it wasn’t for a halloween scare. she could care less for the annual occasion. it wasn’t a new obsession, as much as it may seem so. fans have guessed for a comeback preparation, a new magazine cover, a commercial, an event. all that time spent on mining and it turns out to be trolls. yes, trolls. she’s decided to drown herself in it. the colder months meant the peak of nostalgia and she’s basked in it.
there were no plans. it was all a lie; to give the audience their occasional taste of security. they had to keep them thinking there was something going on. something worth waiting for, even when there was nothing or barely anything. she’s done it, even when it would break her heart. she tried her best, update after update. she did it despite her love of privacy. she had to do the feeding. it was required of the life she chose.
good riddance is what she would have preferred to say. forget everyone that left and wants to. forget everything. forget. but it hurt her in more ways than she could handle.
she is strong, just as she is fragile.
it was the same old book. the same old song with the same melancholy sound; the fear of being consumed by emotions and being at the mercy of them. she was just wired that way. she’s the type of person that could hear a million compliments through the course of the day but would focus on one negative thing and carry it with her to her bedside. it was the reason for the restless nights. the nights she had to put on ambient noise, or any other thing for that static-like, tingling sensation. just anything to put her and her thoughts to sleep.
below the thunders of the upper deep; far far beneath in the abysmal sea, her ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep. she sleeps and the faintest sunlights flee about her shadowy sides; above her swell.
the comments were certainly hard to digest. she tried to reassure everyone but everyone could see through the surface. yet she does everything in silence, as always, despite how easily it would show beneath the high-end clothing, high budget photo shoots, and high class conditions. with each stride going about this lifestyle came the price of hatred.
until the latter fire shall heat the deep; then once by man and angels to be seen. pursuit, pursuit. pursue the clockwork of the world. what is inexplicable is the preponderance of objects. the sky lights daily with that predominance and we have become the present.
@1konic ♡
the burden is huge. jennie understood as much. between the couple, she used to be the person that insisted she was okay when she wasn’t. but a promise is a promise and she’s overly conscious about keeping that, as much as she had stressed before. hanbin, on the other hand, was tight-lipped by nature. she’d always known that he only means well, and she always did have trouble convincing him there were better ways to go about it. any other way than playing to their understandable nostalgia for a time when things seemed to be prosperous. any other way than an illusion of a perfect life.
both of them were guilty. they engage in a tricky shell game with their liberties, or lack of, diverting their attention to the most important things: honesty and understanding.
they lived glamorously, that was for sure. but it was hard to deny the loneliness that came along with the path they’ve chosen. sometimes she wonders, what’s the purpose of having nice things? in truth, that’s where she gains the most tangible comfort. jennie finds herself in over-indulgence, but the luxuries never are enough. that’s where he comes into the picture.
all the trouble to make him come over boils down to them sitting in silence with the atmosphere tense as attending a funeral for an in-law you never liked. she didn’t want him moping in his studio, stressing himself to pump out more lyrics like a machine their boss seems to see him, snacking on junk, and falling asleep on the floor after a hard day’s work. at least this once. hence her asking him to come to her instead of the other way around. “i know there’s something wrong.” she lets out a deep breath. as per usual, she has trouble expressing herself in verbal form. that was still the condition until now. something nearly three years couldn’t change.
she wanted to say ‘i’m happiest when i’m with you.’ but how true is that for him? she never did like being alone in the feeling; she never liked any form of rejection. for the while that they’ve known each other, this was just one of the many incidents where she felt helpless, and speaking up about it felt like a selfish take when the intention was to do him service. she doesn’t want to take the high road because sometimes it hurts, even if it might be the best option. like in this very moment.
“how can i help the person i love most?” do you even want me to? warmth wells around the clenching nerves of her eyes. asking to be a source of solace in such a cruel world might be asking too much.
there was no need for tears, but it was normal for jennie’s to fall at times that seem too light. she does it quietly, but it still exhausts her. “if i can’t, i hope your friends at least make your life a little easy.” it doesn’t have to be me. she could have said so, but the ache in her chest stops her. it sounded too masochistic anyway. the dramatic scenario at hand didn’t need any more help in making him feel even worse and this visual message, him trying to smile and calm her down, makes her think that maybe her heart was too weak.
this wasn’t supposed to be about her and she feels sorry that it had become exactly the case. “i just want you to be happy…” even though she reasserts her thoughts, her voice cracks just slightly. scooting closer, her arms wrap around his frame and her cheek nestles against his chest. it was quite hypocritical how she demands for him to open his heart to her yet she filters her thoughts, keeping her emotions from being relayed entirely as it should.
@1konic ♡
she had never taken well to the sort of news. months back, she was confronted by a tide that crashed against sentiments more than they should have, being the person that wasn’t directly involved in either of the two parties’ heartbreaks. and if she had been taken aback far more dramatically short of expected, any other instance would have had the same effect on her, maybe even more.
exactly like the very moment. she was always wary that there was a time limit to the affairs of their hearts; a clock ticking away at each day spent apart, grains of sand trickling through the narrow neck of the hourglass every moment out of touch with each other.
it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, with this cynicism directed more towards herself, it was just that she had the worst of luck in keeping people around as indifference cracks her veneer of altruism now and again. a person doesn’t ever really change and she isn’t an exception. she was down her own, out for number one, selfish and smug; it was all chronic, no matter how constant she battles through it. even he who was her light had no way around this fact.
but at least his arms engulfing her in warmth kept all of the godawful tendencies at bay.
“did you hear?” she asked solemnly, trying to quell the apprehension she least liked talking about with him as she would bring up more than he ever did in their rocky beginnings. oh how the tables have turned. “i keep hearing people saying love is dead, love doesn’t exist. et cetera, et cetera.” she let out a chuckle, short and stiff as she sought the remark to seem like a joke. “but we’re the real power couple of all, right?” nose scrunched as her rounded eyes met his. smile faint and gaze longing, hands cupped at his face.
“we’ll keep it alive.” they really could, as long as she remains steadfast just as he does.
it was right out of the same old playbook; dehumanize, destabilize, antagonize, offer an easy solution: always war. that was how the psychopaths ruled and even knowing their strategies never helped. it is human nature to think ourselves smarter, or that a situation is different than another. even the children of the enemy were characterized as future criminals of the worst kind. is there anything worse than reducing the humanity of a child? the battle was always promised to be short. and then those who were schooled on the horrors of the current war began the next.
under the chill of the mist that spread over the village, young mirae fumbled her footing and the hold of her sharp-edged blood. one look at her parents who had fallen and she does the unthinkable. one strike, a violent noise cracked into the startled air, and she did not need to look around to know that she had been surrounded; her kin turning against her and her turning into a beast small in size but lethal to whoever came near, nothing more than a vessel filled with murderous intent.
for the while that she had been taught to fight, of which was her entire childhood, she only ever did so in the honor of her family who she would come to know isn’t hers at the end of it all. she had grown to love it, no matter how much her morals deny. the glory of knowing she was a savior and she could be a better one in the years to come. it reaches its finale in a single night. since then, her comfort in the deed and the duty was defined by the state of being in the moments when she isn’t being emotionally ripped apart.
he never really asked her to state what it was, did he? “yes, there is. there is something that i stopped doing, even though i loved it.” once.
she was aware what gifts she can share to the world. there are things people would like to see, hear, and feel from her. she was an artist even then, regardless of what she did, because the world wants her craft. and though cooped up in her academics, she does not plan on denying the world of this craft.
it was the fear that pushed her. the fear that her life would have followed a direction that her heart felt opposed to. the fear that she wouldn’t reach the happiest place on earth once she had made the decision to course through what was expected of her. this fear was stronger than the uncertainty of whether her dreams were going to come true or not. because she knew it would if she tried. she was always good at anything she set herself to.
some are afraid to take the risk, too timid to make the first move. in the end they choose to continue living in a daydream. undeniably, she too was afraid.
that kind of fear manifested into tears which had rawness to it, like the shame was an open wound. she clasped onto her phone, trying to stifle the sobs but then it was for naught as she had been overcome by the wave of her emotions, all her defenses washed away in those salty tears. and in her throat was an uproar in a form of a silent scream tearing through. it exhausted her, choked her up without a sign of stopping.
on the other line, her mother spoke in the tone of worry, over and over asking what was wrong, all of which jennie answered with hiccups in between sniffs and heaving sobs. it was a sight she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see, let alone hear. the reason for her call coming in the dead of the night was this. when it was quiet and dark, it was okay. no one had to carry her burden, no one had to pity her for heavily taking the task as a complicated tale of woe.
“i’m sorry.” she said once, then twice, voice trembling the more she repeated the words. the thought of saying she wanted to pursue something she loved was swell, but not the part that she had to disappoint her parents in the process. it went something along the lines of “i can’t be the teacher or the lawyer you wanted me to be.” however she truly said it, she didn’t want to remember after that day. for the time being that she was bound by studies, she excelled while dreaming of the life that awaited her. she had envisioned the same effort on everything, whether it was college entrance exams, an office job, or an audition to a prestigious agency.
she wasn’t just lucky, however, because the rest was history and at present stands the group blackpink. she wasn’t just lucky. she is a girl who followed a destiny she laid squarely in her own hands. now as a performer, no one would think a better brand on her other than a star.
a tragedy is a tragedy. there is no way to truly justify it. and yet, she does. it doesn’t just mean cuts and scrapes or a broken arm. people she shared blood with were put to their graves and she hasn’t been the same person again. more a machine than a human. not that she ever truly was human first of all. a few years into her life and she was ordained to a life filled with war. one could say she never really had a childhood, save for the fleeting moments that their family functioned as it’s called.
‘it was an accident.’
‘i was instructed to do it.’
‘i had to do it.’
‘i did it to save our kind.’
‘i’m not a monster.’
such were just a few of the things that were meant to answer the question ‘what lies do you most often tell yourself?’ she’s kept many secrets, said many lies, and took many lives. there was no one person she could ever confide in. no one person. so it remains bottled up, eating her away from the inside.
lost in some new crusade, the world just rocked back and forth between comforting and harmful. since the incident that had taken away her everything, there was never truly a ‘home’ anymore for her. her past has disrupted her beliefs and assumptions about it. she had always wondered why she lived when others were less fortunate. her sense of her ability to control her life has been shattered. she questions, how much influence does she have in her choices?
it’s a lie that given enough pressure coal becomes diamonds and it’s a lie that trauma treated with disregard will self-repair. she hid behind a smile and reinvented herself, learning to keep her feelings inside. hurt lodged in that sweet heart like a slow acting poison and became the anchor point that kept her from progressing into the future, let alone the present. with an understated way of giving love to herself, she had become unstable, mis-wiring all synapses in her brain to think that she would have no place to belong. it had been devoured by the hollow shadow on the very same day it took away her fondest memories.
bodies lay like ghoulish mannequins, the esophagus and arteries sticking out like so much corrugated and rubber tubing. corpses still warm, blood thickening out but not yet dried on their waxy skin. aside from the beating of their hearts, no muscle would move. her frenzy had no preference, no bias. it sprayed on everyone as if they were just meat, blood bones, blasting cavities into every part of them as it burst crimson into the fading day. in all the world, their flesh had been as blind as it was when their atoms were just atoms, bodies no more than borrowed elements forged in stars.
it flashes like a fresh reminder that it is a wound that will never heal. she was responsible to what drew the ire to her, the sole survivor of the tragedy and the aggressor of it. she had done it to save herself, without thinking twice that it would bring her soul to eternal damnation. mirae had been convinced by her own neuroses that the only just sanction was for her to cease existing. “if there’s anything i can change in the past? just… the accident that killed my parents to never have happened… that one thing would change everything. absolutely everything.”
“creepiest situation you have encountered?”
the life she’s lived has already desensitized her to anything bizarre and scary, hence her definition of creepy being different than most. not that she could tell the stranger any of those. she holds back quite often when asked questions and yet she clearly works to make people interested, in hopes that she could form a family of her own. one that she wouldn’t ‘accidentally’ mass murder.
there’s a moment of silence that fills in, long enough to make the atmosphere awkward or maybe even unsettling. what could possibly be so creepy? she chants in her head until it hits her. “ah!” she muses out loud as the invisible light bulb pops above her head. “there is nothing more creepy to me than a person with emotions that don’t match the situation…”
then another eureka interrupts her train of thought. “wait! no, no. never mind that. i met this person… not very long ago? he’s a charm to be sure. he has the right twinkle in his eyes and a voice… more warm than sunlight on amber. i usually like that… i’d smile and you know, enjoy an exchange of words… but i don’t know. every time he would talk, i’d get this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. he could tell me up was down and i’d follow him just to hear more of his… sweet words.“ she could vomit just from hearing herself talk about it.
“there’s something in the way he looks at me too, like he’s doing so much more than just taking in my form like others do. in that way, his own face starts to look like a mask, controlled in order to have a particular effect on me. he bumped into me all before the conversation, actually. and you know what? the moment he stared at me, my nose started bleeding out of nowhere. and it’s bad when my nose bleeds.” slip of the tongue. she was too immersed into her story telling. “i-i mean, it’s bad when a person’s nose bleeds even though it’s pretty normal, r-right? anyway…” she pauses, catching her breath and sighing, letting the beating of her heart calm down.
“i kept getting the feeling of déjà vu… anything he did. it’s a bit hard to explain. it was just the whole situation. it was a little uncomfortable but at the same time… i felt compelled to keep him around and i did! we are friends now… and i still get that feeling every time we’re together. i don’t know what to think of it? but yeah… it’s creepy. i guess, it’s more like a series of creepy encounters. combine each time that we hang out and it’s the creepiest!”
“what’s your opinion on solitary confinement as a punishment for people who commit serious crimes?”
smooth beads interlaced in the pale fingers of her trembling hands, her voice had become hoarse from reciting prayer after prayer. it wasn’t her religion but there was nothing else she could rely on, nowhere else she could turn to. she had feared what sorts of condemnation she would find everywhere her sins were known, yet she still hopes that maybe, just maybe if she pleaded for forgiveness all her life it will make everything better. it will be like it never happened. after all, it was an accident, right?
wired to feel guilty, she had lived her life not too different from being in prison. but it is the unspoken nuances of an exile so official that makes the torture. stripped of everything you own, replaced with material not fit for even animals. inhumane is all it is.
the walls have ears.
it’s why she never talks. not to the people that matter. especially not to them. no one deserved to carry that burden of knowing. it’s why she doesn’t answer right away. the question leaves her in shambles, expression painted in a mix of anxiety and dubiety. she breaks, retreating into the innermost parts of herself. she tries to shake it off as much as she could with laughter, her small voice filled with innocence that masks the culprit of a massive crime.
“i wouldn’t know firsthand and i don’t think what i imagine it to be reflects the norm… but in true genuine solitary, i don’t think anyone can deal. it breaks you… conjures up the forgotten fear of a small child, convinced that they’ve been forgotten in their room when given a time out. time, you realize, is a variable that no longer exists in the world. no clock, no radio, no other person to converse with… the primal anguish heard in the walls of such a hell hole will resound in anyone’s mind until their last day. whoever has to go through it can only hope to reconstruct some of the pieces of the person they once were before. i’m aware there are laws… but… i don’t know… i just can’t wish that for anyone…”