3 AM. Crying.
“Maybe I’ll just run away,” she says, her voice shuddering over the phone. “I could run away to America and no one would ever find me. Just hitchhike for years. It sounds good, right?”
“Suji,” he says, struggling to wake up. In the haze of sleep, he might be dreaming this, after all. “Suji, what’s wrong.”
“I’m not talented,” she says. “I really want to be but I’m not. I’m not even that pretty, you know? I didn’t ask for this.”
“Suji-”
But she lets out a sob and then starts repeating herself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God, I’m such a pain in the ass, aren’t I? Just forget this. You have to perform tomorrow, don’t you? I’m so sorry. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m sorry.”
Then she hangs up. Jinyoung stares at the lit screen of his phone, the characters spelling out Bae Suji. The phone goes black, and he sighs, then gets out of bed and changes out of his pajamas.
Maybe she expected him, or hoped for him, because when he gets out of the taxi and rings up to her apartment, she unlocks the complex’s gate immediately. He takes the elevator up. She’s standing outside her apartment door, hands stuffed in the pockets of her sweatshirt, her eyes red.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she says. The elevator gives a soft ding as the doors slide shut behind him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, only instead of sounding concerned, he just sounds exhausted. Suzy shrugs.
“Same as usual. Want to go up to the roof?”
They go. It’s cold, but not unbearable. The city lights are muted, almost. In their glow Suzy looks beautiful. Like he is still dreaming.
“You didn’t need to come here,” she tells him again. “I’m a big girl. It’s just sometimes…” she rubs her brows and gives him a weak smile. “I get scared and I call you. Because-honestly? You’re the only one I think will forgive me.”
“Everyone will help you, Suji, if you just ask.”
She laughs lightly. For a long moment she is silent, looking out at the city. Then she looks at him again, still smiling in a way that makes his heart ache.
“If I call my parents-what will they think? I chose to do this. If I complain then they’ll think, oh, should we make her quit? How can we help her? But I can’t quit, and they can’t help. If I call the unnies-well, they’d listen, but it’s not fair, is it? We were a team when we started I guess but now-you know how it is. I can’t complain to them. I don’t want to burden someone like Yerin-she’s just started in this business. I’m supposed to take care of her.”
She wraps her arms tightly around herself, staring out at the city. Jinyoung can’t look away.
“I really am all alone,” she says. “But then sometimes I think-well, maybe Jinyoung won’t be bothered too much. But I shouldn’t call you. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
All of a sudden he realizes how close they are standing. When she looks up at him, his hand moves of its own accord, reaching up to brush a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. He moves to kiss her, like he is in the middle of a dream.
But she pulls away at the last moment. She wraps her hand around his, pulling it away from her face and looking down at it. She presses her cold, smooth palm into his.
“Right now,” she says in a soft voice, “I just want-I just want to be with a friend, okay? I want to be with a guy without wondering in the back of my mind if he’s just trying to get me into bed. Okay? Please don’t be mad.” Her eyes flick up to his. He swallows hard.
“Yeah,” he manages. “I understand.” He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, and she puts her arms around his waist and rests her head under his chin. It’s enough. He can’t take anything from her when everyone is always taking from her. He can only give, and so for a long time they stand there while he reassures her that she is good enough, she is wonderful, she is his best friend, and she will be fine. She will be fine.
But he knows his words are empty. He doesn’t really understand what it’s like for her. She posts pictures online and he sees them at the same time as the rest of the world, only he can tell when she’s posting them because she’s lonely and exhausted and just wants to be reassured by the little numbers popping up on her phone that she matters, to someone.
And then sometimes she’ll post pictures in fancy dresses, or with people he’s never seen. And here he is in a rookie group, and it’s great, he loves it-really-but it only means the distance between him and Suzy grows wider every day.
And maybe he is in love with an idea, not the real thing. Because the Suzy he loves only shows up when she needs him, and the rest of the time she’s out doing God knows what. Being the girl on the poster.
He should enjoy the JYP Nation concerts. Those times feel the most like his trainee days, and everyone has fun on stage. The energy of those concerts reminds Jinyoung of what he wanted when he started training. He wanted to be standing in these lights, having the time of his life. And he is.
It’s just that it was more fun when he was in JJ Project and he and Suzy would joke around backstage. Now she’s out on stage performing with Junho. Jinyoung stands out of sight of the audience to watch the performance get flirtatious, just a little scandalous. He knows each step of the choreography by heart, now.
As much as Jinyoung trusts the hyungs, he also knows what a guy like Junho is to a girl like Suzy, and she gets along with Junho so well it’s almost like she doesn’t need Jinyoung, not really. They look so natural out on stage, spinning into each other’s arms, sneaking little grins to each other.
“Your eyes are burning a hole in the stage.” Sunmi comes up and nudges him with her elbow. Jinyoung gapes for just a second, and then he resets his expression into celebrity neutral.
He resolves to get over Suzy that night. Suzy is an idea. Suzy is a star, unattainable, pretty to look at but not something he can catch.
He buries himself in books and dance practices.
The nation’s first love can only really belong to the nation, after all.
---------
She’s drunk.
Jinyoung has a choice to make.
“Suji!” he calls out. Runs over to her and holds her up by the elbow. She slumps against him while he hails a cab.
When the taxi reaches her apartment, Jinyoung takes all of the cash out of his wallet-well above the fare-and gives it to the driver. The driver glances in his rearview mirror, taking a look at the nation’s first love stretched out in his backseat, then pockets the money, giving Jinyoung a nod of understanding. Jinyoung opens the back door and pulls Suzy out. She gets to her feet, more steady than before, not quite as drunk as he’d assumed. Not that drunk, just miserable. Drowning in it.
He helps her up to her apartment, anyway. For the first time he takes a good look at the place. It’s empty, without many decorations, and the ones that are there haven’t been changed in years, judging by their worn appearance. Not much color. Just a big, empty apartment where Suzy lives all alone.
She wanders off to her bedroom, stopping along the way to grab what looks like a bottle of cheap wine. He follows her to make sure she’s okay.
She’s standing in the middle of the room. Like she’s waiting for him. When he comes through the doorway, she looks him dead in the eyes. He watches as her hands lift and she undoes the first button at the neckline of her dress. Then the next. And the next. He should tell her to stop but he doesn’t. Watches the nimble movements of her hands as though they are casting a spell over him.
She walks over to him, coming so close they are almost touching. But they aren’t. He should leave. He should not give into whatever it is she wants from him on a night when she’s miserable and just slightly drunk and-
She angles her face up to his, so he can feel her breath, warm and soft. But they aren’t touching. She’s asking a question and she’s going to make him give in. He should walk away now.
He kisses her.
Her hands reach under his shirt again, burning hot against his skin.
“I knew you wanted me,” she breathes, just barely breaking the kiss. “Everyone wants me.”
But by now he is too far gone. His first love pulls on his shirt and pulls him backwards to her bed and he cannot do anything but give, and give. Only this time, he’s getting everything he’s wanted for years. And he knows he’ll be left empty-handed.
Poll
Team: Canon/AR
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3657
Fandom: Got7/Miss A
Pairing: Jr/Suzy
Warnings: none
Summary: The nation’s first love can only really belong to the nation.
Author's Note: First of all, please note that this is fiction, so naturally, liberties are therefore taken with characterization! Secondly, I LOVE YOU TEAM SPY.
Prompt Used: History - What am I to You and supplementary prompt #2
She’s drunk.
“You love me, don’t you?” she asks, pulling on the material of his shirt, fingers skirting under the hem and burning against his skin. She smiles and then leans forward, pressing her lips against the corner of his mouth. He can’t tell if she meant to miss or not.
“You’ve been drinking,” he tells her, putting his hands on her shoulders and pushing her backwards. He scans the street for a wayward paparazzi or zealous fan, but the night seems empty, and she is not deterred.
“What does it matter, Jinyoung?” she asks. “You want me. You’ve wanted me. Everyone wants me.” Her eyes go blank and dark at the last statement and now her hands are fisted in his shirt like she’s holding herself up. Jinyoung is a good guy. He knows better than to believe whatever comes out of the mouth of the nation’s favorite starlet when she’s drunk, and lonely.
“I’m going to take you home,” he says, wrapping his arm around her waist to hold her up. “Before we end up being someone’s blackmail material.”
Suddenly she shakes him off and stumbles backward. “Do you love me or not?” she demands.
“Suji-”
“I’m the fucking nation’s first love,” she laughs, but it breaks in the middle and then she’s crying. Staring at him and laughing and crying all at once. She turns her face up to the sky, shaking her head and stumbling a little. “I thought I could trust you,” she says. “I thought-” She laughs again, wipes away her tears, and starts walking away.
And Jinyoung, watching her stumble down the sidewalk, gets to make a choice. He can either have the pieces of her that are left over when the nation is done with her, or he can let his heart grow cold, and forget about his first love.
He’d be better off choosing the second option.
--------
When they were trainees-when she wasn’t Suzy, the nation’s first love, but Suji, his best friend-they used to sit around the practice rooms and play a game called “When I’m famous I will…”
“When I’m famous,” Suji would say, slumping back against the wall with well-earned exhaustion, “I’ll never open any doors for myself. I’ll just hire a guy whose job is to open doors for me.” She looked over at Jinyoung, eyebrows raised and huge grin on her face. He laughed at her.
“And then whenever he opens the door he can have a little speaker that he plays your theme song from,” he teased. “I’m-so-hot!” He sang the Wonder Girls’ single in an exaggerated voice, batting his eyelashes at Suji, who fell over onto the floor, laughing.
“You know Jinyoung,” she said, “You’re really good at this. Maybe I’ll just hire you?” She poked a finger at his knee. With every prod of her fingertip, Jinyoung felt like he was getting closer to agreeing. So he shrugged away and turned his face up to the ceiling.
“When I’m famous you think I’ll have to take a job as a door-opener? Is my career going that badly in your imaginary future?” He looked back at Suji, who was still grinning at him, her hair fanned out behind her. His heart gave a weak thump and he flicked his eyes away.
“You’ll just do it for me. Out of joy. In all your interviews you’ll talk about how fulfilling it is, opening doors part-time for Bae Suji.”
“You think so little of me,” Jinyoung grinned at her, then stood and offered her a hand to get up. She took it and stood, and her hand lingered in his for just a moment after she was standing. When her hand slid away, he could still feel the warmth of her skin like a ghost on his hand. He stood still and watched her walk away. Maybe he would end up being her personal door-opener. Sometimes he felt like he was that far gone.
Years later and they’re in a practice room with twenty other people. The girls are practicing for their version of “A.D.T.O.Y.,” walking up to the chairs where all of 2PM sits waiting. Suzy sticks her foot on Chansung’s chair, throws her hair around in a vague gesture toward what will eventually be a sexy performance on stage, and then looks up. When she sees Jinyoung watching her, she winks.
“Isn’t this performance a little too much?” Jinyoung asks, later, when they’re all standing around drinking water and goofing off. Fei shoots him a look, her eyebrow arched, and Jinyoung holds up his hands in defense. “I’m just saying, for A-yeon’s sake, and Suji’s-”
“My sake?” Suzy laughs. He glances at her. Even with her hair pulled back in a sweaty ponytail, all the traces of Suzy are still evident. The sparkle in her eye is camera-ready. She walks over and pats his head, her bottom lip pouted out. It’s hard not to stare. “Jinyoungie thinks I’m still a little girl, doesn’t he?”
He reels a bit as she stares him down, a challenge evident in her eyes. I am not really the nation’s little sister, is what the look in her eyes says. Jinyoung pushes her hand away.
“Just thinking of your image,” he says good-naturedly. Fei’s eyebrows lift almost imperceptibly, but when he looks back at Suzy, her smile is still there, only a little bit frozen.
“PR agent Jinyoung, always working overtime.” Her eyes darken, and with another grin, she walks away, sipping on her water bottle. And Jinyoung is stuck just watching.
It’s not like he doesn’t know. Doesn’t hear things. Everyone hears things.
But she is-or, was-his best friend. And she always insists she hasn’t changed, when she calls him to come over and keep her company on nights when she can’t sleep in her big empty apartment all by herself. He goes because he wants to, has to, craves those hours that she says are “just like old times” even if they aren’t. Even if he’s always missing pieces of the puzzle of what her life is like now. She has stories she never fully discloses and he can’t ask-like when and why and with whom she lost her virginity, and it’s not that he cares but if he’s being terribly honest (which he tries to avoid) on some level he always expected that was something that would happen with each other, when he confessed his love at the right time, but of course Suji became Suzy and whatever stories he spun in his head were just fantasies he’d have been better off without. He is not in love. Maybe when he was younger, he didn’t know any better. But he is old enough now to know that love is an amorphous thing, and if he calls whatever he feels for Suzy “love,” he’s just joining in with the rest of the nation.
She asks him to come over, 11 PM on a Friday. He has schedules the next morning. But he goes.
She puts on a movie, something innocuous and animated, and they sit on her couch eating grapes-because they’re celebrities now. Maybe Jinyoung could eat potato chips or fried chicken, but then, he’s not nearly as famous as she. They’re not sitting close, but fifteen minutes in she sticks her bare feet under his thigh. He looks at her.
“My toes are cold,” she explains. Her face is lit by the light of her cellphone. He starts to protest, but something about the way she smiles, with her lips pressed together, makes him stop. It’s an imitation of a smile, not the real thing. She goes back to texting.
After enduring her wiggling toes for a while, he looks over at her again. “Who are you texting so much?”
A long pause follows. She keeps looking at her phone, then finally clicks the screen to black, and turns back to the movie. “Friends,” she says.
Jinyoung stares at the hard set of her jaw, the movie reflecting in her eyes. Then he looks at the screen again. He lost track of the plot half an hour ago. They watch it for a moment, and then Suzy speaks again.
“I don’t have a sponsor, don’t worry,” she says.
Jinyoung manages to clear his throat and respond, “I wasn’t.”
Suzy starts picking at her nails. “I meet a lot of rich men,” she says. He listens to the sound of her nails clicking together. “You know,” she continues, “They’ll give me gifts even if I don’t give anything in return. They just want to be close to me.”
Her voice hollows out in the end. Jinyoung can still feel her cold toes underneath his thigh. He steadies his nerves. Imagines himself walking into one of the fancy parties she goes to and punching every man in a suit he comes across. Then, immediately, pushes that image away.
“You can get one, too,” she says, almost like she’s joking. He looks over and realizes that she’s trying to joke, judging by the quirk of her smile. “I’ve heard they’re even more generous with pretty boys than they are with pretty girls, since it’s more scandalous if you get caught and all.”
Jinyoung doesn’t know if he’s supposed to laugh or not. Suzy obviously is waiting for him to, so he manages a flat “ha,” and she looks satisfied.
“It’s not really anything,” she says. Her cell phone lights up again and she goes back to flirting over text message, or whatever it is she’s doing. Her toes start wriggling underneath his thigh again. He reminds himself that he’s not in love with her. Doesn’t know what “love” really is. But he doesn’t get up and leave, or ask her what happened to make it so that she’s not surprised by anything anymore. Instead he waits for her to put her cell phone down and start joking around again. When the old jokes come back he can almost forget how much things have changed.
Only he can’t really forget when he’s out to eat and there she is staring at him from glowing posters in the window of a skin care shop, smiling silently.
“Let it go,” Mark says, clapping him gently on the shoulder.
“Let what go?” Jinyoung returns. Jackson and Bambam start singing “Let it go!” and the sound is so awful that even if Mark wanted to keep pushing the question, he couldn’t. Instead he gets pulled into the fray and Jinyoung is left standing there, sipping on his coffee and looking at the posters.
He wants to believe in love. Søren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth century Danish theologian Jinyoung has been reading on his march through European philosophers, wrote that “Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see.” Jinyoung thinks that might be true.
And he thinks that everyone who wants the girl on this poster is in love with the person they prefer. Not the real thing. And he thinks he knows a whole lot about her, a lot of things that other people cannot see. But he doesn’t know if he loves her-loves her properly or well, or really loves her at all. Because lately he sees more of this girl on the poster than he does of the real thing.
But the girl on the posters doesn’t really exist, or if she does, she’s such a small part of the real person that she is only a facade. If he loves her, Jinyoung does not love this girl-he loves the girl who calls him in the middle of the night because she’s depressed and she thinks she’s all alone in the world. He loves the girl who texts him weird, incomprehensible jokes just because she says they “made her think of him.” He loves the girl he first met as a trainee, too many years ago, when they were young and fame was little more than a pipe dream.
Bambam and Jackson are trying in vain to hit the high note in “Let it Go,” and shoppers are starting to give them odd looks. Jinyoung takes one last look at Suzy’s smiling poster face, and then goes off to deal with his friends.
She calls him one night, 3 AM. Crying.
“Maybe I’ll just run away,” she says, her voice shuddering over the phone. “I could run away to America and no one would ever find me. Just hitchhike for years. It sounds good, right?”
“Suji,” he says, struggling to wake up. In the haze of sleep, he might be dreaming this, after all. “Suji, what’s wrong.”
“I’m not talented,” she says. “I really want to be but I’m not. I’m not even that pretty, you know? I didn’t ask for this.”
“Suji-”
But she lets out a sob and then starts repeating herself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God, I’m such a pain in the ass, aren’t I? Just forget this. You have to perform tomorrow, don’t you? I’m so sorry. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m sorry.”
Then she hangs up. Jinyoung stares at the lit screen of his phone, the characters spelling out Bae Suji. The phone goes black, and he sighs, then gets out of bed and changes out of his pajamas.
Maybe she expected him, or hoped for him, because when he gets out of the taxi and rings up to her apartment, she unlocks the complex’s gate immediately. He takes the elevator up. She’s standing outside her apartment door, hands stuffed in the pockets of her sweatshirt, her eyes red.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she says. The elevator gives a soft ding as the doors slide shut behind him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, only instead of sounding concerned, he just sounds exhausted. Suzy shrugs.
“Same as usual. Want to go up to the roof?”
They go. It’s cold, but not unbearable. The city lights are muted, almost. In their glow Suzy looks beautiful. Like he is still dreaming.
“You didn’t need to come here,” she tells him again. “I’m a big girl. It’s just sometimes…” she rubs her brows and gives him a weak smile. “I get scared and I call you. Because-honestly? You’re the only one I think will forgive me.”
“Everyone will help you, Suji, if you just ask.”
She laughs lightly. For a long moment she is silent, looking out at the city. Then she looks at him again, still smiling in a way that makes his heart ache.
“If I call my parents-what will they think? I chose to do this. If I complain then they’ll think, oh, should we make her quit? How can we help her? But I can’t quit, and they can’t help. If I call the unnies-well, they’d listen, but it’s not fair, is it? We were a team when we started I guess but now-you know how it is. I can’t complain to them. I don’t want to burden someone like Yerin-she’s just started in this business. I’m supposed to take care of her.”
She wraps her arms tightly around herself, staring out at the city. Jinyoung can’t look away.
“I really am all alone,” she says. “But then sometimes I think-well, maybe Jinyoung won’t be bothered too much. But I shouldn’t call you. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
All of a sudden he realizes how close they are standing. When she looks up at him, his hand moves of its own accord, reaching up to brush a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. He moves to kiss her, like he is in the middle of a dream.
But she pulls away at the last moment. She wraps her hand around his, pulling it away from her face and looking down at it. She presses her cold, smooth palm into his.
“Right now,” she says in a soft voice, “I just want-I just want to be with a friend, okay? I want to be with a guy without wondering in the back of my mind if he’s just trying to get me into bed. Okay? Please don’t be mad.” Her eyes flick up to his. He swallows hard.
“Yeah,” he manages. “I understand.” He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, and she puts her arms around his waist and rests her head under his chin. It’s enough. He can’t take anything from her when everyone is always taking from her. He can only give, and so for a long time they stand there while he reassures her that she is good enough, she is wonderful, she is his best friend, and she will be fine. She will be fine.
But he knows his words are empty. He doesn’t really understand what it’s like for her. She posts pictures online and he sees them at the same time as the rest of the world, only he can tell when she’s posting them because she’s lonely and exhausted and just wants to be reassured by the little numbers popping up on her phone that she matters, to someone.
And then sometimes she’ll post pictures in fancy dresses, or with people he’s never seen. And here he is in a rookie group, and it’s great, he loves it-really-but it only means the distance between him and Suzy grows wider every day.
And maybe he is in love with an idea, not the real thing. Because the Suzy he loves only shows up when she needs him, and the rest of the time she’s out doing God knows what. Being the girl on the poster.
He should enjoy the JYP Nation concerts. Those times feel the most like his trainee days, and everyone has fun on stage. The energy of those concerts reminds Jinyoung of what he wanted when he started training. He wanted to be standing in these lights, having the time of his life. And he is.
It’s just that it was more fun when he was in JJ Project and he and Suzy would joke around backstage. Now she’s out on stage performing with Junho. Jinyoung stands out of sight of the audience to watch the performance get flirtatious, just a little scandalous. He knows each step of the choreography by heart, now.
As much as Jinyoung trusts the hyungs, he also knows what a guy like Junho is to a girl like Suzy, and she gets along with Junho so well it’s almost like she doesn’t need Jinyoung, not really. They look so natural out on stage, spinning into each other’s arms, sneaking little grins to each other.
“Your eyes are burning a hole in the stage.” Sunmi comes up and nudges him with her elbow. Jinyoung gapes for just a second, and then he resets his expression into celebrity neutral.
He resolves to get over Suzy that night. Suzy is an idea. Suzy is a star, unattainable, pretty to look at but not something he can catch.
He buries himself in books and dance practices.
The nation’s first love can only really belong to the nation, after all.
---------
She’s drunk.
Jinyoung has a choice to make.
“Suji!” he calls out. Runs over to her and holds her up by the elbow. She slumps against him while he hails a cab.
When the taxi reaches her apartment, Jinyoung takes all of the cash out of his wallet-well above the fare-and gives it to the driver. The driver glances in his rearview mirror, taking a look at the nation’s first love stretched out in his backseat, then pockets the money, giving Jinyoung a nod of understanding. Jinyoung opens the back door and pulls Suzy out. She gets to her feet, more steady than before, not quite as drunk as he’d assumed. Not that drunk, just miserable. Drowning in it.
He helps her up to her apartment, anyway. For the first time he takes a good look at the place. It’s empty, without many decorations, and the ones that are there haven’t been changed in years, judging by their worn appearance. Not much color. Just a big, empty apartment where Suzy lives all alone.
She wanders off to her bedroom, stopping along the way to grab what looks like a bottle of cheap wine. He follows her to make sure she’s okay.
She’s standing in the middle of the room. Like she’s waiting for him. When he comes through the doorway, she looks him dead in the eyes. He watches as her hands lift and she undoes the first button at the neckline of her dress. Then the next. And the next. He should tell her to stop but he doesn’t. Watches the nimble movements of her hands as though they are casting a spell over him.
She walks over to him, coming so close they are almost touching. But they aren’t. He should leave. He should not give into whatever it is she wants from him on a night when she’s miserable and just slightly drunk and-
She angles her face up to his, so he can feel her breath, warm and soft. But they aren’t touching. She’s asking a question and she’s going to make him give in. He should walk away now.
He kisses her.
Her hands reach under his shirt again, burning hot against his skin.
“I knew you wanted me,” she breathes, just barely breaking the kiss. “Everyone wants me.”
But by now he is too far gone. His first love pulls on his shirt and pulls him backwards to her bed and he cannot do anything but give, and give. Only this time, he’s getting everything he’s wanted for years. And he knows he’ll be left empty-handed.
Poll