#✄・・・visage | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

woneuntonzz · 6 months

Text

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ reflections

📞 ; “maybe it's a blessing in disguise, i see my reflection in your eyes.”

𖹭 : sungchan x afab!reader

💭 love can be a possession, and like everything owned, it can be easily lost... “we were too close to the stars.”

⤷ contains: angst, pining, cussing, mentions of other idol names for

world building

⤷ warnings: none (?)

⤷ wc: 4.2k (not proofread :>)

🎧 a songfic, inspired by The Neighbourhood's Reflections

-ˋˏ under the cut .ᐟ ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Perfect does not exist, maybe that’s true for you, but I’ve seen perfection, I’ve felt perfection. The thought seems superficial, I know, but to be in my place —I’ve had to endure years of sorrow because of this said perfection.

And perfection was in the form of Jung Sungchan.

On the surface, it might take a few blinks for one to understand. But it wasn’t solely your visage that has led me to this wistful void.

I loved to draw, just as much as I loved you, maybe a little less —but you get the point. You’ve been the subject of my illustrations, from the moment I saw you, till I couldn’t physically see you anymore.

“Is that me?” I didn’t get why you’d still ask, of course it’s you, it’ll always be you.

The outline of your profile provokes daydreams, oh how I wish I was the only one. When I saw you for the first time I instantly knew, everyone had their eyes on you, it was only a matter of time till the attraction came pouring in.

Still, you stood your ground like everyone else, just trying to live your life, and everyday I wished I could be part of it.

I draw the lines, and you paint it with colors, colors I had never seen before, colors that could’ve been the manifestation of your reciprocation.

“Good morning, I’m Jung Sungchan, I was wondering if I’m in the right place, senior Kim sent me here to fetch the package from, Y/n?” you were quite unsure of my name, I’m pretty sure you had it written on the tiny piece of paper you held in between two of your fingers.

“That’s me. Department?” I didn’t even know why I still asked, I knew well where you were situated.

“Film.” I felt as if I was going to combust, I could’ve sworn I saw you held back a laugh, the slight hum of your bass voice almost had me stumbling back. “You?”

“Arts.” Now I almost laughed at myself.

But never did I think that our talk would last for a longer while. “Sophomore, right?”

I tried my best to exude a hum as a response, before asking you back why, “Why’d you ask?”

“I see you around a lot, but I just wasn’t sure if you were older or younger. I also confused you with someone else I knew multiple times before.” —someone else?

I was thinking maybe I should be more open to variety, to not wear the same hairstyle, similar set of clothes, and one color pallette everyday. Maybe then you wouldn’t confuse me for someone else. Maybe then you’d see me and think, that’s Y/n from the Arts Dep. She's really pretty.

“Who did you confuse me for? maybe I know who they are.”

“Actually…” actually what Sungchan? “She’s your friend.”

I don’t exactly have loads of friends, but I couldn’t help but ask, “Which one?”

“Minjeong.”

I had no idea of what expression you had painted on my face with all the things you had just said, but Minjeong? to confuse me with her might be too remote from the reality I lived. And because I was talking to a guy, I remembered when she told me, “Can you believe it? I’m being pursued by a guy!” —I never thought that guy would be you. Why you? or rather, why not me?

It wasn’t hard to tell whether my assumptions are true or not, because the way you bit your lip after her name fell from your mouth, suppressing a smile I could only assume was one only she could elicit from you.

I was right.

And I was in pain. I felt like nothing but an excuse for you to see her, always seeming to have packages to retrieve for your senior, and coming back to return things to me, then all I hear is she, she, she, Minjeong where, Minjeong when —I wanted to rid of my hearing, besides it already felt like bleeding to the point where clotted blood would just block my auditory.

But my pain only leads to my deception. I hate that I had to smile through whatever you had to say, congratulate you even when you gushed about her smiling back at you, or talking to you all evening through messages.

“That’s cute, happy there’s some progress.” I spoke through a pretentious smile.

“Thank you Y/n, I really don’t think it’ll be possible if I hadn’t met you.”

Perfection is truly just anguish behind a polished glass case, and at that moment I faced you, I wished I hadn’t met you at all.

My pain and deception, tomorrow I would keep the frame of your smile in my memories, and I just had to pick up a pencil. I’ve always loved to draw things, but through an artist’s honesty, I only draw the things I find beautiful, the things worth the graphite imprinted at the side of my hand. You were beauty and agony, and as much as I wanted to say I hated you, I loved you more than my best creations.

“You drew me? That’s really awesome, I don’t know how artists manage to create such images." Did you never think of how I did it? that maybe I stared at you for too long that I could draw you at every angle, with any expression —I had memorized every line on your face, the curve from the tip of your nose, to your philtrum, and to your lips. Whenever I drew your lips I would touch my own, feeling for its cushions whilst wondering how yours would feel. I reckon it must’ve been softer, more delicate, it always looked so velvet that for a while it was the only thing that occupied my mind.

So shameful of me to be fantasizing about a guy my friend liked and a guy who liked my friend. But I loved you first, it could’ve been me. I always stuck around so that maybe one day you’d choose me.

“She said yes!” —of course she would.

Anyone in her place would, and anyone who wouldn’t would be lying to themselves.

That smile you wore when you exclaimed so blissfully, it’s engraved in my mind, and then I knew I would never have that smile for myself.

My mind is clouded, and my heart is aching and cracking, and whenever I felt it I just wished you could feel it too, just how much you’ve ruined my life.

“Your work is honestly flawless, maybe Min could use some lessons from you.” your quip was followed by a playful hit on your shoulder, then a chorus of laughter.

“Yeah, Y/n is probably the best artist in our department, but I’m not that bad!” it hurt to watch you wrap an arm around her waist as her sweet voice so vexingly amplified in my ears.

You looked at me then, as if you were telling me to laugh. There was nothing for me to laugh at, it would be a pity to laugh at myself, and at what cost? Still, I had to force a smile, just for feeling sorry that I had let myself fall into your abyss.

Avoiding you could’ve tended my wounds, but it wasn’t that easy when you were dating my friend. My friend who I had known longer than you, my friend who was a lot less selfish than me, who likely had thought about me more than I have with her. How could I when you were occupying a very gross space in my mind. I’m disgusting for still yearning for you, all when we had nothing, no foreground. You had never looked at me like you looked at her, I have never felt the skin underneath your ironed dress shirt, I have never felt the heat of your breath against my neck, and never have I felt your tender grip clasped around my hands. I was all desire and no fulfillment, and it had to be that way, not for your sake nor hers, but for mine.

If I gave in, I wouldn’t be alive for you, her, and everyone looking down on me with ire.

I would only grow to hate myself even more, I love you, but I could only see the antithesis of your motivations.

“I owe you one too, Min and I wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for you.” and I didn’t even have a choice.

I saw you to be a bit too brazen to continue to treat me like a friend, yet I never saw you as one of mine.

“You don’t owe me one.” you owe me everything.

“That’s not true, hey, how about this, I have a friend who wants to meet you, remember the drawing that I stole from you? Well, he saw it and he said he wanted to meet the artist.” you seemed so eager to push me away.

“Oh really? Who's he?” to raise such a painful question, that day I truly was not myself.

You introduced me to a guy, and I could tell it took him great effort to be as expressive as you, not that he was aware that I had my eyes on you the whole time. It was no question that I would never see him the same way I did you, even if I tried, he isn’t Jung Sungchan, he isn’t you.

“So, how’d you find Eunseok?” you asked me when you accompanied me back to my building.

“He’s nice, but I’m not really looking for a date right now.” —I am only looking at you.

“Hmm, but try, yeah? maybe not date, but befriend him. Try to see him for who he is.” I chuckled at your careful pick of words, befriend, in what world did you think I was going to befriend a guy closely involved with you?

And for what? just so it would only be harder for me to escape myself?

It’s already a torturous endeavor to keep up with your beaming face, walking up to me like an old friend you’ve been longing to see after some time. Friend, is all I’ll ever be.

With the passing time, I figured, it was better than being nothing with you, right? I would rather have you just close enough, than not at all. I know it’s wrong for me to look at you that way, but it would only be me who knew, I’m sure. I see it in your eyes, how dismissive they are of the light that resides in mine, the light you ignited. You could so easily keep your eyes on me without a stagger, unlike me, fighting all my demons and being very easily lost in a reverie under your unsuspecting gaze.

“You’re really pretty, you know that, right?” sadly it wasn’t your voice I would hear it from.

“Eunseok, I already like someone else, I’ve told you.”

“Yeah, I know that, and I know who. It was a compliment.”

I had dared him to tell me who if he really knew, and he got it, slipped right off his tongue. Jung Sungchan, three syllables that provoked the fires of my hell.

But was I really pretty? apparently, not pretty enough for you.

“I mean, Eunseok wasn’t wrong, you are fairly pretty —but he did tell me you already like someone, do I know him?” you have no idea how badly I wanted to tell you to shut up, to tell you that it’s you, I like you.

“That’s easy to say isn't it?”

“What?”

“To call someone pretty, and it doesn’t even have to be true.” It’s true, isn’t it? It's so easy to leave those words without a second thought, because they're all words, and deceit is inevitable. Your face molded into a dumbfounded expression, and it scared me. I might’ve sounded my hatred with those few words and so I said, “I’m kidding, and you don’t have to know who I like. It’s none of your concern.”

I tried masking my regret with jest, but it was all true, I am not your concern. You shouldn’t care, especially when I’m not the one your heart beats for.

I was a witness of the highs and lows of your relationship, how both of you seemed to lack something in each other’s eyes. At that point, all I could do was look away. I was afraid, so I distanced myself. The blame, the misery, I had not shown intentions out of the ordinary, but my brain ached and quaked from the what ifs and hows, and the whens.

“Y/n? Are you avoiding me?” my breath hitched, and I halted my steps.

“No?—”

“No? why are you saying it as if you’re asking me?” I gulped, your eyes weren’t as spirited as they’d usually be, and your voice was demanding an answer out of me.

“No. I’m really busy with my workload, Sungchan.”

I wanted to yell at you, I’m in love with you, you and the way you cared, just stop caring, how hard could it be? stop caring so I could finally step away without looking back, so you could live a placid life without my trouble.

I never thought I’d witness you chase after her in our building for the last time, pretty cheek bruised red from a hit you took from her. Was it over? and was it your fault?

“We broke up.” to me, your words sounded tantalizing.

I had no idea what you expected me to do, or say, or react. “Why?” and I had no idea I shouldn’t have asked.

“I don’t know if I’m being honest with myself.” I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing, and I wish that would be the end of it. “Minjeong is a great person, I know I’m not. I wished I could’ve spared her the time, and returned her love the same way she gave it to me, but she’s not the one. I fell out, Y/n, I’m sorry.”

I shook my head, your sorry stinging my mind. “Why are you apologizing to me?”

You looked down for a while, eyeing the textures of the granite flooring. And I caught it, a single tear dropping down and landing in between your feet. “She’s your friend.”

I looked away from your swollen eyes, allowing the breeze to softly glide over the wisps of my lashes as I desperately searched for anything to reply, “You’re my friend too.” It would only pain me more when you kept apologizing, mumbling through your sobs. “Sungchan, stop apologizing.”

I was bewildered with the continuous apology, and why you chose to be this restless with me. But I guess you got me, even if I was tired, drained to the very bottom, I was still willing to catch the tears that swelled from your eyes with my shoulders.

Well of course, it was easy for others to see it as something else, and I had to remember I had a friend, a friend that wasn’t you.

“Minjeong, please, let’s talk—”

“I don’t want to fucking talk Y/n, there’s nothing for us to talk about.”

Did she think it was my fault? Was it my fault? Are there things I’m failing to see?

But I'm just a girl, Sungchan, I failed to push you away. I felt temporary, replaceable, but you needed someone by your side.

“Eunseok and I aren’t on good terms right now. He found out the truth.” I searched for it through your glossed eyes.

Was there, perhaps, some other truth? “Truth?”

“I don’t know what to do.” but I was in no place to tell you what to do either.

You were dodging bullets, but at that moment I was too preoccupied with swallowing the lump in my throat, trying to lure myself out of your poise.

I forgot what I had told you, but all I know is that I was seeing you more often than the times you used to retrieve packages for senior Kim, and senior Kim has been away for two years, graduated. Now we’re the seniors, a pair with a piteous reputation to those who have known us throughout our college years.

“We should make a movie together, you know.” you seemed too enthusiastic for your own good, but still, I chuckled.

“What are you thinking?”

“I mean, like an animation since you can draw, and you seem great with storytelling.”

Storytelling? never even gave it a thought. “Interesting. Let me think about it, I might just consider it.”

“Take your time.”

I never knew just how serious you were. I ended up taking my time too well, with you.

To look back at it, it isn’t too bad of a decision to create something I could look back on and carry for the rest of my life. You were my serendipity, it would only lead me to fall deeper, and I know how much it’ll hurt when it’s finally time for us to part.

So I guess, thank you, and fuck you for being so good to me, for leaving scars that would only burn when you were no longer in my reach. Your touch was my kryptonite, and your voice was my reason to force myself out of slumber. I’m so in love with you, but my pride would not allow me to.

A part of me still bathes in guilt. I lost friends for you, for a future I could only dream about.

“Where are you off to after college?” I tried to calm my pounding heart from the way your hand toyed with mine.

You spread out my fingers, your thumb softly rubbing against them, “Still thinking about our movie.”

Our movie, that’s funny. “How about a little life plan?”

“You go first, then I’ll tell you mine.”

What was the point, Sungchan? “I have two paths laid out for me, one’s for character design, and the other’s free-lance, you know it.” your fingers glide against the skin at the back of my hand, and in a blink the warmth of your palm spreads throughout my body as it rests on my skin.

“My turn, right?” you really had to pose it as a question, tilting your head at me, so obviously expecting an answer. I could only, and very languidly nod for I was getting myself drunk with your burning touch. “You know, I really want to work closer with you, so any decision I make, you’d probably see me at work.”

Perfection is a fucking lie.

Again I’d find myself slumping on my bed, thinking about how easy it was for you to run past me. Now you had all these opportunities waiting in line for you.

“They want me to act, do you think I’m fit for it? Do you think I can do it?”

If it’s that easy for you to leave, “Of course you can.”

It would’ve been nice if you were more honest, cause for a while you were drawing an outline of possibilities, possibilities of you and I, and not just me, me, me.

Until seeing you was barely a chance, I continued to refuse seeing through your honeyed gaze, afterall, I chose to love you too much, because either way, I had no choice but to let you go.

Now I sit alone, writing books about the love I never had. Such a pitiful soul I am. I was even oblivious of the many details of this story, because we never talked beyond the trivial things, never about how our eyes longed for each other, or how our hands found each other’s skin that would sear from the sensation, the friction.

You had moved out of town. I couldn’t bring myself to meet you at the train station for, possibly, the last time. I could only wish you luck through a poorly composed text message, three sentences long.

the lovers by rené magritte 💌

sorry i couldn’t meet you today, but i wish you all luck in the world. you deserve whatever you have going for you. i’m gonna miss you.

my robbie 🥀

thank you y/n

i have a feeling i’m gonna miss you more hahaha

I had to leave you on read. This time I choose to just not look back.

And it was for the better. It sure hurts to see you on Tv, to see you deny your dating history, “I’ve dated before, but I’ve never dated ‘the one’, needless to say, I wish I could meet her right now.” —I’ve read all the articles about that interview, that very statement of yours. How fascinating. Acting truly was for you. I could no longer see where we met in your eyes.

I wonder if you’ve read any of my books, if you had wondered if I ever did pursue a career where I could make use of my illustrative talents —it got me nowhere, but you were right, I can tell a heck of a story, and so I told the world hundreds of them.

Your foreshadowing of my future was a big stain I had to carry, and hide as an author. But I would keep writing without breaking even in the slightest bit.

Because I only loved you. I only wished, but never fully hoped, never really tried.

╔══════════════╗

“Hmm, are you sure you want this published?”

“I’m not gonna have it out as is, of course I have to build characters. I just wanted your thoughts. It would make for a good novel, right?”

You sat face to face with your publisher, Song Eunseok, to ask for his thoughts on this draft you made six years ago.

“It would —but you know, I’m quite surprised.” Eunseok wore a smirk on his face, one you couldn’t quite read through.

“Really? surprised?” a low chuckle escapes his mouth, very subtly shaking his head.

He had briefly glanced on the floor beside him, and when he looked back, almost all emotions he displayed were erased. “It wasn’t hard to tell you liked Sungchan, I knew, Minjeong knew.”

“Minjeong knew?” you almost lost your breath, heart racing from the tone of his voice alone.

“Well, not until she was convinced. She’s just as stupid as you were —I mean, no offense, you’re great, but you’re also quite self-absorbed. Take it with a grain of salt, but it’s the truth if you ask me.” you watched him pour himself a glass of whiskey, and he’d pour you one too knowing you’d need it. “They broke up because of you.”

He’d repeat the same motion, shaking his head and humming when the lines on your face started to show more. “Didn’t any of them tell you?”

“Tell me what, Eunseok?”

“Sungchan liked you too.” and there you would take your first sip of liquor. “You truly were too lost, weren’t you? you didn’t even notice the way he looked at you, and how he talked about you. Just a shame he didn’t tell you after the storm died down.”

The storm, their break up, the demise of your dignity. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

“I don’t know what he had in mind, why don’t you ask ‘your Robbie’.?” you rolled your eyes at his laughter that followed. “Cute nickname, where did ‘The Lovers by René Magritte’ come from?”

Pouring yourself more of the liquor, you’d softly laugh at yourself, looking back at that bitter memory. “I showed him my favorite artworks, ‘The Lovers’ happened to be one of them, and he said it’s so beautifully made, like me.”

“That sucks.”

“I know.”

You both laughed over your wretched past, how pathetic and wrong you were. You were glad you could now see through more than your own lens, it's a whole other journey to discover and open yourself up to empathy, and it felt like contentment to finally reach it.

“You received it, right?”

You looked him right in the eyes, smiling as you asked back, “The wedding invitation?” he hummed and nodded as an answer, “Of course. It’s what led me to finding that draft.”

He hummed again, head propped on his hands as he caught sight of your gaze, “We should go together, maybe we can ask Sungchan if he’s okay with the story.”

“And maybe we can get him to act for it when it’s turned into a movie.” his laughter grew louder, making you lightly hit his shoulder.

“Well, at least he could fulfill his wish of making a movie with you.”

“Oh shut up.”

He was quite… the experience. A love that was pure misery. If he wanted to, he would’ve, right? So does it truly matter if he likes you then?

You looked again at your draft, ink at certain spots were smudged, you remember being all tears as you wrote.

Sungchan was not your greatest love, but you’ve got to admit he’d led you to a place where your passion could only grow stronger. You could say that sometimes you missed the way he felt on your skin, but it would be just the memories itself, and not him, not anymore.

Perfection does not exist, and you had to go through all that trouble to convince yourself that it was him.

Who could blame you? you’ve never met anyone like him, and you never will again.

End.

just something very short and sweet for u :)) short question, is this a happy ending or not?

#riize #briize #riize fanfic #riize x reader #riize sungchan #jung sungchan #riize angst #angst

47 notes · View notes