veliawrites

[veliawrites]

Untitled, July 31, 2025

While the story of why it had gone to this point might remain secret for a bit longer, I'm forcing myself now to post my writing to prove a point to myself: there is still a sense of freedom and catharsis in letting your writing and work leave your drafts and be seen by the world. There is still something good in letting yourself be vulnerable to others who would take the time to explore the products of your imagination. There are people willing to read and share the pains you hide behind words and scenarios, even if you think no one will listen. So, here's my first-ever post on here: of feelings I know I have to deal with, that I have to hide in metaphors and fake identities, and my writing comfort-zone, fanfiction. Thank you for taking the time to read.

= = =

Perhaps it was jealousy, or undiscovered resentment previously unknown even to the bearer.

Or maybe, it was a resignation that comes in the understanding that the right choice was made - even if it entailed pain.

< angst, idol!au, unnamed fem!oc, MG and YH >

= = =

She passes by a couple of girls holding picket-fans as she exits the convenience store. His face was on them, sharp features and piercing look captured in the snapshot used for the design. His bangs had grown even longer, she notes, and the sleek and shiny blackness of his hair was the perfect contrast to the golden-to-orange background. The rounded borders of the fans had a repeating “Golden Hour Part 3” lining them in small black font, interspersed with the group name in the same exact font style.

He seems to have lost most of his cheek fat, and also perhaps most of the youthfulness that had a way of drawing her in along with it - but it was not bad by any means. He had frequently looked intimidating in the years that she’d known him, especially at first glance, but the expressions his face reflects now are no longer just intimidating. Instead, it is now striking, powerful, alluring. The slope of his nose has always been a highlight of his features, and something that both boys and girls of her time with him had envied. But now, with skin free from the terror of puberty-acne, he looks… rich. He looks nothing like the common man or woman on the street: his complexion with a gentle shine and free from marks - though not without skin’s general texture. It looked so soft that it might as well have been the product of magic. It was a far cry from her own skin: pale from exhaustion of long nights of work and too few hours of sleep, and fairly greasy due to the diet her meager wages afforded her, as well as the sheer length of time she had to walk to and from the subway, and even within the confines of the building where she worked.

She follows the two girls’ forms with her eyes as they continue to walk away from her, only to see the other side of the picket-fan showing the face of another man: fair skin, more rounded eyes, and softer features highlighted by more squishy cheeks and a gently-pointed chin. He looks like an angel from above that would stand shoulder to shoulder with the saints and God Himself, and the gentle smile that lines his lips at his own captured photo could have very well been expected for the beauty he showed.

This other face she had seen before, and not just in the screen of her television, or the big LED panel on the city center’s biggest intersection. She had seen him standing cooly by the tall metal gates of her school many, many years ago. He was there with a bag slung on his shoulder and a pair of orange Beats headphones hanging around his neck, holding a hand up slightly in greeting to the young man with quickening steps walking in front of her back then.

“Mingi-yah, here!”

“Oh, Yunho-yah! You came!”

And she had seen that face break out into a smile while holding an arm out, the one not holding the strap of his bag, just for the one walking in front of her to slot himself into it naturally. The two young men had excitedly discussed going to eat somewhere and hang out, just in time for the classes that had ended, along with a softer “how long did it take you to get here this time, Yunho-yah?” before they walked away.

That smile had been the biggest irony to the rock-heavy weight that had settled in her stomach, one that had caused her own steps to drag against the rough concrete ground.

Just eighteen minutes prior to then, Mingi had looked at her with a sorry expression, with hands fumbling in his pockets to give her some partially melted candy, with words nowhere as sweet as the sugary treat, but just as imperfect as the item.

“I’m really sorry. It’s not that I don’t like you, I promise. But I’m training to be an idol, so…”

Back then, all she could think of was that his words were a complete lie: because how in the world can he say those things when just almost twenty minutes afterwards, he was laughing and almost breaking out into a sprint at this person simply standing by the gate? Had he simply been hiding his true preferences? Had he simply let her down easy? Or was he saying the truth and just being kind about rejecting her confession?

And now, almost ten years later, as she sees both their faces on picket-fans, she finds herself unable to resume her steps while she continues to gaze at the two young women walking further and further away from her. As she takes a deep breath, she hears the distant music playing from the dome stadium a few hundred meters away from her, the hard-hitting beats contrasting with the smooth vocals saying “Come, take a seat in your fantasy~” unable to be removed from her mind.

She somehow finds it unfair: how she was not afforded a chance to stand side-by-side with the person she wanted, how instead of adoring fans and the flashing lights of fame, her lot is to suffer like the common man under the weight of personally-unresolvable economic crises and be relatively unknown in the grand scheme of life and society.

But then, she thinks, Mingi has always been good: talented and determined, passionate in what he wanted to do, finding joy in what he sees he excels at. That is part of why she liked him so much after all. Even when he seemed to not be in the usual social graces of their school populace, he still had something in him that stood out, something that made him feel and seem special. He was, and still is, built differently. His smile always had something warm and beautiful in it, and the gentleness he tried his best to show to everyone (though it sometimes ended up a bit clumsily executed) was hard to ignore.

Maybe that is why she found herself saying “Oh, it’s okay. Thank you for being kind about this. I’m sorry if I burdened you, please forget this happened!” to him back then, before bowing and then running away. Since then, she had never said anything to him, never approached him - only admired him from afar.

The last leap of courage she ever made was to secretly leave a bottle of orange juice on his desk during the last day of classes. No note, no indication that it was her. Nothing.

Many years later, she realizes, it’s probably because she understood that special thing to him as early as then and knew that she would just taint it with her existence. So, she chose to stay away and distance herself. She never had the license to like him and count in his life, and perhaps it was the best that way.

She turns back to the direction she was previously headed, and then she takes a step, and then another step, and then another.

There is a sinking feeling in her stomach as she walks away, a clenching in her chest as she can hear, even against the noise of the city hustle, the striking last words of that song in the air.

“Good girl, now you're not so sure. That's my favorite part when they lose it for…”

Her wayward, uncooperative mind makes her try to imagine how it would have been if things had been different, but the feeling of the gravel against the soles of her shoes reminds her that thoughts like those are useless because they will never be real.

Not to an unknown, not to her, not with Song Mingi.