holyrcller

[holyrcller]

a countdown of days in between, for a sungso new year! snapshots around seoul, little moments of their holiday season from her perspective

10!

she’s never really been one for the christmas season—not the spirit of it, giving and family and all that. it’s hard to believe in it, when most of what she remembers of her childhood christmases amount to little more than empty giftboxes and a missing dad, the happiness blurred out in her memories. sorin passes stained glass display windows of what winter ought to be, and feels the cold that seeps through the glass instead.

but sungho’s somehow managed to drag an entire tree into their apartment, and she ends up in the shop instead of out of it, looking for decorations. she gets tinsel and fairy lights and a million different baubles that catch the light and spill out their glittery christmas cheer into their apartment, smiling when she finds him already setting up. a kid on christmas, she thinks, throwing her weight into the hug from behind. “i’ve got our decorations,” she says, hanging one onto his glasses with a laugh, a gasp when he gets his revenge with a daisy chain of fairy lights and an absolutely horrible photo she lets him talk her into.

she doesn’t tell him, but she takes a quick little photo of sungho, placing the star on the top of their tree. a sliver of his tummy peeking through, face turned away from her and focused on getting the ornament just right. her new lockscreen for december, she decides, smiling when she opens up her phone—and hey, guess she’s getting into the holiday spirit now.

9!

but their work knows no holiday spirit, unfortunately. it’s a rare day that they’re both scrambling to get ready in the morning, 5ams the single, horrible commonality they share. morning kisses are coffee stained and hurried, in between untangling their lanyards and sorting out papers ( hers ) and files ( his ). sorin grumps through the morning, barely held together by her pencil skirt and sungho’s hugs, bleary-eyed for the most part.

her eyes are closed as they hold hands all the way to their cars, letting sungho drag her along to the right spot. there’s wind breezing through the open concept garage ( thanks, mrs eom? ), snowflakes falling against her cheek.

snow?

sleepy eyes blink open, wide awake now. they’d missed the first snow last year, and she knows it’s just silly superstition, but... “it’s our first snow!” tugs on their joined hands, tilting his head up with a nudge. they’re falling slow, fluttering onto dark hair and their coats, delicate in this dawn. sorin grins and sticks out her hand to catch one, smiling back at sungho. unexpected snow’s as good a reason as any to turn up a little late, after all.

8!

sungho will have you believe she’s absolutely useless in the kitchen. he’d be mostly right, but she’s been practicing. sort of, in pockets of time caught when her work wraps up early and he’s stuck in the hospital, wasting a whole lot of eggs to perfect that fluffy, buttery french omelette. but she’s finally got it, she swears. it looks beautiful, at least.

so she pounces on her boyfriend, still dead to the world, peppering his face with kisses. their morning in is turning into afternoon, and her best attempt of an omelette’s going to go cold and gooey in a bad way soon. it’s not often she gets to be the one waking him up, but call it a christmas miracle. breaks aligned, a cooperative ( unresponsive ) smoke detector, and the hours of practice she put into this omelette finally paying off. “wake up, babe, baby,” a playful chomp on his bare shoulder, finally getting some kind of reaction of him. “breakfast in bed,” sorin announces, snuggling up to him and placing the tray carefully over the covers.

( as it turns out, she’d used sugar instead of salt, and maybe there weren’t meant to be so many scorched bits to the inside of the omelette, but sungho manages a whole three bites instead of the usual one. a christmas miracle indeed! )

7!

"look!” a satin ribbon sits on the crown of her head, a little too excited about the horribly cheesy line she’s about to spring on sungho. it’s payback for all the cheesy lines he’s pulled on her. “i’m your present!”

there’s silence in their apartment for a beat, unwrapped presents wincing with bated breath. somewhere in the background, ariana grande’s voice floats around them. her lower lip pushes out into a pout, mock offense scrunching up her face, as sungho starts laughing. “hey! stop it, oh my god, i regret it already,” she groans, leaning over to cover his mouth with her hands, even though his laughter is silly and infectious and a smile’s starting to crack under her facade. presents forgotten, she scooches close and sits on his lap, the most natural thing in the world as she seals up his laugher with her hands, though it can’t hide the blushing fondness in her expression.

he pulls her hands away gently, kissing the palm of one before she can protest too much. “and my future,” he teases, pulling her in closer and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. it’s cheesy and too sincere, her pout wobbling in its place, inordinately touched. “you’re so lame,” she complains, and that’s his only warning before sorin tackles him down. they’ve got a whole future’s worth of kisses ahead, but there’s no better time to start on them like the present, right?

6!

“what d’you want for christmas?” casual question, not very helpful answer. more time together ( and immediately acting on it for the night, because she’s a goddamn go getter ) isn’t really something she can gift sungho, as much as she’d like to. they’ve got presents wrapped for everyone else, the sort of annoying couple that’s starting to come as a pair, with love from sungho and sorin, but she can’t exactly rely on sungho for his own christmas present. she does have a cute, mesh and silk set for the night of, but that’s more a present for herself than sungho, if she’s honest with herself. though she knows he’ll certainly appreciate it anyway.

sorin manages to talk herself out of giving up on the whole thing. gifts aren’t her strong suit, and she’s pretty sure sungho doesn’t place that much importance on them either, but... it’s christmas, and she’s not half-assing it. though she is sneaking around it, borrowing sungho’s phone to peek at what he’s been eyeing. she ends up going with the vacheron constantin, sleek and intricate with a leather strap that’s butter smooth, and casually deletes that item off his cart. hopes he loves her enough not to call her out on it.

5!

sometimes, she misses him a lot more than she’s comfortable admitting. it’d been safer, her own walls surrounding her, propping her up, with no space for anyone else other than sorin in her life. but it’s been a while since she’s been alone like that.

so she catches the earliest flight home at some ungodly, horrible hour, just so she can see him sooner. it’s not that bad, really. the high of a clinched deal and anticipation to get back home keeps her a little more sane; she breezes through the movie she’d fallen asleep to, and still ends up dozing off before she gets to the end. good luck, kevin—but that’s not going to be her holidays.

( 💬 › SUNGHO )  babe i just touched down!! ( 💬 › SUNGHO )  u better be asleep tho

 communication’s turning into a habit for them. sorin catches a restless nap in the back of the cab, then drags her weary, tired as fuck body over and snuggles on top of sungho. it doesn’t make sense, how she sleeps the best when she’s in his arms, but she thinks, right before she passes out, she’s home.

4!

cookies are in the oven, repeat, cookies are in the oven... finally, after a failed batch or two, don’t look at her, ugh. sungho commandeers the kitchen and saves their sugar cookies, the scent of vanilla and brown butter warming their home. she sneaks back into the kitchen and hugs him around his waist while he washes the dishes, face pressed into his shoulder. “hurry up,” sorin whines, yelps when he flicks soapy water at her in response. “i’ll help, ugh,” dries her cheek off on the side of his shirt, taking up a cloth to dry the dishes.

and she’s completely and utterly betrayed when he abandons post to retrieve the cookies, leaving her spot by the dishrack to run over too. it’s dumb, but she’s never had this with anyone else, and sorin breaks into a grin on her exaggerated inhale, ineffably happy.

sungho passes her a little piping bag of icing, and they get to work. it’s ridiculously tricky, contraption needing two hands to get a steady line consistency she likes, but sorin comes out of it with cookies that aren’t half bad. she’s getting good at piping icing hearts, does a little one on his cheek, though it’s ruined when sungho turns his head at the feeling of cream on his skin. but she just giggles and kisses it off before he can take his revenge, pulling him in for something much sweeter.

3!

she gets him back in time for christmas. right before, actually, but he looks so exhausted that sorin doesn’t have the heart to make him stay up and wait for the clock to strike midnight. they’ll do that in a week, anyway. still, she pouts for a minute to make him sweat before she breaks and wraps him up in their duvet, kissing his forehead. “sleep,” she insists, sprawling her body on top of his, and falls asleep to snowfall and his steady breaths.

and christmas morning brings something much better, warmth under the covers before she lets him pull her out of bed and into actual, respectable human clothes for a winter wonderland date. it’s cliche and crowded, and they end up running out of there within the couple of hours, cute christmas photos obtained. the rest of their day is no better, the streets packed and sugar sweet, sorin keeping their hands linked throughout like she might lose him in the crowds, squeezing his hand once in a while just in case.

“merry christmas, babe, i love you too,” a little peck on his lips, covering up the slight guilt she feels when she realises how much effort he’s gone to for christmas this year. resolves to do better for their next one, curled up on their couch and listening to his low, soothing voice explain the picture frames. there are old photographs she’d forgotten about, new ones she’s never even seen yet. it’s so very them, right at home with the many pictures that decorate their walls. and so is sorin, settled in sungho’s arms; she’s home, and there’s no better place to be for the holidays.

2!

they’ve hit that liminal in-between of christmas and new year, and a week of clearing out all her backed up leave. a break, finally, for sleeping in and snuggling up, lazy mornings well overdue. it’s a week of remembering and relearning parts of him she hasn’t caught up on, tangled up together more often than not. the week floats past as she presses kisses to his skin, sighs slipped against his tongue.

it’s less takeout in between than she thought, but she’s very lucky to have found someone who’s good in the kitchen ( and out of it, but that’s her biased little heart talking ). sorin laughs and grabs his hand, nabbing the last bite of spicy bulgogi before sungho can tease her with it. it’s good, she hums as she chews, taunting him with a grin and an empty mouth. immediately regrets it, too, when he just scoops her up and tosses her into the air once, twice, sorin shrieking and hugging his neck. laughter bubbles up when she finds them face to face, close enough to count his eyelashes if she wanted to. she leans in and closes those last few inches, one kiss turns into two, turns into three and dishes forgotten on the counter.

she saves these moments for when she’ll need it, when they’re off in different parts of the world figuring out their careers and missing each other. they’ve got a year’s supply of memories to pick from, and they’ll only make more, won’t they?

1!

the countdown’s starting, new year’s crowd in full swing. they’re at their favourite bar, the one where it all started, tangy booze and sweet chatter. she's got resolutions in her fist, ready to go. last year’s countdown had been panicked, frantic, kicking off with resolutions that’d felt too big and insurmountable, but look at them now. everything did work out—not all that perfectly, but she's happy, and that's something lim sorin hasn't been able to say for longer than she's proud of.

she can say it now, and she does, cupping sungho's face in her hands. “thank you for being with me, babe,” and she hates how sappy it sounds, sincerity bleeding through her embarrassment, “i wouldn't have made it through the year without you. i love you.” it's all the words she didn't get to say last year, and the times she'd forgotten to over this one. not enough, not even close, but she knows he'll understand.

and now there’s shouting, a countdown of their moments all around them. sorin tangles her hands in his, leaning in on her barstool. there’s heat from the radiator against her legs, chilled fingers against his callused ones. warm, fuzzy fondness when he pulls her onto his lap, the numbers on their last legs. she wraps her arms around his neck, foreheads touching. three, two... she kisses him a little early, and through to the new year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

12 days of a very sungso christmas ft. some friends - @holyrcller

december, 2021

various locations around seoul, little snippets into their holiday season from his perspective

Keep reading

[holyrcller]

SIMONE WEIL

Gravity and Grace (1947);

personal photo, original edit

[holyrcller]

yoosunghos​:

(...)

he gently turns the other way and pats the nightside table for his phone, his vision blurry from not wearing his glasses just yet. upon finding the device, he taps the screen and the digital clock display shows just a few minutes past nine o'clock. despite both of them having the day off to finalize unpacking things in their apartment, sungho thinks they shouldn't sleep in too much-- or perhaps he's just giddy about the fact that they now share a space of their own and he doesn't want to bask in this fact alone; it's most likely the latter. which then goes on to explain him reaching over in bed again, a couple fingers gently tapping against her skin. "baby, wake up. i'm hungry and want breakfast-- i'm cooking, of course. " he hums a tune quietly as he waits for her response, a sigh of contentment leaving his lips as the realization hits him; they're officially living together.

no more having to figure out whose place to sleep at when they don't want to say goodbye, no more missing each other when they're too busy to meet up.

this truly is the best part, he thinks.

pinch her, she’s dreaming.

it’s a good dream. she’s finally got her own house, away from mum’s bitter comments and dad’s rusted, iron heavy purse strings that keep her chained to a melodrama she didn’t ask to be born into. maybe she’s independent. kind of. with a nine to five that keeps her in the air, the sort of fulfilling her bank account appreciates more than her schedule, but she’s getting better at it. and her band—it’s not retro rosy, sure, not the rush and roar of shitty downtown clubs and the youthful idealisms that they’re full of, but it’s a sound she’s relearning, adventure music for migrating birds.

and she’ll wake up smushed against sungho’s side, childhood serendipities between them, an entire future ahead of them. like a long prologue to the start of their story, the run ins when they’d been as good as decorative lamps to each other in the kims’ household, the last run in at that bar where they’d been reintroduced. the rest of it not fate, but choice, those careful steps towards each other that turned into flight, hand in hand. turned into boxes of their things fit into the spaces of their new home, everything coming together. no yours or mine—ours.

something too bright falls over her eyes, sorin grumbling a little and hiding her face into a familiar, soft warmth. his side of the bed rustles with movement; she curls up into the covers, trying to escape the morning. there’s a peck against her forehead and she tilts up automatically, seeking more, never mind the stale morning that’s sitting in her mouth. “hi,” sorin mumbles, rolling over and scooching closer to her boyfriend. scrunches her face up, like she’ll be able to will herself to wakefulness that way. it doesn’t work, of course. “what’d’you wanna eat?” words stuck together with sleep, doesn’t bother fighting sungho on who’s in charge of cooking. “i’ll help... how ‘bout pancakes?”

sorin stretches and drapes herself over his shoulders, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. “let’s go wash up,” she demands. doesn’t move an inch to the bathroom, lips pressing lazy kisses against the warm skin she can reach. there’s no need for a rush today. this is their apartment now, sorin blinking the last of the night’s sleep out of her eyes, taking in their new home. her arms wrap around sungho with a contented sigh.

she’s awake, and it’s so much better than a dream.

[holyrcller]

TURN OFF THE LIGHT  —  ft. @caelumms

she comes home to find a strange, muddy red footprint sitting on top of the little rattan welcome mat they’d laid out, a trail from the hallway disappearing off into the stairs. a frown over her features, sorin leaning closer to inspect it. uses the toe of her shoe to try to scrape it off, but nothing comes out. huh, strange.

its a mix of annoyance and curiosity that makes her trace these garish footprints up the stairs to the twelfth level, her workbag still with her. it doesn’t seem to be paint, not cakey enough to be mud, and the footprints don’t seem to be getting fainter, even after going up four flights of stairs. plus, it sounds like something’s leaking overhead, getting louder as she follows the trail up. maybe it’s a burst pipe, karma for leaving this mess around the hallways. the mystery substance seems to be stubbornly sticking to the tiles, as dark copper up here as when she’d first spotted it across her door.

the trail stops in front of unit #9, footprints turning in to the doorway. she supposes she’s found the culprit behind that unfortunate trail; there’s even a handprint, no longer just footprints. it’s surprisingly well polished up here, so maybe this is someone’s attempt at a halloween spook. though they should’ve just kept it to their doorway and not all over hers! sorin presses the doorbell, moving to the side so whoever comes to the door will see exactly what her complaints are about.

[holyrcller]

ujues​:

(...)

“–so yeah, nearly missed the 4:45, and then it was a total mess the whole way through.” now solely focused on trying to cleanly split the shell of a pistachio open with one hand, juyeon finishes yet another riveting work story on a characteristically anticlimactic note. the wine has a way of muddying the finer details of her anecdotes, but the point still comes across. “but i slept plenty this afternoon, so i’m not really tired.”

still sleepy, but not tired per se. another concession that makes up the new normal. 

“and you? no qualms about messing up your sleep schedule?”

a friend made on a layover and particularly turbulent flight ends up an unexpected neighbour here in center point, the shared cab back home turning into plans for next time. they’ve still got spaces in between them ready to be filled with liquid friendship and warm conversation, sorin turning up with an unopened bottle of pinot and easy words bouncing between the both of them.

she laughs at the off beat landing of juyeon’s story, falling flat with the split of a pistachio shell. “sounds awful,” sorin teases, “you’re making me glad my deadlines don’t include being like, thirty thousand miles in the air!” at least it sounds like her new friend’s gotten enough sleep, she supposes. “my sleep schedule?” sorin glances at the clock and finds it early(ish), just past midnight. pops a goldfish cracker into her mouth and quips, “i’m a night owl with a really good alarm! and it’s the weekend—y’know what they say!”

she clinks their glasses together, taking a sip of the red before she jumps back in. “but did you hear that weird stuff banging about last night?” index knuckle knocks the side of the walls, “it sounded like someone was throwing their entire kitchen rack around the flat—and sungho slept through all of it!” she makes a face, nose wrinkling up. “someone on my level is definitely engaging in some really dodgy shit, but they pass out by like, midnight.” an elderly poltergeist, is her favourite theory so far. narcoleptic michael myers or demon child with a curfew are close runner ups, though.

“so i stay up til then and get all my rest time in after, without feeling like someone’s performing an exorcism on my eardrums.” sorin shrugs a shoulder, sighs. “can you hear it from your level? i tried asking ms patel, but i think i’m better off investing in good earplugs...”

[holyrcller]

a lil plot call for some spooks, if you’d like to do something for the halloween event! i’ve got some possible plot bunnies under the cut, but we can always brainstorm too. hit the ♡ & i’ll come yell!

night one : you bet each other fifty bucks you’ll last the night at haunt street. first one to run home screaming loses. you can’t scare me, i know that noise was you! wasn’t it... it wasn’t...? haha...

night one : both of you have the same idea of bugging ms patel about the lights, and she looks at you both like you’re going crazy but you swear those lights were flickering and red. 

night two : sorin finds footprints leading up to your room, and thinks you’re just tracking mud? whatever that brownish reddish stuff is? around the hallways. clean up the mess, it’s across her doormat too!

night three : her drinks keep disappearing on her and she thinks you’re the culprit. you owe her like, ten drinks!

night three : you both leave your flats after accidentally peeping that creepy dude and run into each other. hope he’s not still around...

night four : you stumble home early with sorin because you’re both getting a lil too old to spend the entire night clubbing, and reach centerpoint right as the scream cuts through the night. do you go exploring, or chalk it up to some really enthusiastic kids?

night five : (T/B residents!) you end up taking refuge at her unit for the night!

[holyrcller]

xdowonx​:

(...) 

dowon cupped his face in his hand, elbow against the counter, eyes overcome with drowsiness. an earphone in his left ear fed him faded notes of k-indie. it was 8:20 pm, which meant that he’d get off work soon, but 8:20 pm also was the perfect time for a nap, the exact moment in his day when he was willing to succumb to the sleepy lull. and he honestly might’ve let it if it weren’t for the sudden opening and closing of the store’s entrance, bell humming a cacophonous tune, enacted by none other than a familiar face. “sorin!” 

it’s the end of the day, the relieved bustle of everyone commuting home while the sun takes its bow above them, too. orangey pink fades into a deepening navy, people disappear into their apartments, and sorin drops her work bag off at home before heading out again to find some food. she looks like any other off the clock, bottom of the food chain office worker, giant hoodie over her steam pressed pencil skirt that’s gotten creased over the course of the day, and slides she’d swapped over to the moment she got home. her blisters are going to get her, someday, but not today!

sorin slips through the stiff glass door of the convenience store, laughs and waves, nose scrunching up into a smile. “hey!” she moves over to the counter for a moment, tapping the corner of the counter in front of familiar, sleepy eyes. “long shift?”

it’s been dowon at the counter more nights than not, their odd sort of friendship that started backstage of a downtown bar and moved into the aisles of early night shifts at the convenience store. not quite familiar enough, existing only in the spaces where their paths overlap, but too familiar for her to consider him just an acquaintance. they’re a little too different, she thinks, for a proper friendship to click, though they’ve never really had the chance to try, either. but it doesn’t hurt, the snippets of conversation in between gigs and customers, sharing laughter and quips that are enough to put together a sort of friendship.

she can feel the cold of the convenience store refrigerator on the tip of her nose, microwaved meals sitting in their plastic pockets. not much of a selection, come the end of the day, but carbonara tteokbokki is always an easy choice, she supposes. the management consultant picks up the package and slides it over to the counter, waiting for him to ring her up. “want me to cashier sit?” she offers; she’s got nothing better to do, really. a but stated in the finger that raises up, terms and conditions for her offer: “i’ll do it if you use your staff discount for me!”

[holyrcller]

THOSE THOUGHTS OF PAST LOVERS  —  ft. @yoosunghos, 2019 

sorin’s rifling through the trinkets that make up sungho’s room, an idle curiosity for the sunlit version of a place she’s gotten used to seeing in twilight hours. her hands wander across the backs of bound books, fingertips trailing along the desk, the way they usually do with its owner. something new and not quite, in the daytime. like superimposing what they were before that summer on the beach on what’s come after, these new intimacies over their second take friendship, and whatever it is that’s started to flutter in her chest across the rest of it. like there’ll be something new to find, in the light of day.

so find she does—a polaroid that’s faded with time, in a corner with snapshots of all the other people she recognises from sungho’s stories. soft around the edges, like it’s been handled often. its gross; he’s a little scrawny with youth, mystery girl’s smile too wide to be cute, and matching teenage outfits. the sort of theme park date that’s out of style now, and so full of spring blossom love she can’t even be surprised to see it on his wall. like something unforgettable, no matter how much time passes.

and there are always those old insecurities, a decade and counting, chittering in her ear with claws deep in her confidence. doesn’t matter that they’ve been spending more time together for different reasons, that she sleeps over most days and it’s not just in the euphemistic sense, no longer all heated skin and sparkling desire with them. it’s still something too fragile in its infancy, ready to shatter and cut on glass fragments, too new for them to know any better.

she looks up when she hears his footsteps, letting go of the polaroid like she’s been burnt. a little too slow to avoid notice. “cute picture,” she says on instinct, all cool girl nonchalance. on the defensive, with nothing that’s hers to defend. sorin taps the teenage boy and his charmed smile caught in that picture and wonders, how long’s it been? she supposes she ought to know, that flimsy connection they’d had through the kim siblings long since established, but she doesn’t. it feels unfair, somehow. “when’d you take this?” why’d you keep it?

[holyrcller]

GROCERY SHOPPING  —  ft. @seesiyeon

once in a while, sorin wonders if independence ( is this even counts as that ) was worth it.

most of those thoughts start cropping up when she’s grocery shopping. it was so much easier having a housekeeper who’d handle all her meals, and just the occasional microwaveable instant dinner. not the mention the fact that she’d never even had to blink at membership fees to an assortment of upscale grocers’ she rarely bothered to make use of, or the organic fruit she’d chosen purely by how big and shiny they were. now she’s stuck crossing her fingers she isn’t eating burnt rubber with her fried rice, and probably a bit too familiar with the convenience store’s selection of meals.

but at least she’s got good ( ? ) people around her. or something, because siyeon’d texted her to meet at one of the supermarkets on the nicer part of town. sorin doesn’t think she’s been here in the past half a year, possibly, but she glides through frosted glass doors like she’s a still regular. picks up a basket and goes window shopping, not quite bothered by the prices, though she thinks her wallet would blanch at them. she’s sure siyeon’ll handle it, in the way she’s come to learn the older woman handles most things—but let’s not discuss how they get handled.

sorin’s still got no idea how to pick fruits, still goes for the biggest, shiniest ones. it’s all about optics, right? picks up glossy red apples and a row of peaches pristine in their box. a couple of pears, yellowy-orange hued, moves on towards the berries and goes straight for the strawberries. a dozen beautiful strawberries, ruby and exquisite, sitting next to a small tower of plump, dewy blueberries. sorin picks a box of each in her hands, as if deliberating, when she really wouldn’t know a thing about either of them. a familiar shadow’s cast over one of the crinkled plastic boxes and she looks up, grins to find the person she’d been waiting for. “strawberries or blueberries?”

[holyrcller]

f0ulfellow​:

(...)

on inho’s screen, a notification pops up. he stares at it for a moment, the tab where he’s pulled up street view, then pushes the lid of his laptop closed. there’s no use in keeping it open when he won’t concentrate anyway. besides, he’s reached a point where he should probably call it a day. work will wait until the morning, inho’s free time will not – it’s hard to separate the two, but a man can try.

“inyoung’s visiting next month.” this topic has been his favourite of late: it’s so easy to fluster sorin. inho smiles, just a shade off teasing. “if you wanted to see her.”

the rooftop is chilly at this hour, sky overhead cooling into a deep indigo. traffic hums below the apartment, backing track to the atmosphere hanging around like a canopy around the rooftop, fleeting and wide open all at the same time. it’s why she likes practicing up here. cloistered away from everything else without being too far from something familiar.

but sometimes familiarity’s in closer proximity than she expects. “hey,” sorin replies, gaze running over the blue light from the laptop illuminating the older man’s set up, oddly recognisable for something she hasn’t seen in ages, in a different place than the one she knows. maybe that’s how nostalgia works, summers spent weaving through inyoung’s room and inho’s, childish secrets held in still soft palms, dinners warm with laughter and simple friendship. all of it imprinted into her girlhood, impossible to untangle.

still, sorin grins at the unspoken offer, occupying the chair beside him easily. “thanks,” she says, because growing up’s taught her some manners. she shrugs at his question, hooking up the portable amp to her bass. “when else am i gonna have the time?” growing up’s meant more than just learning propriety; her job’s taking up all of her time, most days, and it’s in these odd hours that she gets to feel like herself. sorin settles in, cross legged and comfortable. balances her bass over her thighs, slips the material strap off and strums a chord in experiment. not quite the sound quality that it ought to be, but good enough, like watered down molasses spilling into the night hour.

it’s weird, how some memories linger. nostalgia has no explanation for how sticky sharp the definitions of those snapshots she has of inyoung remain. she still remembers the exact way to pry open that locked cabinet in the kims house, push at an angle and jiggle the handle to the left. inyoung’d taught her that. and a couple more things. and despite all that inextricable history, they’ll have spent more time apart than together, soon. she still reacts to inyoung’s name like she would her own.

“next month?” sorin looks at inho from the corner of her eye. like she’s totally not paying attention, not trying to pull up her schedule for the next month and a half to see if she could casually find a place to slip in an old friendship. she plucks at a string, fiddles with a tuning peg. trying to find the right note, right words. “i’ve got a couple of shows at timbre, mid november,” she says, hedges an offer in words she knows were meant to poke fun at her. “if she’d want to come.”

[holyrcller]

LIKE WINNING BIG IN RENO  —  ft. @taeaoh

record scratch. freeze frame. that’s her and taeoh, standing half soaked in a shitty little convenience store, watching as his car gets towed away at four in the afternoon while it pours overhead. how’d they get here, you ask?

she’ll start at the beginning: they’d meant to get some afternoon tea ( taeoh’s treat, she’s just one of your humble office workers now ) but the reservation fell through—or rather, the entire tea room did, someone important or other wiping out the rest of the staff with them. unfortunate. some might say unlucky. but no matter, there’s more than one good place for afternoon tea, another teahouse just a couple minutes away by foot. except then the skies crack in two and start absolutely pouring, and the closest shelter’d been this tiny convenience store, so understocked there weren’t even any umbrellas to be sold. possibly due to the abrupt downpour, but again. unlucky.

and things go from mild misfortune to downright fucking doomed when sorin spots a tow truck headed straight for their parking spot. smacks the older man’s arm when she realises, half amused at exactly how shit just their first hour together’s gone. if sorin’s honest, she glides past most incidents with a set of often felicitous circumstances, and even occasionally picks up a lucky dollar on the ground. until she spends just a fraction of a minute with taeoh, that is. then something in the universe ties itself in knots to ruin their day, like polarities of their fortune reversed whenever they’re in close proximity. really, they’d been ridiculously optimistic to even consider an afternoon’s worth of time together.

maybe they should have known. at least it’s entertaining. she takes a video of taeoh looking like a particularly sad wet cat to be sent to sungho, his car being towed in the backdrop. baby’s first convenience store! she captions, and cackles.

“smile!”

[holyrcller]

hello hello i’m excited to meet y’all! this is plum (s/h, 21+) bringing to u lim sorin, recently self-emancipated illegitimate daughter & aspiring a24 bildungsroman, with bonus pretty cinematography! she’s a previous muse with a new chara arc hehe so if you’ve seen her before... yes u have c: currently a business management consultant & occasionally moonlighting as a session bassist, sorin’s trying out this new thing called effort & its not as sexy as the movies made it sound :/

here are her links ( file & plots ) & a tldr under the cut! hit the heart if u wanna plot, or just hmu in ims! i also have discord if that’s better for u so feel free to ask for it c: see y’all around ♡

from the beginning: she was always kinda screwed, just a matter of when. for the longest time, she had no clue that she & her mum were her dad’s second family

absolutely the prettiest girl on the playground with an ego to match, a little entitled & expecting only good things for herself, because that was just how the world seemed to work for her

until her dad’s actual wife burst into their house when she was 14 & things went to shit, yknow

sorin ends up being bribed with a scholarship to a fancy private school to keep her mouth shut, with her dad thinking she’d be an easy to manipulate dumbass

she takes the deal, but unfortunately it’s never enough & sorin starts blackmailing her dad to make her life happy enough that she won’t feel the need to divulge his secret

so the story went that she’s self-made, single-mum family, scholar & entrepreneur etc

in reality, she got bored with those false achievements a year in, but she was too much of an overachiever who found a single cheat code for life & wasn’t willing to give it up...

at least until she started a band (retro rosy) that she thought was low stakes enough that it wouldn’t matter if she failed at it, so she didn’t get her dad to pull any strings

& proceeded to enjoy the whole “reaping the rewards of your efforts” thing a lot more than she expected. through some growing up into the mix, and you get:

one belated coming of age arc! sorin cuts herself off after she graduates from college & the band’s dissolution. she ends up starting from the bottom, though probably with a lil boost from her impressive resume mostly gotten from her blackmailing her dad

also she’s keeping up with her growing love for bass by occasionally moonlighting as a session bassist!

it’s not a totally clean slate, but that’s fine. it’ll be all her from this point on ♡

personality wise, she’s a mixed bag of growing pains. her image matters a lot to her, not in the sense that she wants to be known as nice, but as capable. #girlboss shit. taken too many shortcuts to be truly cutthroat & a little too bitter to be soft. a pretty straight talking, no bullshit kinda person, not very subtle about how she feels either. kind of demanding & sometimes behaves like she thinks she’s still the queen of the playground ( guess she peaked emotionally at age 5 lmao ) a perfectionist who isn’t used to failing, so she’ll invest too much of herself into the things she needs/wants to accomplish on her own & has too little for the rest of it. slowly getting more introspective about her life & a lil more mellow, less instinctively reactive. prone to bad ideas on a good day, weirdly lucky about them for ~unknown apartment reasons~... getting into the worker bee life & living for fridays, very determined to Make Something Of Herself but unsure if the consultancy life is where she wants to do it. she’s got a bunch of insecurities from her childhood that she kept buried under her false achievements, but now she’s trying very hard to like herself in the absence of them & making progress she can be properly proud of! also just really likes playing her lil bass so hit her up for a jam session

ok ramble over thank u for getting all the way to the end of this hehe & i’ll be hitting people up asap! ♡

[holyrcller]

by Livia Falcaru

[holyrcller]

Sappho trans. Anne Carson, If Not, Winter. Fragments of Sappho

[holyrcller]

yein ❀ AR photobook making film #1