archivedidjowi-blog

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idkiwon‌:

“aw come on, i told you not to get started without me, now i have a lot of catching up to do,” he complains, though the playful smile pushing his eyes up into crescents betrays him, and slides into the booth next to her easily. his hand naturally finds the small of her back, while the other reaches for the bottle of soju on the table and pours himself a shot. he downs it quick, followed by a hiss and an elbow thudding onto the table, allowing him to rest his cheek in his hands. idly, his thumb circles against the fabric of her shirt and he smiles sympathetic towards her,  “so tell me, what did my dumbass groupmate do this time and how should i get back at him for you?”

jowi has a bad track record with love. if she’s being honest, she has a bad track record with most things that are not her career. perhaps the rest of her life needs to be a dumpster fire in order for her to be motivated to succeed. maybe it’s some kind of karmic balance situation. whatever the case, she knows one thing is true: ahn jowi doesn’t suit successful love stories. 

like, take jaehwan? on paper, that should be a dream come true. youthful friends from preteen onwards finally realize what they’ve been looking for the whole time is right in front of them, super hot, and damn talented. ideal. also, they’re famous. it’s basically a love story for the ages.

only, then there’s gunwoo. 

that should be okay on paper too. a bit more complicated, that story. boy meets girl, there’s an instant connection. they fall in love. jaehwan plays second lead. jowi is torn for awhile, because she’s a good girl, but in the end the prickly main lead with a heart of gold wins out.  

only, he hadn’t. he’d gone and chosen his career over her, and while she understood that it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. adn then, insult to injury, they’d gone and had a whole fight over her only to have both of them standing her up, functionally, in chile. it really was a great way to end up feeling second rate at best, like a vessel used to for them to dump their feelings onto,their loneliness into, a scapegoat to rationalize away their own guilt and need. 

so she goes out drinking. 

so she calls kiwon. 

kiwon gets it. gets her. she likes kiwon. she likes his sweet face and his rough voice, the way the two don’t match up. she likes his strong arms and soft skin and his wild hair in the mornings, when he mumbles bleary words at her from around kiss bitten lips. she likes his lips too. she likes him, up and down and sideways, and it would be easier if she loved him instead, except that it wouldn’t, because kiwon can commit about as well as she can, which is to say not really at all. he’s a comfort though, and even as she gets the message to wait for him she’s halfway through her first bottle. texts back the emoji of a shrugging woman and does her best not to laugh in his face when he shows up only to sour his expression at her actions. “sorry baby doll,” she coos at him. he probably hates it. his hand is warm on her back and she immediately collapses against his side, nuzzles at his neck with a whine. “i don’t wanna talk about him.” she tells kiwon firmly, “but if you wanted to sneak nair into his conditioner i would support that decision. i’d even foot the bill.” she passes the bottle over towards him and tilts her head, pushes his hair back from his eyes. “i like this peachy color on you,” she tells him, lips twitching into a grin. 

make it right.

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idserena‌:

“serena! are you a foreigner or is this your stage-name?” light laughter, serena tried her best to join in. “it says here in your profile that you attended a very famous piano school before coming to korea–” 

“well no, not a foreigner– i’m still korean.” she tried not to roll her eyes, the resulting expression was an almost imperceptible grimace. “it’s not really a famous school, but i did attend the conservatory in london when i was very young… that’s about it.” 

had she spoken too much already? will her manager scold her during break? god knows. 

truth be told, jowi sort of hates it when msg groups end up on the show. there’s an extra pressure, a heavy expectation on her shoulders. take care of them, make them shine, don’t  let them fuck up. keep an eye on them. as if she has to now mother them, take care of their variety skills alongside of her own. now a good mc does a certain amount of that anyway, she knows this, and she’s adept enough at it. but an mc doesn’t have to make sure a group, or an individual, truly failing at variety still manages to get good airtime. with an msg group on the scene, the expectation is that everyone is going to get as much time in the sun as possible, and ahn jowi ought to make sure of it. 

correction: aj should make sure. 

ahn jowi is the voice in the back of her head worried about the upcoming comeback. ahn jowi is the voice that tells her to hang on just a bit longer and they’ll get back to practice, the overworked anxiety in her bones. aj is the one standing in front of the cameras now, bright eyed and laughing, playing the other hosts off one another and coaxing mayday through their introductions, throwing out breadcrumbs for them to follow, lobbing them softballs, playing to the talents she knows they each have, this one good at aegyo and that one a quick enough wit. for any other group it’s her job to leave openings for the talent to shine. for mayday, it’s her job to force openings and then drag them into them, pushing them onto center stage to shine even if she has to puppeteer their movements in the process. like a crazy stage mom feeding lines. 

which makes serena a personal cross to bear. 

not that she doesn’t like serena or anything, the girl’s fine. but god help her is she bad at variety. not just subpar, but legitimately bad, jowi realizes as the mc throws her two easy questions, good ones too, that give her a chance for a little marketing, and jowi watches as serena not only shoots the questions down but might as well stamp them into dust while she’s at it. jesus. do they even train the rookies anymore? “ah serena! don’t be modest!” she hadn’t been modest at all, frankly, but jowi has to give her that out, play to that persona. if you say something enough it becomes real,  right? “it’s not a stage name actually, it’s her real name. actually, she is foreign, she was born in england, in london. maybe that’s why she looks like such a cosmopolitan city girl, huh? i think she has that european feel.” jowi adds. half of this will be cut, but at least if some of it makes it in they can keep pulling that along, stringing that image out. the other hosts look almost relieved to jump on the chance to compliment her, to smooth over a narrative, talking about how refined and lovely she is.

“you know, since serena is my company hoobae we know each other pretty well -” not entirely a lie, “and all the trainees told me about the elegant girl from england who’d joined the company just a bit after moving to seoul. it’s like a drama script.” she smiles, she’s taking timeline liberties, but no one cares about that, it sells the story, “it must have been really different,  to go from studying classical music to kpop, yeah? it seems form your profile like you really love piano! why did you  make such a big switch?” she lobs this one at her, an underhanded softball thrown at .0002 miles an hour. please, serena, just hit this one out of the park. 

simplicity

[archivedidjowi-blog]

jenoid‌:

they’re done for today. had a music show filming in the morning, this now. he should maybe go back and practice. he told milo he’d consider it. but he hangs near jowi instead. “what a show. we should be nominated for something.” jeno jokes out, tucks his hands into his pockets as he talks. “you got more to do – after this?” he asks her. he should find out his answer now, so he knows whether or not he should brush off his manager’s van ride back to the building or dorms.

ahn jowi isn’t in the building. 

it’s only cherry bomb’s aj here, a study in bright smiles and savage humor, in the warm and the relatable, the bright and brilliant. quick wit and the ability to play easily off the comedians she works with, she fits into this role like a missing puzzle piece, and it suits her. she can feel that it does, the easy roll of banter, the way she can cajole the groups into opening up some. filming goes back to back, one set of rookies after another, until she’s faced with the familiar, as milo and aroon and jeno and hyukjae file onto the set. and if she lobs significantly less soft balls, less opportunities to shine, in aroon’s direction, well goodness it’s all just a mistake, right? in the end milo talks more and better on this program than in his real life, and jeno has so many opportunities to plug his particular brand of ridiculous humor that it’s almost criminal. 

titanium is the last group of the day, the last outfit change of the day, the last laugh of the day. she’s been at this for hours and she’s tired, beelines straight for the coffee set out for them by kind staff members, picks up an americano and drains the slightly watered down liquid, dampened courtesy of melting ice cubes, with something akin to desperation. at least being a host means dressing fairly comfortably, and the straight legged dark jeans, the ribbed crop, the sneakers, they’re all pretty innocuous. she feels underdressed when jeno approaches, however. 

it’s hard to take off aj, right now, so she doesn’t. just lets herself grin at him, still in the familiar skin of aj, every inch of her choreographed to appeal and warm her audience, “probably. you know we do those fake awards at the end, play your cards right and maybe you’ll snatch one right up.” she agree easily, watches his shoulders shift as his hands plunge into their pockets. his question rings in her ears. 

a crossroads. 

there is a lot to do, a lot to be done. a solo comeback on the horizon, a month away, and scripts to read, and episodes to prepare for. aj would go home and faithfully complete her work, practice until her toes bruise and bleed, until her joints feel they might have swollen to screaming red. there’s hesitation on her face until she glances up to meet his gaze, eyes sharp and soft in an impossible combination, lips spreading around a cheshire grin that sets her at ease in all it’s boyish mischief. “not a damn thing,” she tells him. she needs a distraction from her work, which is in itself a distraction, making jeno a distraction from a distraction,a nd she wonders how deep down this rabbit hole she can go. how far removed from the truth of herself, from the core of ahn jowi she can get before she loses track of herself entirely. maybe she already has. “something tells me you’ve got some free time, too.” she teases it out with the same voice she’d used on crime scene 2 to indicate she was picking up on a particularly juicy hint. 

SOUR CANDY

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idjaehwan‌:

jaehwan reaches out, and he doesn’t think. he reaches out and just like that she’s in his arms. just like that. as if it’s easy. as if having ahn jowi in his arms it’s as easy as that. it isn’t, it never is, and he tries to remember that. for a second there he fears she’ll turn into foam, a dream, nothing else. and he reminds himself then that this is what she is, even if real. a dream. a moment. nothing else. she’s not yours. she never was. “this hair color suits you,” he says, touches it, and she’s close to him, the feel of her skin underwater sends him a shiver. jaehwan leans in and their lips barely touch, a tease, a promise. “still cold?” he whispers against her. 

it had been sudden, realizing jaehwan was attractive. she’d been just a teenager back then and it had been surprising. making the move to high school and finding half the girls around her swooned over him, doted on his every word. she’d been immeasurably annoyed by that initially - can’t you see he’s just a dumb boy? she’d told them, eyes rolling as girls had preened and simpered and boys had been too eager to befriend, for all the brightness and energy of him.  waking up to the realization of how very attractive he was had happened so suddenly. but she’d not thought of him, like that. not at first. not for awhile. there had been firsts,  here and there. the exploration of curious teens with time to kill and hormones to unleash, with enough shared trust to be able to turn to one another for that.

it’s both impossible and easy to remember that, when she sees him like this. she sees all of him at once. the boy he’d been once, with curls that fell into his eyes. the man he was now, chisel cut and sharp jawed, but still with that softness in his eyes when he looks at her. it’s a honey sweet malaise that threatens to absorb her, to pull her down into something like quicksand to smother her. she pushes herself upright and drags the jeans from her legs, strips her shirt up over her head and moves to slide into the water, shivers racing over her skin, goosebumps blooming along the line of her throat.

she wants to believe she can rely on him as a constant. jaehwan, forever in her corner. jaehwan, forever waiting for her, lingering, loving her. she needs that, she needs to believe in that possibility. keeps him on the hook so that she can - a selfish play for security and safety, a desire for commitment that she doesn’t offer to him in return.  she feels guilty for that, as guilty as she feels she needs it, needs him, desperately. craves the surety of his presence, the anchoring weight of him. as if hearing her thoughts his arms wind around her, tether her in this moment, weigh her down like rocks round her feet. she slides her arms around his shoulders, tousles at his hair, brushes her nose to his and fits herself close against him, perhaps in desperate need of the surety of his presence, the heat of his skin a comfort against her own, drifting half-floating, toes brushing against the bottom of the pool. her cheeks are flushed and her eyes bright, feverish.  

“you think so?” she teases softly, nuzzles at the line of his jaw, nips lightly, a pause before the other shifts to brush their lips together softly. she sighs out a breath, relaxes languid against him, as if melting into his embrace, molding to fit against his form, broad and comforting as he envelops her. “freezing, jae, warm me up.” she pouts, a demand formed in a whisper against his mouth as she shifts, presses her toes to the rough bottom of the pool and leverages herself through the water to wrap her legs around his waist, laughing at the slight grunt of surprise from his lips.

reminiscence.

[archivedidjowi-blog]

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idhaeyeon‌:

“going off script on stage if i fuck something up is definitely not my strong suit,” she breaks off with a quick laugh. haeyeon had to work so hard to get to a point where she felt like a performer after having her confidence broken from debut, so having to think on her feet on stage is terrifying to her. she doesn’t know what would be worse: to fuck up what she was supposed to do or try and unfuck up her fuck up and fuck that up even worse than before? “hopefully we won’t have to deal with that.” hopefully if it does happen, haeyeon won’t freeze up and feel like that scared 18 year old she used to be that was afraid of even stepping onto a stage in front of people. afraid of being anything other than perfect. 

if there’s one way in which jowi mercifully got lucky, it was the branding department. the thing is, for all her wickedness and snark, for all her inwardly destructive tendencies, she’s not a bad person. she’s loyal to a fault, unflinchingly dedicated to the people she cares about. when she loves she does so deeply and desperately, with a fire that is near impossible to tame, difficult to quench. maybe that’s why she fears connections so desperately - losing them erodes so very much of her, and after the dissolution of family ties (or at least, the immeasurable weakening down to the occasional phone call for money) she just can’t handle much more of it. her image plays to the strengths of her personality well. there’s a brightness to her and an honesty, a sort of matter of fact self-deprecation that veers occasionally and abruptly into manufactured hubris, a quick wit that flickers easily between cheesy and charming, sweet and savage. it’s all the best bits of jowi wrapped up in a pretty package, and then polished a bit more so that they shine just so.

she keeps the rest to herself. the panic attacks, the late nights, the perfectionism that registers in meticulously counted calories, in hours upon hours of practice logged far long after is strictly necessary. “i guess i’ve been around too long to bother with intimidation.” she muses, shrugging a little, perhaps she ought to stand on more formality with senior artists than she does, but she’s found herself, of late, testing the boundaries. pushing her limits. that isn’t to say she wouldn’t defer to haeyeon in most things. it isn’t to say that she doesn’t keep her mannerisms in check around her when it comes to the appropriate levels of formal speech and the use of honorifics, but the simple truth is she’s put so much of herself out there as aj already that holding back too much just seems a bit foolish, now. like a mask she can’t quite pry off all the way, until she’s back at the dorms, half way through a bottle of wine and curled up in the dark.

haeyeon is a strong performer, with a charisma to her that jowi can appreciate, and one that will mesh well with her onstage if what jowi has seen of her is any indication. she can’t deny it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a big name from midas alongside hers. it’s also ever so slightly comforting to know that haeyeon has plenty of nerves involved in this too. keeps her from feeling quite so alone (at least, as much as anything does). “sometimes i feel like that was the best thing all those ensemble varieties did for me, teach me to improvise,” she admits, puts her hand up to her hair, is about to tousle the strands when she remembers that it’s been impeccably styled, makes a face at her stylist in the mirror as the other girl’s face begins towards panic.  she glances back at haeyeon as she drops her hands back to her lap, fidgets with the rings around her fingers instead. “i’m sure we’ll be fine. it’s like, not really a difficult stage, either, so that helps. i mean, the english part is a bit tricky but that’s about all, so, i think we’ve got it in the bag.”

fidget.

[archivedidjowi-blog]

I wish to cry. Yet, I laugh, and my lipstick leaves a red stain like a bloody crescent moon on the top of the beer can.

Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (via sylviaplathquotes)

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idjiyong‌:

his lips are left ghosting on hers, tempting, waiting. he’s barely touching her save for the tight grips hooked to her waist, yet it seems as if he can feel her everywhere already. enough so, that “how much do you hate me,” slips out like a tease than it does an irritating inquiry. 

it’s easy to hate him, because jowi hates herself.

it sounds emo, morbid, some kind of nonsensical bullshit from an edgy teen on twitter. maybe it is, even. but from day one jowi was taught to perceive herself as less than, was indubitably informed time and again that she was measured and found wanting. from the circumstances of her birth to each and every attribute and accomplishment, ahn jowi had fallen sort of her sister and had been summarily made aware of it. somi was beautiful, from birth to the present, with wide eyes and natural double lids. with pixie like features that spun almost elfin. she had a captivating smile and a dimple on her cheek, a single freckle charmingly situated just below her left eye. her hair is silky and soft and always has been, without flyaways or frizz, with a shine and beauty to it. somi had always been graceful and sweet, a kind girl with a gregarious disposition and while she’d not been particularly maddeningly intelligent, she’d always been plenty smart enough and had completed her school work (mostly) without complaint (at least, without more complaint than usual for a child). she’d known the love of their father and mother alike. jowi had been born under inauspicious circumstances, on the wake of a funeral, to a mother in the midst of grief and mourning. she had been an undue burden on her family from the get go, from her lack luster health (born too early and too weak) to her general temperament. she’d been moody from the get go, nervous around strangers, eager to cling to her mother or sister for support, though oft rejected. she’d been an agreeable average child in mannerism, in disposition, and in appearance. she’d gone through an awkward adolescent stage her sister had avoided, and she’d only continued to become fiery, feisty, troublesome as she aged. her shy and nervous demeanor had become anxious and moody, mercurial even before teenage hormones hit.

the girl she is at present is shaped by that comparison, alongside the millions leveled at her in her time with msg, from just barely thirteen onwards. forever lacking. so she hates herself. a loathing deep set, a dissatisfaction that never wanes. and when she meets jiyong, when she sees in him a kindred spirit, a sameness, an indistinguishable similarity, she hates him too. it lacks the vitriol and resignation she resigns herself too. vacillates like a flame between the desire to scapegoat him and the desire to provoke, to use him for her own punishment. she pokes and prods at him until he retaliates ten fold or a thousand, and relishes in the masochistic pleasure of her own undoing.

it is wholly unhealthy.

it is an unending cycle.

he leaves bruises on her skin that she will press her fingers into later with a low hiss, imprinting his rage onto her skin, leaving his mark deep in her musculature. his nails dig into soft skin and she groans, a sound low in the back of her throat, soft where it escapes kiss swollen lips. the harsh planes of his face are cast into shadow by the dim lighting to the side, rendering him a creature of shadows and silver, steel edges and burning eyes. they rake over her like hot coals and she’s surprised there isn’t a physical burn against her skin in their wake. one hand knots into his hair, the other at his shoulder, sliding to bis upper arm, digging into his flesh through the fabric of his shirt, her grip tight against him. an anchor in a bid for the physical tether.

what’s the point of this? she’s tired of it. of him. of herself. but the alternatives? an empty bed and the knowledge she lives on borrowed time, with jaehwan. the knowledge that his guilt overweighed his love, the certainty that gun would only ever put his career in front of her, time and again, as he’d already proven. so why does she wait? why does she want? what’s she ever bothered for, stupid thing that she is? infantile creature, to be naive enough to desire so much more than she deserves.

because this? this is what she deserves, at the best.  this loathing, the consuming fire of his gaze,  the drag of nails and the reverberation of his words through her bones, shaking her apart. she laughs, soft and twisted,  a scoff on her lips when he speaks. “is that what turns you on?” she murmurs saccharine, strokes the back of her knuckles soft against the line of his cheekbones.  “you want me to demean you? is it a humiliation kink or something?” she goads, slides her fingers to tangle idly into his hair, yanks at the strands to pull his head back in a sharp movement contrasting to the softness prior. she grazes her lips featherlight against the exposed line of his jaw. “or are you just really into fucking girls that hate you? like some kind of weird bdsm angle or whatever.”  she nips at thin skin stretched over sharp cut bone. “fucking hell, baby, it’s pretty pathetic either way.”

good guy.

[archivedidjowi-blog]

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idryusan‌:

“jowi, am i happy?” san can’t help but ask it, but he regrets it the minute it trips off his tongue. the pathetic part is, it sounds like san’s desperately seeking an answer from her. like he genuinely doesn’t know. his eyes hang off off her for a moment, lips pressed together. but then he yanks it away, his gaze. pins it to the table instead. he has to swallow down an apology, because it feels like he should. but he’s not sure what for. “nevermind.” it’s whispered out, and gravelly. “we’re happy.” he corrects. midas’ mouthpiece. 

jowi’s life is ruled, in the end, by fear. the fear of failure, the fear of abandonment, the fear of despair. to pick apart jowi, down to the neurons, is to discover a girl ruled by spur of the moment synapses, propelled into a state of constant fight or flight. that is, in effect, the nature of anxiety. the nature of her incapabilities to function in the way she should. a brain in overdrive, an adrenal system on the fritz. brain gone haywire, firing off danger signals at the slightest trigger touch. she lives her life outrunning ghosts, trying to outpace demons that don’t always exist. and even in the case of the demons she does have, does run from, can’t be escaped. they live deep in her veins, etched into her bones, sink down into the marrow, rooting into the core of her.

san has always kept pace with her.  perhaps because they are both running, fleeing constantly, on the run from the past, the present, the future. their shared marathon keeps them on pace with each other, struggling towards a finish line so far they can’t fathom its nature. “well they’re both factual, “ she points out, shrugs a little, “there’s nothing wrong with adorable as an adjective, i’d think you’d have moved on from the foolishness of a gender binary in descriptors.”   it’s a nothing statement. they both know they wouldn’t cross that line, not really. it’s funny, with them both being the sort of people they are. jowi will almost always offer physical  intimacy just to avoid the potential for emotional connection, as if to stave off the inevitable, as if in imitation of a human connection. it works the easiest with jaehwan, she figures. to give him little bits and pieces of herself, of affection, so that he won’t pull away entirely when she shuts down emotionally (something that is, truthfully, prone to happening with relative frequency).

“yeah, we did,” she agrees. and yeah, it should. it should feel better. it should feel like something more, something that mattered. hell, she’d had a special stage and her solos to perform, two incredible opportunities on top of her own group’s performance. and it still felt less than, still felt lacking. what did satisfaction even feel like? would she recognize it, were it to descend over her like a cloud, wrap her up like a blanket? she’s nearly sure she wouldn’t. “i don’t want the stupid sheep, of course you have to take care of it.” she laughs, nose scrunching a little in the movement, the curve of her eyes resembling the crescent moon that begins to peek from behind the clouds as the sun sinks slow.

the question rings in between them and jowi’s eyes are sad, when it registers. and her hand reaches out to cover his, and she feels like she owes him an answer. it’s an answer she’s arrived at on her own, one she hesitates to offer, and the smile on her lips is hollow and vacant, a wisp of a thing. “that’s not the question,” she tells him, as if she’s sad to say it. melancholy in her eyes and a matter of fact candor to the statement. “the question is, can we be happy.”

escapism

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idjaehwan‌:

jaehwan reaches out to his shirt and takes it off, a sudden need of the water against his skin. without much of a word he slips into the pool, dives in until he can reach the bottom with the palm of his hand. then he goes back up, breathes in and when he looks at her for a second she’s blurred, a vision of sorts. for a second she is his jowi, and jaehwan smiles. the truth hurts though, as her edges start to define, as her eyes become clear as day. if he reaches out and touches her all he’ll catch are shadows. “come in,” he says as he swims towards her, “or did you come here to just sit and stare?”

once, jowi had read about how one’s hair can turn green from chlorine, if it’s already a light hue. currently sporting an ash blonde, she’s almost tempted to try. to fall into the siren song of the water and let go. to collapse into the cool embrace of it and let it wash her away. she wishes it were the ocean, though. the call of birds and the sound of waves that lap at the shore. the sting of salt in the breeze, the burn of it in opened wounds. purifying, scalding. the mirage of the inky depths that sit beyond rainbow reefs and clear blue lagoons. she’s fallen prey to her own ruminations now, drawn out from them as he approaches, speaks. 

jaehwan is distracting to a fault, sometimes. when his eyes bore into her like fire. when his hands burn promises onto her skin, impossible things that he offers up to her so willingly; love chief among them in how much she desires it and in how much she fears it. “you’ll suit a historical drama, though” she says. she can imagine it. kingly perhaps, princely at the very least. she can imagine how well he’ll suit a legendary narrative, this god-kissed creature, crafted of sun and smoke and brought forth like a  divine promise to his people. he has in him that aura of something godly and impossible. distance from him only serves to remind it. she spent so long watching him grow that it hadn’t been until she saw him through the eyes of strangers that she’d realized what he had become while she wasn’t looking. 

their distance, lately, reminds her once more. his frame dwarfs hers when he shifts closer. for an idol she’s far on the short end and slight at that, a diminutive thing all limbs and lean lines and a plummeting body fat percentage thanks to media play about her ab line. she’d appreciate it if they never brought that up again. he’s broad, as if he might be twice the width of her, and she knows acutely well how easily he can engulf her. beneath the soft water her toes curl. in her ears, her heart pounds. “is it really?” she wonders, “or is it just much simpler.” she thinks he mistakes her wildness for intrigue, her mercurial attitude for something far more interesting than it is. perhaps he puts her up on a pedestal, imagines of her more than she is. but then, if she asks the world to do that of her, perhaps it makes sense that he would too. make of her some dreamlike creature, some pixie imp, some wanton fae. instead of just a foolish girl with impulse control issues and an appetite for self destruction borne of violent self loathing., riddled with anxiety and insecurities. 

he strips out of his shirt and her gaze glues to him, wanders over lines of muscle and the ripple of goosebumps over skin. she doesn’t bother to play coy - never really has  and they’ve far passed the point of no return. “i mean, i don’t mind staring, at the moment,” she tells him, as he resurfaces, as water runs in rivulets over golden skin, illuminated in the low light, the sharp cut of his features exaggerated in the shadows. her teeth catch her lip, fingers shifting to drag her top off, standing to shed her jeans. wet jeans are a complete mood killer. the result is a rush of bared skin and vulnerability and cool air that set her heart racing, the impetus to sink into the water proving too great, hiding beneath the refracted light of the waves and their murky distortions. the ends of her hair dampen, fan out around her shoulders. “your hair’s gonna get all curly, “ she points, out, fingers reaching up to slick sodden strands from amber eyes. his stylists tried to fight that for the longest time, still do on occasion. it’s a waste of perfectly lovely hair texture, in her opinion. “it’s colder than i thought it’d be.” the words are half complaint and half tease, an open invitation. 

reminiscence.

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idgun‌:

“so, pretty please, jowi,” he starts, not pretty or nicely at all, voice gruff and sardonic, “won’t you tell me straight?”

career came first. that was what they had learned that day. that for ahn jowi and for no gunwoo, there were two competing desperations. their lives boiled down to warring passions, for success and for each other, and in their current state these two elements were mutually exclusive. like oil and water they didn’t mix. for so long as no gunwoo was atlas’ gun and for as long as ahn jowi was cherry bomb!’s aj, they were ill advised to engage with one another. they had known that from the beginning, obviously. but as sophia’s relationship was exposed and all but decimated her reputation, jowi had found herself becoming more and more alarmingly aware of what it might mean for her if she were to falter.

so when msg had come sniffing around, when they had told her to drop him like a hot potato for the sake of her reputation, to avoid the risk of further damage, she’d done it. she’d cut him off cold turkey….at least at first. but jowi had always had determination but rarely had self control, had always been endlessly passionate and in that was a twofold beast and burden, light and dark, benefit and hamartia. perhaps her impulsiveness was always destined to be her downfall. and ill-timed and underwhelming kiss had wrought havoc on her friendship with sooyeon. her relationship with jaehwan had twisted and complicated the longest running friendship of her life. so far her only unscathed interactions were with san and this was due mostly to her desperate loyalty alone, to his resilience in the face of continued abuse. perhaps she wasn’t good for anyone in the end.

at least gun is as foolish as she is, as reckless and as stupid. they match each other in that sense, toe to toe in their idiocy. in a swift movement he pushes the door behind him closed and she reaches past him to lock it, fits close to him purposeful in the process. moving, his hand fits to her waist and she smiles at him, something that twists teasing at the edge. as if she is afraid to keep anything pure between them, any simple happiness too dangerous, that it must be overlaid with the wry or wanton for her to process it, compartmentalize it, lock it away somewhere in her when he’s gone.  there is a sharp inhalation when his hand tangles into her hair and pulls, tugging her head back, directing her chin upwards slight, and she looks at him from lidded eyes, her lips twitch into a smile now, widening chesire bright and feral. “i always like you best angry,” she mumbles, shifts to slide herself up to the edge of the dressing table behind her, fingers curling at the edge of the wood. she crosses her ankles, brow lifting curious as she regards him. “it suits you. all that brooding angst.” she pouts at him, expression patronizing, with the glint of challenge therein. “almost as well as that wig did, what was your name again? yoonmi? yoonji? you made such a pretty  girl, you should probably reprise that.” she likes to torture him, clearly.

sleepless in

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idryusan‌:

“definitely beach over mountains. we can buy a cat. and a sheep.” san decides on a whim. moreso the sheep than the cat. he’d been wanting one of those for a while now, but at the present he would feel too guilty to get one. it’s not like he has a surplus amount of time to lavish it with. he doesn’t want an animal that’s just as miserable as he is. “it’d be nice not to get recognized, right? i always think that. but even here i have people waiting around for me. it’s better though.” he sighs it out, glances around the small room again as if to prove to himself that he has this moment. “or maybe i’d end up hating it.” he adds on with a grin, as desperate for attention as he is. as much as he hates it in the moment. conflicting. two sides at war with each other, and san’s tired of that battle. but there’s no peace treaty to be offered.

san drawls a compliment in her direction and jowi grins, all but beams at him, even as she throws an elbow into his ribs. “every version of me is hot.” she tells him. that wicked drawl on her lips belies the uncertainty that runs in her veins, the insecurity. aj is hot, but jowi isn’t. aj is incredible, but jowi is a mess. aj is sharp liner and versatile charms. aj is surprisingly genuine and endearingly dorky, aj is frighteningly charismatic. jowi is overcommited, neurotic, insecure. jowi is passionate to the point of reckless, impulsive to the point of foolhardy. jowi might have a death wish, almost certainly has problems with addiction, and is blindly devoted to the very few thing sin life she can muster up the energy to care for- her career, a handful of friends, her group. 

she needs the reassurance, fishes for it openly, in the same way she often forces gun into a position to rip her apart. she pokes and prods at people like that, molding herself to them, to the energy they put out, to try and gain the results she wants. affection, adoration, hatred, fury. when she loves, she fears, pokes at the bear until it attacks because she understands aggression more than love. it’s warped and stupid but san understands. when she comes to san with stories of her own recklessness or of how she’d turned love to destruction once more, he doesn’t chide her, or scold her, or pity her. he matches her in understanding, fits with her like a puzzle. “you did. your skinny little hips were rocking all over the place. it was adorable. honestly, if i didn’t already love you, i’d have wanted to fuck you, you were stupid hot.” it’s a complicated statement, if one doesn’t understand her, if someone doesn’t know her. for san, it would make all the sense in the world. 

“beach, a cat....you can have the sheep. keep the sheep. take care of the sheep. probably they smell. most animals smell, i imagine,” she pouts with a slight hint of mischief. “i rode a horse in jejudo and it smelled horrible.” she shakes her head. “don’t talk about it. you know we’d hate it in the end. but i want to keep wanting it. i want to keep thinking that there’s another path for me out there. that i could be satisfied with anything else.” 

there’s a pause. 

“we’re both stuck, though. there’s no way. anything else will be less than. anything else will be inadequate.” it’s a dead, flat truth that floats between them like a poison cloud. “maybe this is the happiest we’ll ever be.”

escapism

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@ ayjay_                                                                                                             … 1 min ago.

chile! 👋 you were amazing! hope you liked all the things i prepared for you maybe you can look forward to something new in...hmm...june~? 🤔 🔫🔫🔫

< LOADING COMMENTS … >

@cbzajajajaj  glasses.... her hair.... her lips... i’m crying @ajaybirdie have you ever seen stage presence like that before??? damn @msgaddicted june???? is it a comeback hint?? solo comeback????       ↪ @sophiajay it could be group too, she always spoils things 😂 😂          ↪ @msgaddicted i hope it’s a solo.. or at least not another power up

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idjaehwan‌:

and he looks back at her and his heart does the thing it always does. once it frightened him, now it just saddens him. jaehwan doesn’t like spending time with pointless things and loving ahn jowi is pointless. and yet he does, because he’s stubborn and she is who she is. there’s nothing he can do when confronted with her but love. “yeah. sorta. it’s been a while i’ve been on stage,” the rest he leaves unsaid. the roles, the acting. the way he feels less and less like a singer but still holds on to it. the way he always feels someone in indigo will call him out on it at some point. they never did, and he’s thankful for that. “and you? getting a solo stage and all,” jaehwan can’t help but smile as he nudges her with his shoulder. “who would’ve thought, huh? i still remember when you’d come by and convinced me to sneak in the school’s pool, and now here you are.”

and he remembers quite well. he remembers every memory with her with stark precision. like a movie in his head, like a tattoo, carved in his skin with nails, drawing blood. 

jaehwan has always been there, it feels like. she can sort of remember, distantly, a day on the playground many, many years ago. a boy with honey eyes coming up to her. she thinks she might have pushed him into the sandbox. it’s pretty likely, anyway. but he’s always been there, for her. a hand to help her up, a shoulder to cry on (despite her best efforts to never be so weak). she’d lamented at him about everything from stolen crayons to teenage worries, from quiz scores to locker combinations he’d known everything about her. 

on a school field trip, she’d broken her ankle, tripping during an admittedly reckless endeavor on the rocky mountainside. he’d picked her up like it was nothing, carried her back down the side of the mountain and it had been the first time she’d looked at him as something other than the scrawny nine year old she’d known so well, the sullen thirteen year old, the dorky fourteen year old. at some point he’d grown taller, and broad, and at some point his voice had changed, and the way that he looked at her change. and he’d been strong but soft and his eyes, so familiar, had become mesmerizing. 

she’d been, in short, in trouble. 

but life is not a film and things did not pan out well after that. they didn’t follow they path they would have liked them too, they weren’t the success story of high school sweethearts. they were a story of something lost and bitter and unable to truly let go. like cactus thorns hooked into tender flesh. “yeah, you’ve been busy lately,” she notes, nodding along. dips her toes into the water and sighs, slightly, a grin on her lips. 

“this pool is way better than the school pool. looking back i’m really not sure how often they properly cleaned it you know? i think we were all on the verge of contracting some kind of flesh eating disease.” she grimaces, clicks her tongue, glances over at him. “whats new, with you. like, lately?” are you dating, are you seeing anyone, did you forget me? it goes unspoken. she doesn’t have a right to ask, anyway. 

reminiscence.

[archivedidjowi-blog]

idgun‌:

“what about you, you’ll watch ours, right? got any words of advice for me? chile’s crowd seems wildly different.”

meeting him had been a twist of fate, stars aligning. she wasn’t the radio personality type, but the guest role had opened up and they’d needed someone relatively inexpensive and not too busy,  but still a name people might recognize. at the time she’d fit the bill well enough, been genial enough. they’d thought her humor would match well to his. and they’d been right by all accounts. she’d stepped into the recording booth trepidatious and uncertain, and the single second he’d first looked up at her she’d known she was in trouble. there was something in the sharp focus of his gaze that had struck her down to her core, some fire raging in him that she recognized on a visceral level. like she saw in him enough anger to match hers, enough passion to match hers. they could stand toe to toe together without overwhelming one another, like an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object, like two stars colliding, like a wildfire raging and consuming.

those evenings there, that space between wake and sleep, between aj and jowi, had been impossible to fathom, to describe. that recording booth had felt at once intensely private and achingly exposed, as if each movement and word betrayed some deep dark secrets held tight in her chest. as if he could read her like the script in front of him - one that he very infrequently bothered referring to. there was something raw and unrefined to him that in this industry seemed jagged and sharp and magnetic, appealing to the point of frightening. a fear she had willingly embraced, a desire she had given herself over too easily and wholly. jowi had never strayed from the things that she wanted, rather working towards obtaining them with a bullheaded insistence that had gotten her through so many years as a trainee, from such a young age, and longer still as an idol.

seeing him now feels the same as it had back then. like this is some secret thing that blooms forbidden between them. she feels like eve standing before the serpent with the apple in her hand. she feels like biting into it. into him, into the promise of this moment and what she knows will come after. his gaze is a heavy weight on her, peeling back the layers of her to find the truth at her core, the secret things she doesn’t say. her teeth catch at her lip as she smirks, the momentary honesty on his lips gravelly and raw, pitched low and a reminder that she’s not the only one affected here. a reminder that eve had been a temptress too, and for a moment he becomes adam and not the serpent, and she is stepping closer to him, toeing out of the platform heels and down a few inches, the soles of her feet cold against the tile floor as she looks up at him, now. she pouts, pursed lips in discontent. “just alright?” she repeats, flicks her hair back over her shoulder. “i didn’t practice endlessly for just alright.” she corrects, prods a finger against the center of his chest. “try again.”

he continues sardonic, a wry twist to his lips and she smiles at him. it’s a sweet smile, the kind that creases her eyes and rounds her cheeks and shines benevolent on him, and kind, and warm. “that can be arranged,” she tells him, hooks her thumb into the band of her shorts and slides it to the side, pauses to pull it low, over the protrusion of her hip bone, baring another inch of skin to the heat of his attention. “if you ask nicely.” she fits a fingertip beneath his chin to redirect his gaze, lifts his head to meet her eyes once more. “i think you’ll do just fine. they’ve basically given you a mini concert to perform and you’ve never had a problem working a crowd. just really bring the… anger. and the passion. they’ll like it.” i like it, is the unspoken qualifier.

sleepless in