#으악→극한직업

[404fmdminjung]

lyrical verification — empty cup

summary: dated sometime in may 2020 warnings: none wc: 691 (not including lyrics)

it’s the crumbling stages of a relationship.

the constant fights back and forth — shouting to an empty cause, and the make-up revelations that constitute the do over. it repeats itself again, and again placing itself as a premonition for what she hates to admit. because given the choice, she’d hold it in till her chest burst from it all. this way, a ticking detonation would only become the catalyst to something worse.

she holds it in to what becomes a daily motion of unwinding, and revealing the glimpses of it all when she’s left alone to grapple with the aftermath.

but tonight becomes harder when it’s five straight nights of back and forth tempers. her voice raised and his to match, their hearts on the line singing praises as they teeter back forth between a line of fire (be warned: they’re doused in gasoline, and destined to be burned).

so, she admits to it tonight. admits to every ounce of frustration that colors her body ox-blood red when her bed remains empty tonight and she’s stuck dousing herself in the rest of the remains inside her wine bottle. her memory draws the outlines of what she sees, his eyes — she sketches that on the edge of the paper where she’s reminded of each time his eyelids became heavy, a sign when he’s only stretched transparent to what his words don’t say.

golden boy, blessed with the touch of midas. he shines completely unfazed through the pent up animosity her eyes hold. frustration when she realizes how times change, and the ticking seconds on a clock transform the lure to the leave.

Looking at me with pale eyes Yet you’re always shining Those eyes that drove me crazy I just don’t love them anymore...

it’s a funny feeling, falling out of love. she blames assimilation, no longer wooed by the feeling of toes on edge and the thrill of the chase. instead, she switches it up to busy schedules no longer parsed in coordination — at the end of the day, the magnetism dulls and what’s left is the lovesick blues of shouting at a lost cause.

I’m sick of your love

her eyes stare at the statement, written across in all capital letters. emphasis or whatever, maybe it’s just how she feels right here in the moment — yet, it doesn’t alleviate any of the tensed shoulders when she comes face to face with what she’s forced to admit. she admits it to herself, writing it over and over (if she’s lucky, she’ll come to accept it fully by the end).

dates that come and go whenever he pleases, whenever his schedules allow. she’s hanging on the receiving end, no longer playing her cards to the game she catalyzed herself. it’s her own damn fault, perhaps — opening herself like a revolving door of random hellos and i’m busys become the plague she comes to see now.

because comparisons are a pain, yet the juxtaposition of the past and now become a clear sight of lackluster emotion. the first fall in, the taste of excitement burning inside her veins turns into the scattered ashes of what it is today. if she’s lucky, it’d spur her into the notion that this is all that it was good for. nothing certain, nothing better — never should’ve accepted it wholly, should’ve kept it where it was best at the starting line.

The burning emotion Remains as debris They’re also light like this I guess this was all they were...

it’s selfishness assuming everything. taking in each word of what he says, the same excuses and the same talks — it all melts and mirages itself into a border of familiarity. maybe, it’s just that. maybe, it just keeps them at a standstill where there’s no necessity for push and shove. she wants excitement. she wants to feel the effect of her eyes closed, free-falling with no thought of a safety net.

except, he wants safety. he wants the certainty. he wants to be loved, but her love isn’t enough.

I hate the boredom that’s swallowing us Too fed up with us

she can write every word on the page, scar it with what she wants to believe. however, what she’s really left with is a bucket list of excuses and makeshift lies she won’t swallow herself. denial, she’s not fed up with his love nor sick of the same day-to-day conversations drifting on confusion. instead, she just wants him.

[404fmdminjung]

lyrical and composition verification for holo

summary: she plays the dusty keyboard for the first time in years, and comes out of a song that becomes a pseudo-‘fuck you’ to gold star. yet, it’s still something she can’t sing to herself as she doesn’t fully believe the words herself. but she has someone in mind, specifically — @fmdjiah​ warnings: alcohol tw, and i don’t even know if this is too ‘technical’ to be a composition but w/e going with it wc: 1710

summer in seoul — she can look out the windows, see how the sun kisses the silhouette of buildings that kiss the fronts in muted pinks. somewhere around the world, it’s midnight where the moon shines and invites another drink into warming her body. minjung takes herself to that place, indulgence in drinks that leave her head bobbing through the air — because it’s midnight somewhere. 

tonight, she feels a little out of place — the grip of the paintbrush doesn’t feel like home, not inviting as it once was a month ago. she could pin point mistakes to a schedule ablaze with musical promotions that have too many cameras and little cheer. a career that seems to plummet itself to the grave she’s dug. or just maybe, it’s the effect of coaxed beliefs that she swallows — the idea that being alone is something that feels like home. but she knows in reality, home isn’t alone, nor is the idea of solitude where the grapevines of bordeaux the solution to anything other than blurred mistakes and burning lines of regret.

she thinks it’s hapless — lost in the monotony of self-destruction. but she doesn’t bother to trigger a change in one way or another. instead, comes a wave of burgundy stained lips, legs crossed with a blank stare to the buildings that now melt to the baby blue wash of the arising moon. she blinks, displaced thoughts — a tilt in her head, and now the view of a lonely keyboard in a corner sits. and for the first time, the glass slips out of her fragile palms as her feet glide over towards the lonelier looking set of keys. 

there’s a notebook on the side, a 500 won pen she’s picked up from the corner bookstore. a memory that precedes the first time she’s ever written for herself — a thought that pulls the edges of her lips into a smirk, or maybe it’s just the effect of the alcohol. but she picks up the pen, spreading open the canvas of blank paper to write down something filter-free, the first pick into her mind.

‘is it really that hard to be alone to be completely still?  with people, or by myself i think i’m always lonely.’

it’s funny to think that the words of honesty come to reveal themselves earlier on — the feeling of loneliness masking her, covering her whole. she asks herself this question at three points in the day. the morning when she wakes up in a lonely bed, filled with the slivers of sunlight that peek through her curtain. in the middle, when she’s surrounded by a bustling staff and giddy members — drowning in the chatter that mangles itself into white noise. and the end of the day — when the end ends with the clinks of a bottle against a sole wine glass in the middle of her apartment.

and she believes the only words anyone wants to hear at that point — one day it will stop.

the words press themselves hard against the paper, or perhaps it’s her own will to believe the words now physically represented by the force of the pen on paper. she could tell herself a million and one things, never once to believe or swallow the truth of the statements. an age half of fifty, yet will all the time passed — she can’t necessarily bring herself to face the reflection of the words. so, she continues on with the theme that circles around her mind.

‘isn’t everything supposed to be as easy as you think and say? even sitting in the sun and breathing doesn’t seem to help.’

it strikes an uncanny belief in her head — the ideation that taking in the simple pleasures day to day comes as an easy feat. in theory, the great minds and her heart could tell her, lecture her into believing each day will become easier. yet, nothing ever comes as easy as the simple calculations that words simplify actions to. and she thinks to herself again, that believing the words ‘one day it will stop.’ 

it’s not love that makes her feel like this, no. it’s not the cracks of past lovers digging their claws deep in unpolished wounds exacerbating every clean cut image. it’s the idea of comparisons, the unnerved inability to satiate the money hungry woes of chart toppers and idealized ‘popularity’ that ranks high in the charts. 

it’s the flood of netizens that use their words like weapons, piercing deep into the tracks that engulfed her heart and soul. ‘a flop’ ‘a shit lead vocal.’ — she nods, laughs. howls underneath the images of how many people love to pick and piece apart her name inside the industry.

‘and i’m gonna stop crying, stop feeling, stop thinking about you. i’m gonna stop crying, and start putting myself first.’

she’s never given a second thought of keeping herself first — always on the verge of terror staged destruction wrecking havoc on those around her, leaving her trapped inside the devastation. it’s the need to rub salt on open wounds, make it hurt where it already aches. make it stand on the edge of a walking time bomb. and maybe, it’s the reason why gold star sees her as the standard doormat of a failed science experiment. a toy they hold high over her heads, the rationale for every step they push her towards.

‘her vs. me, me vs. her — what’s important to see who’s better? after i suffered a lot, i’m starting to get it. but i’m too important to myself to sit still and worry. take a look inside without a cover, you’re fine the way you are.’

it sounds cliche to write the words — she doesn’t believe it, no. but she wishes she could. because deep down seo minjung knows who the soul residing in her body is — a fragmented girl, afraid of the world. masking away anyone that approaches in fear that they’ll flee first. comparisons, one after another — one that pinpoints her to nothing. it doesn’t matter to her — it’s shit. the comparisons are shit. there’s nothing that aches more than suffering with the constant bereavement of being a second-hand choice or a second-staged puppet for someone else. 

—

it’s a funny image to see herself next to a muted keyboard — a makeshift desk for her words. but as on cue, the striking mirror image of herself juxtaposed into the ink pressed hard against the paper goes too much, and her body flees. retreats to the keys — button pressed on and the low start of the keyboard. 

she’s six when she’s introduced to the ivory whites and blacks, centered in the steinway and sons grand piano in her house — the second house in boston. the theory of progression of chords — three in a row, not at the same time. back straight, both feet pressed to the bottom. tiny fingers barely stretched across a sixth, and now she’s twenty five, surpassing an octave and barely reaching a tenth across the keys.

but despite the memories that flood of youthful hourly lessons four times a week, comes the ringing idea of the words that blare from the notepad in the corner of her eyes. if words had melodies, these words might have been a steady legato on the second octave. a chord progression, strictly arpeggio — her old piano teacher would’ve proud that she’d held onto these facts as a keepsake.

she doesn’t want to keep it major because she’s learned that the happiest of classical songs present in major keys — the somber melodies of majority of beethoven and liszt contain themselves in minor. a first few seconds, and the emotional bang hits front and center into the ears.

she hums to herself the first few words of being alone — a longing pull, a drag. a simple chord, not spanning an octave. her favorite chord, an f minor and a progression into d. it sounds lonely, it sounds sad. it sounds like her — she keeps it mezzo-piano, jots that down before the thought slips past. her voice sings the words, a few octaves too low for her range. yet, she forces it through with the gentle lilt of the chord, and then back down to the switch to d minor

it continues, and she drawls the keys to the words that read themselves out from the corner of her eyes. years of an untouched piano, and muscle memory comes back to haunt her — in a good way, this time. automated movements, a pendulum movement of something slow-paced and soft.

but she thinks that the dreary pace of slow stretches of chords become boring for a song about enlightenment, and seo minjung is no little bitch to stay still and complacent. no. she wants the words to hit in the middle just as the realizations barged through her the second they scrawled themselves on paper. the crescendo comes, and she wants it to go full force, loud — ff, she makes note of that. arpeggio no longer cuts it, and her fingers press against the keys — three notes, one time. a solid chord, staccatos released. 

she wants to shift it to major, an ode to her ‘fuck you’ song. but the stark contrast from major to minor is an artwork that she leaves to the masterminds of the past. 

she keeps it in the minor, two octaves higher — sounds have a tendency to have a ‘coming of age’ thought when it becomes brighter and clearer. but comes the thought to switch from a harmonic interval to a chord, a back-and-forth wobble of uncertainty posing across the keys. 

in her mind, she’s mozart inside the familial archways of classical musicians. except, she’s playing a reemergence in an a song she can’t pigeon hole into any niche. it’s not an experimental sound, nor is it anything that she sings herself outside of the privacy of her walls — it’s something still -ing in the process. 

—

it’s not a song she wants to wallow in silence or submerge inside the privacy of her notebook. it’s a song she wants sung, blared — even if it doesn’t stem from her feeble voice. she imagines the voice to stem from a gritty voice that can bleed emotion. someone who doesn’t crumble with the words said because she knows if she’d ever sing it, she’d fall to the ground and grace the world with pictures of tear stained eyes and a breach into the facade she’s created. 

and she’s aware — she’s a coward. hiding behind someone else’s voice for words she can’t face head-on.

so, the last thing she scribbles down is the one voice that comes to her mind — ‘jiah from bee’. hopes and wishes for the sole voice to be the only voice to sing the song written and crafted from her heart.

[404fmdminjung]

lyrical verification, ‘nobody’ @fmdhanjae

she feels most comfortable at home - it’s where she cries through the pillows scattered across her bed, where she drinks herself into a state of oblivion until her swollen eyes peek through the rays of sun, groaning in response to another unvarying day, and most of all, it’s the only place where a permanent sense of security holds solace in her cold stone heart. a little place where her childhood years would’ve yearned to have inside the small whispers of protest. today, it’s her makeshift studio that doesn’t warrant gray soundproof walls - instead, it spurs creativity through comfort and ease.

the silence is long gone, filled with the echoes of the rough demo of the beat and it accompanies by hanjae’s laissez faire stance in front of her. her brown eyes poke past the journal of scribbles in front of her, and uneasiness prods through the force of her teeth on her lip - minjung’s never been so open about her emotional scars in front of him before, especially not so sober, but she bites the bullet with a big gulp. “i wrote here one day, back when i thought i was in love with some boy a few months ago. i see nobody but you, i’m blind through the overflowing love for you.” her voice trembles and cracks, and a hue of pink flushes past her cheeks - embarrassment at its finest. “okay, maybe it sucks. i think i was just trying to relive my teenage years.” a nonchalant brush past diving into a personal topic with a strictly casual friend, she doesn’t know how to grip the situation at hand. 

[404fmdminjung]

creative claims verifications ; psycho 

summary: full lyrics/composition.  @fmdsan​ warnings: dont read, not proofread wc: 1229 (not including lyrics)

writing becomes her form of free therapy — the kind that comes with full-fledged privacy that leaves her at a standstill with her emotions. and maybe it’s the shift in the weather that welcomes fall and hits back at the scolding summer that keeps her in her trance. it reminds her of him — the aftermath of destruction and complete descent down to something she likes to call herself, a psycho. 

she knows she can’t control her tendencies. can’t control the way she pushes people away violently, and turns a cold shoulder to it all — it becomes a cry for help. bloody knuckles traded in for a broken heart and empty words. is it intentional? she wants to ask, the way it becomes like a dagger shoved into her heart and rolled around each time she’s faced with the haunting memory that’s him (and in her mind — he’s like a terrorizing ghost). 

why try to destroy me endlessly when will this crash fall end

she knows better than to place the blame on him — it takes two to tango. she’s parlaying in a tug of war, yet. tonight, she wants to play childish and lets herself revel in pointing fingers in the wrongdoings while shuttling a blind eye towards every tumultuous mishap she triggers with her words. because in the end, he’s her personal thorn — her taste of poison that remains like a trickle on the tip of her tongue. it’s an addiction, he’s her addiction. and now, she’s left unable to control herself — what becomes is a drained out expression of stoicism and a bitter smile she’s forced to put forth each time she falls into the intersection of them.

Like the thorn of a red flower, lodged within me Feels like it holds poison Even I can’t control myself I slip a bitter smile over my expressionless face

what it becomes is a cry for help — fucked up, deranged. each step and now she’s teetering on the edge of destruction and misery. it’s a come one, come all — she wants everyone to feel the reverberations of her breakdown. one rumble after a next, the bystanders and witnesses fall and all she wants is him too take a step close. one human to stay stolid past the turmoil and devastation of a harrowing natural disaster — and it’s this thought that brings the ache in her head, uneasiness settling in her bones.

it’s a love song, a fucked up on at that. one that doesn’t have a happy ending like goldilocks and the three bears — no. this becomes a sentiment to a grimm brothers fairytale, one that doesn’t have a heroine being waved by everything around her. so, she shoots back — steps back. it’s another defense mechanism that crowds around her mind.

I’m on the risky edge, as you can see Please come close, I need you There’s a splitting ache in my head Hurry, step back, keep some distance

and maybe — it’s not time to point fingers or neglect the reflection in the mirror. her fingers scribble into the corners, a crude sketch of a broken girl. half skeleton, half human. smirking, like she knows the terrorizing effects of her being. she’s never been one to take off the mask that fits the mold of her features the best — seo minjung is a psycho.

game over, she’s a psycho. there’s a duality that’s present and she pins it to something akin to stages of grief — the first being a happy smile. a deranged smile that nods away ignorant to the world around her. the next comes, and she becomes a sob story. one whose tears don’t fail to neglect the time of day or event — ugly tears and shallow breaths. and in the end, the last stage comes and she becomes a psycho. someone else, someone cold. someone to turn a blind eye to every ache that attests to something visceral.

Game over I’m a psycho I’m a psycho There’s someone else Yes psycho it overpowers me

she scribbles the rest of the lyrics down. and it becomes something tossed to the back of her mind — a therapy session. a cathartic purge. maybe guised and hidden into a song, but honesty peels away too harsh when it comes from her lips and what she expects is for this excerpt to be another secret never to be looked back on.

— 

someone buys the song, and of course — it’s not gold star. it’s a competitor masked as another happy handshake between gold star and dimensions (minjung gets note of this on a saturday). lyrics, but no music — and so, she learns the new found enlightenment of logic pro subsequently on that saturday. she doesn’t expect much, finding more excitement with each and every setting. one click and it mutates her tone into a mesh of travis scott and asap rocky’s love child. another click, and she becomes a harmony of violins screeching against each other.

but what she expects of the song she’s written isn’t a trace of vulnerability, no. she wants something so deranged and contorted — something harsh on the ears that it substitutes itself as something worth listening to. perhaps, something influenced by her middle school years — a guitar rift plucked in inspiration by no other than the red-orange hair years of hayley williams. 

it starts with a simple three progression — minor and majors mixed together. it sounds off, but that’s what she’s intending to the eerie build up of the beginning. there’s a mic in front of her face — and what she does is mimic a husky voice, a grittiness of a low husk she wants emphasized through the softer and creepy music that underlines the back.

the settings keep at something silent, barely audible — it’s a vocal emphasis she keys in. her voice raises (quick check: her voice is off key to the base she’s playing away in her fingers). but nothing stops her, and she sings continuing the crescendo up to the chorus. it’s a slow build, and it picks away an uncharacteristic trait of hers.

the chorus hits — and what she wants is a hodgepodge mash of effects. ‘i’m a psycho’ comes into play with the shrill of her voice — a strain she barely manages. rev up the woofer, and her fingers click away — one setting after another. it almost mimics electro static — the fuzzy feeling of the unknown. it balances in her head accepted or not, and she doesn’t bother with the time to ruminate over choices (she leaves it).

and it almost feels bleak the way it rests with a simple three note movement into the bridge. it might be the keys, might be the effects overshadowing the entirety of the piece. a creative soul at heart, she goes as she learns — forgets the time simpering away on the clock. she loses care over the hours subjected to inside gold star’s building. it becomes less of a prison and back into her own world — sitting down with a small computer and a few keyboards.

acoustic guitars, to electric base. pianos to alterations to the pitch — movement in wavy times, and rhythms that don’t click into place with her vision. until she comes across a simple electric guitar mangled with a piano tinged with a twang — it becomes the base of a song she doesn’t know what to call. 

psycho, maybe? it’s not hers to begin with — authority that doesn’t lie in her hands. because in this stance, she becomes a machine ready to produce, not ready to call the shots. in this moment, she becomes less in tune with the fragments of seo minjung and more in tune with the ‘employee’ title branded to her body.

[404fmdminjung]

creative claims verification ; selfpara

summary: partial lyrics, full music for that xx warnings: none wc: 1066 (not including lyrics)

she walks into the studio like it’s her second home — a home she doesn’t consider her home. it’s not hers, nor does it serve as the safe haven that houses herself in something warm and homey. yet, the clicks of the security system that come with a single fingerprint scan leads her to a basement studio space of a friend she sees one too many times in a week.

a person on the end of one too many scandals, and goldstar’s enemy had they found out the regal princess of fuse had a past deeply rooted in the grit and grime of the underground scene (one too many friends floating in the same crowd). but it’s a day off, and minjung comes with one idea free-falling inside her head. an idea that doesn’t go away with the schedule of fuse.

but she’s modest. no. she’s honest — doesn’t lie to herself when she sees a reflection, and doesn’t allow the lies to seep from her teeth when she’s called to do something she can’t. a cry for help seems a bit dramatic, but she’s been known to milk the moniker of a diva in front of the friends that make her comfortable.

“hey — i need your guitar skills because i have an idea for a song. hence why i’m here.” her bag toss themselves along the sofa, and her body follow suits carrying nothing more then the pen and paper in her hand. 

“you didn’t want something to eat?” the boy huffs sarcasm, rolling out of his chair and reaching over for the lane of guitars lined up across the purple lit walls.

minjung’s eyes catch sight of one, a taylor acoustic — her fingers immediately point dead-on. “fuck you — and that guitar please. i want a whiny acoustic sound today.”

she pegs music theory to be her friend, and the exposure to piano lessons from an early age that picks her ability to hear chords and hum the tune. a wistful skill that followed and created the soundtrack to each lonely move she remembers like the back of her hand.

“what’s the song about?”

“i only have a few words, but you know — i’ve never been one to plan ahead of anything.” 

and the reason the song becomes a piece of her heart, or a piece of something far cathartic goes in between the lines of a fuck you ode. a fuck you to every past lover that forced her knees to her chest and pulled out each and every shallow breath of a phone call.

because seo minjung is vengeful, a bitch — but the devil plays harder.

she thinks to the last boy, a boy whose string was violently cut by her words and actions. a full-throttle laceration — the catalyst for her bleeding heart. yet,  there’s an ounce of jealousy that comes in waves. the first flows, and it’s the glimpse of someone moving on while she lingers and stays still in the past — pining becomes a one way street. suddenly, minjung’s left with nothing more than validation to her initial thought: love’s a bitch. karma’s a bigger bitch. and the biggest bitch of them all? seo minjung.

“i saw your girlfriend the other day i wanted to make sure, but my intuition was right. she took off her ring and linked arms with someone else. but that’s all i’ll say.”

“ouch.” is all that comes out. an instant reaction from his lips, curled in a hint of enlightenment. “is this based on a true story? or some morbid story you created?”

minjung shakes her head once — twice. let’s the ambiguity speak for itself as her lips mirror their own faults of petty jabs. (she ignores the question and cuts straight through the vision she has in mind.)

“i want minors — minors in the acoustics. maybe at a, because b sounds too melancholic for what i want. but the key is — i want a back and forth, teetering feel to each strum. but after each line — i want it to cut numb. empty. almost silent for an ad-lib.” 

he starts with an a — but she shakes her heads. still sounds off, too dark for the sardonic humor she wants to overlay inside the song. her finger motions downward the flick of her thumb, and she wants one key down — g.

g minor sounds more in tune with her thoughts, and she rolls her hands into motion singing the lyrics — carrying the words like it’s an honest conversation that morphs into a back and forth lulllaby. her fingers roll upward — halts. and she adds the adlibs.

“yeah i saw her. i told you. i don’t want to hurt you.”

but the words don’t sound so freeing like she imagines it to be. it tastes bittersweet on the tip of her tongue — a sourness that comes from being the person rubbing salt on a wound only to get specks in her eye. it leaves minjung centered and at a loss — the direction of a song no longer clear cut.

“now that i’ve said that — i feel shitty, ha.” it’s acceptance that distorts her initial idea. acceptance that she’s the second place prize — never matching up. “can you continue with that progression? but instead of doing it note by note, i want a complete strum setting for the chorus. a nice contrast from the verses of spite.”

and it goes with the same simplicity — yet, this time she speaks freehearted. without filter and it makes her heart a bit lighter. this becomes a cathartic.

“what can that bitch do that i can’t? why can’t i have those things? she doesn’t love you how long are you gonna stand a fool?”

she’s never been one to open the voice to these woes — never one to step into the trap of relaying insecurities and comparison. inside this studio — it becomes a safe haven. it houses all the secrets she shares with another soul who holds together the parts of her imagination. she voices it out — the music comes to life. and suddenly,  the images becomes palpable. visceral. the song that comes out is a pristine reflection of what she’s held the second she stepped in.

and maybe the words aren’t as coherent — maybe, it just remains choppy and all minjung carries is the verses and chorus slipshod hashed together for something that draws itself thin. but she’s no perfectionist, at least not with the words that run free in her heart. she likes her words raw. real. vulnerable. even if it provides the edgy blades that don’t smoothen themselves inside the recording studio. because today, she knows she's never gonna be the one to sing the words.

[404fmdminjung]

creative claims verification ; baby goodnight 

summary: partial lyrics / full composition for this song. minjung calls her friend late at night to come up with something. @fmdsan warnings: none wc: 1065 (not including lyrics)

it’s midnight and she thinks that today — there’s an edge to the loneliness that usually climbs about this hour. nothing special, just a hint of something different. because tonight, it comes like dejavu where the moon comes and it’s the the time of night too early in the morning but too late for the moon to stay afloat in the sky. it’s the hour where the sky smears into yellows, blues and grays — lighting up the world in a cloud of something partially hidden.

and minjung reaches for a small keyboard gifted by a friend — the keyboard of nothing more than thirty keys, and a white elephant joke that trails the flit of laughter that follows when she thinks of it.

but today, she doesn’t want to write alone nor does she want to waste away the inspiration that follows through bare hours of sleep and a wrecking ache of fatigue. instead, her hands glide over to the phone — a callback of something moody and jazzy hitting before the voice on the other line catches it off guard. 

“hello?” the voice is groggy, half-asleep. it sounds like a painted picture of normalcy of any human at the time that strikes after four am.

“hey — i have an idea. want to hear?” 

“you couldn’t have waited till a normal time to call? minjung, you haven’t been sleeping have you?”

he knows her better than most people these days — a partner in crime that listens to her complaints and the owner of the keyboard’s first home. and she doesn’t fail to lie through her teeth nor hide away her woes with a haphazard smile. minjung wears honesty tonight.

“i have an idea for a song, but maybe not for me — but it’s still an idea. i want you to listen and give me feedback.”

she starts with an arpeggio in a minor — hits it flat with the chord at the end. it’s all she has, and all her fingers can manage to mangle together in this state of chaos that leaves her fervent.

“baby good night.” 

her voice is gentle this time, and void of anything abrasive. it’s soft, gentle. it sounds like a juxtaposition of something sultry, yet vulnerable. and she doesn’t stop, no. she continues on with the string of ‘baby goodnights’ lulling itself, hugging itself against the string of chords that maneuver up and down, and then back to the first. 

and it’s the first time the song doesn’t hit her at first glance, or first strike. it remains obscured, blurred. there’s nothing clear-cut about the edge that she wants to paint into words. what she wants is a portrait of 5 am seductive, yet hopeless love. 

in the end, what she gets is a continuation of her own voice singing the same words and the same chords to key it into her mind.

“that’s what you called me for? it doesn’t sound like a ballad or your weird music.” constructive criticism, she takes it with a grain of salt.

“it’s why i called you — i wanted to add a rap to it. but i don’t know if the rhyme flow works with what i want. i want moodiness, low drags. slow motion, in love. uncertainty.”

the keys sound lonely, but loneliness isn’t what she wants trapped inside the words ‘goodnight.’ she wants it to sound lovely — the color of moody dark blues. 

“when the darkness of the black night finds us those beautiful eyes close off... drift off.. i sit by your bed and caress your hair looking into your face, i want to convey my love i wish time would stop like this you’re so beautiful.”

the words don’t come out of her lips coherently — they’re slurred. awkward pauses in between. lumped together and she’s left with the aftermath of stitched sentences and hard-to-make lyrics till it hits clean in her mind. the beat is off, and her hand fades away from the keys for a brief second — minjung leaves herself with nothing more than palms clapped, a manual metronome to keep her grounded to the slow-moving beats. and it comes like piece by piece, fitting into place the claps and the chords all at once. a mental note for later when she drafts this on logic.

“what do you think so far?”

“i don’t know why you’re calling me when you already seem to have it written — you want me to kiss your ass or something?”

her nose wriggles up inside the thought of narcissism touching her bones, and she reverts back to the chords of a minor and f minor — another love song, she writes. and she’s become this machine that only writes odes to two things — love and the absence of it. nothing in between. 

today, minjung feels sweet.

“know how much i love you like a picture of a child and frozen before a shadow nothing i can do—”

the voice on the other hand stops her short — “you’re being awfully cringe for a person who only knows morbid humor and self-ruination.”

it forces a laugh out her system again, she stops — drops the keys even though it remains echoing inside her mind. it’s jazzy. it’s rich, it’s luxurious. and the sounds melt together to draw out 5 am inside her mind.

“hang up, i’ll call you when you’re not being a dick.”

she doesn’t bother pressing the red glint on her phone, no. she remains sit-down, hanging herself on the words she’s written. a rap sounds foreign, different to what she wants to convey — it sounds harsh. gritty. and ablates the intentions that’s fueled her inspiration. so, she aborts to what she does best — hums and drags of a whiny voice that garners no attention. falling between a lines of r&b, and subtle traces of staccato rap.

a sing-song reiteration of the words she’s written on a notebook laid flat in front of a keyboard. her fingers spread out on the keys once more — arpeggios to straight chords seize the room, and she taps her toes to the floor to mimic the sounds of the clap — the base of the song half-complete.

but by the time she drops back down to reality, the light from the sun piercing the window sill becomes another reminder of a day lost to frantic inspiration and a no-go song of uncertainty.

[404fmdminjung]

selfpara verification ; missing you  @fmdsan

summary: partial lyrics verification for missing you. a song inspired by getting into a thirteen year old heartbroken headspace — minjung writes the first verse and adjusts the chorus warnings: none wc: 462

it’s days like these when she wakes up, realizes the memories of one too many embarrassing moments. kicks her sheets right into the air — the only solace she can find comes in the form of wrapping her head inside a pillow, rolling through the bed. but today, uneasiness finds her in a new light and she thinks it might serve as some sadistic therapy to face the vivid memories head-on, highlighting each and every single detail of braces-lined teeth and knobby knees. the flutterings of first love and heartbreak a the age of thirteen.

she remembers his name — but she can’t bare to write that down today. it’s second nature what she remembers of him, remembers what she wore and how her hair was parted down the middle. and it’s the memory that makes her lips fidget into a hapless smile, caught inside a muffled chuckle. 

first love. heartbreak.

without any thoughts, just like any other day i met up with people and talked and laughed. When night comes, the TV is my only friend When the morning sun rises, then I finally fall asleep

because she remembers going to school the next day clad in her daily loafers and polo shirt. eyes swollen with the edge of adolescent heartbreak deep inside her mind. it was the moment she thought the ends of her world were crumbling below her feet and the moment she told herself she would never love again — her mother laughed and minjung laughs in the present.

she hides behind smiles passing through the hallways, talking and laughing. and it’s like she’s put on another show of thirteen on the rise. but it fails by the time night comes, and she’s sitting afterhours of hakwon in front of a tv serving as the white noise to her woes. it drains on in the back, and minjung loses track of time — who she is, where she is. what she’s doing.

(she’s thirteen)

and it’s the thought of the end of the world that leaves her headspace empty. blank white with now naivety became the rose colored glasses that coaxed herself into accepting a fate that was never written permanently. ridiculousness garners laughter that she shows for the first time today. 

minjung wants to finish up the rest of her story, something that becomes a morbid coming of age ode to the times she became an avant garde showcase of her emotions. an eulogy to the emo-years of myspace and cyworld. ipod touches and colored skinny jeans — the times where she thought the end of the world was written by a middle school relationship.

My heart wants to cry but I have no one to talk to Sometimes, I want to smile widely but I have no one by my side Maybe I’m missing you

the letters and words come together freely, written across in the span of seconds. it’s easy to channel teenage angst, or the uphill battle of puberty. and she knows it sounds melodramatic, almost funny — no. it’s funny how ridiculous seo minjung is inside this state.

but she’s no longer thirteen, and she’s no longer the girl that stitches together her heart on her sleeve. instead, she’s twenty five and sitting inside the ashes of lost loves and fleeting memories.  

[404fmdminjung]

claims verifications ; partial lyrics for @fmdkami​‘s outta my head

summary: dated early-may 2020, fresh out of a breakup. she breaks up with a boy on his birthday, and then dives into the honesty in her diary. mentions of @fmdyeonggi warnings: none wc: 514, excluding lyrics

it’s a day printed in black and white - but the kind that smears the pages in levels of gray. nothing is pitch black, and nothing is pure white. everything’s in that limbo of in between and she sits down with her eyes inattentively staring at the wall collaged with pictures of him - it shines bright enough to obscure her vision, delusions that he’s still there. 

i can’t breath, no oxygen it’s getting mixed up and tangled

it’s the first time she comes bearing an ornately decorated cake and a set of candles on his birthday - ‘goodbye, let’s break up.’ she says despite the dryness in her throat mangling the words struggling to see the light. she writes the words along a napkin as the pen pierces and straggles through the piece.

she remembers a time when her heart was only a figment of thought and she kept it frozen inside and patched up. it was a tall tale - an imaginative speculation whether she possessed the ability to love at all. a quiet heart that did no harm, but remained silent and deadly.

she remembers when she forced it back into that mold despite it’s fragmented wounds - lacerated and punctured, drawing out each memory into a cesspool of bittersweet what-ifs. and with one text she knows, she’s bound to recoil in all directions - up and down, back and forth. a wild rampage of things she can’t control because it’s yeonggi. 

My once quiet heart is now acting up Over meaningless texts, I go up and down Back and forth, can’t control it Baby it’s you, it’s because of you

absentminded and lost in all directions, the pen continues to contrast with the blank napkin now scrawled out with different words. it’s yeonggi, and he found a way to weasel into her apathetic nature. a world lost in the stars, and she floated freely dancing along the bright city lights - fingers that would only touch gently on those who wandered in. yet, when he stopped by - he shot her straight in the heart with kindness.

yeonggi the boy who tormented her mind leaving her with the thought that maybe. quiet possibly. she could find permanency in a boy like him. in reality, he struck her with a temporary euphoria that left her stranded inside relentless thoughts that pile upon - and now, she’s in the middle of ruins.

You put me up and down, to the left, to the right These mood swings are bad, I’m mixed up because of you Out of my mind, this isn’t me, more and more

she loses herself in yeonggi. she’s not seo minjung the girl that plays games with a deck of cards in her back pocket because the cards are singed and now flinging free ashes into the dark dusty sky. like going on autopilot with motions her mind can’t piece together - she’s a robot, distraught. dizzy. a verge of constant alcohol binges, and a vision that focuses to nothing except him.

I feel so dizzy, I can’t snap out of it My breathing gets rough, feels like I’m tipsy Oh babe, it’s like this whenever you’re around I wasn’t like this before but I can’t focus because of you

the words write themselves on the piece of paper, and she doesn’t crumple it with the force of her fist. she doesn’t throw it away or burn it on the candle that’s lighting itself on fire - what she does is simple. she tapes it against the same wall holding the pictures of him, shading his faces with the words written for him.

[404fmdminjung]

lyrics verification ; 180 degrees

summary: written at the wellness retreat, scribbled in a piece of paper. a song meant because seo minjung is a bitter af psychotic bitch that doesn’t understand repercussions of her relationship that she ended on her hands — mentions of @fmdchaesoo and @fmdyeonggi warnings: some of the writing is really angry/foul language. wc: 831

her feet trudge against the wooden floors, audible clacks that slam with each step she takes — furious and bitter is an understatement. if she goes into her room and life wants to applaud her for a good deed in a past life, both hyeju and youngjoo will be far gone wandering the resorts with their time while her limbs remain entangled in her sheets with fingers that draw themselves across paper.

and so, luck has it and she’s left in a silent room with herself. her sole choice of daggers and pistols her pen and and a shit journal the retreat has ‘gifted’ her. 

what she wants to write in sheer instincitivtiby becomes something along the lines of ‘fuck you, you bastard and you bitch.’ then, she might be flagged for copyright with lily allen’s fuck you playing into the matrix of her fervent zest. so comes a huff of her chest, and a pull back of her body strung in dejection across the vast bed she calls home for the night. maybe, she’s not meant to write something tonight. 

but when the anger swallows her whole, and unleashes a rawer form of her — vulnerable and defeated, she crawls back to the end of her bed where the journal and pen lie lifelessly. and she becomes reincarnated in a hue of sadness, melancholy grays.

the end of the pen taps mindlessly against the blank sheet of paper, and she conjures the question of how a stark shift in personality occurs in one soul. how someone switches from being a lovelorn fool with an dead-on warm gaze that pierces past her soul to a shitbag weasel that falls to a ploy on a shit knock-off of her. and she’s a clown deluding herself in the soft gaze and cozy premonitions of his whispers.

now it’s 180 degrees.

she writes the first few words on paper — because she wants the focus to center around a shift in personality. a jeckyl and hyde persona that left her in this state. maybe, this is another love song. less nostalgic and woeful of lost-hope, but a substantial reasoning for the basis of the end. rightfully so — she’s sorry for falling victim to pretty laced lies and tantalizing personas of hopeless romanticism.

i’m sorry for what you are even the day we broke up, you don’t know why

so, she scribbles down the justification for their breakup — it was a premonition of subliminal notions. it comes like second nature, the sense of something lodged deep in her throat, a painful end that’s bound to ensue. and this time she’s only corrected upon observing with her own body stepping forth into a scene of two lost lovers in a pool.

yet, she’s angry. furious. bubbling with ire because somewhere deep down the strings of a hopeful optimist ring loud — she wanted him to be different. aside from the rest of her frenzied escapades. because soul heavy admissions seize the light, and she loved him. 

i love you i wanted you to be different men are all like i hoped you were not

her hands now tremble underneath the force of her pen — perforating through the pages. “fuck you,” comes like a slip of an afterthought, trespassing past her lips in an utterance. 

was she a fool to think differently? each memory of their relationship, she keeps stowed away inside a ball and chain tied to her heart. yet, she feels like a fool for clenching on rather than yield to the medicine cliches call time. april. may. june. she counts, three months — an easy leeway into forgetfulness spurts and blacked out memories. except, each of it remains vivid to her. 

your expression even the scent of your eyes that was too warm it’s so different our love and memories i still have it

sitting still for a second, she can almost feel his presence in the air — feel the wistful nature of a fateful night leading him to rush in her apartment. she was unguarded. vulnerable. raw, opening pieces of her fragmented heart for him to piece together. and in that moment, she coaxed herself into believing that maybe — she’d beguile herself back into his embrace once more. back into the trenches of his soft gaze and tender touches. 

but she’s reminded again tonight. 

stop lying. you don’t even know why we broke up.

so she writes straight from the heart, each word she feels in a visceral notion of fatigue climbing through her spine and weaving through her ribs. it breaks her down one by one. slowly. fully. all at once, and she hinders facing the aftermath of relentless winds of constant reminders that when push comes to shove, force her out of the comfort of cheap thrills.

every promise comes like a lie — she’s stupid for maintaining traps of validity to each word he’s spoken. her stupid love. and she’s exhausted.

you and my promise even the accustomed excuses lie i believed that everyone was sincere my stupid love i’m exhausted.

when she writes down the last of her coherencies for the night, it leaves her unhinged on unresolved emotions and loose ends, never meant to be composed together. she’s a fragmented girl, delirium chiding her once again with the reminder that girls like seo minjung are only a zenith of destruction.  

never to be loved, and never to be contained. she’s meant to feel pain, deracinated from the channels of permanency, floating astray in her own small world with bits of havoc.

‘fuck you both, may you have miserable endings’.

[404fmdminjung]

lyrical verification ; anymore

summary: written for @fmdjiah​‘s song. minjung gets inspired on a friday night thinking of a boy of her past. unresolved scars and she writes it out for someone else to sing, knowing the words are too close for comfort.  warnings: none wc: 904, not including lyrics

she thinks of him on a friday night in the middle of downpour season. the perfect storm to get herself electrocuted in had it not been for a stroke of fate — earphones in, dangling to the inside of her trench coat playing a tune she’s introduced to. the rain’s relentless, yet it keeps her inside a maelstrom of thoughts impeaching the milky canvas of her skin. and it’s the rain that batters on, leading her to think of him.

she could die out here, she thinks — or maybe she’d catch an awful cold that traps her inside a fit of coughs and a fever that might match the high temperatures of her heart. but she doesn’t flinch. no. she remains steady tapping her bare toes to the wet pavement as the words write themselves in her head.

when she comes home, the thoughts become a cesspool of her unwinding thoughts, all straggled in the void of her headspace. and she’s frantic. running around her apartment, water clouding her wooden floors as she searches for a piece of paper and a pen. 

maybe the rain was an excuse for her to reel in the aftermath of her decisions. or maybe it was a moment of self-depreciation — a physical reprimand on her own actions. either way, it provides no closure to a girl so fragmented, carrying an even more unstable heart that seems to drag against the resistance of the floor with each empty movement.

and all minjung can resort to is — “all of it is a burden to me.” 

the first words sprawl themselves out on paper easily, and impulsively. love was a burden, suffocating her. no. drowning her. no. smothering her. no. it all resorts to the same unyielding conclusion, it kills her from the inside out — each moment of love comes like a piece of ammunition, loaded and locked. piercing each inch of her exposed heart. the pieces of recollection that come from the night his arms encased her in a wall of safety, or the times his kisses would speckle themselves underneath the dimly lit candles. it only remains as poorly healed scars — jagged, crooked and half-open. and maybe, that’s exactly how she feels about a song that drags itself to be an eulogy to her misery.

Everything from when we were together Shows that things were hard That night when I was in your arms That moment when we kissed All of that remains as a scar

and she knows she’s a terrible person in all the cruelly lit lines of her stoic expressions and words that wield themselves into pieces of weaponry. a villain at best in her story she crafts for the great end to a one time escape of love. ‘i don’t love you anymore.’ she mutters, yet — the heart doesn’t juxtapose upon the blueprints of the mind, and she finds herself lost in a trance of a limbo, floating somewhere in between how she ought to feel and how she really feels. 

time does nothing to heal wounds, and she’s a bitter victim of its effects — still straggled along, dazed in a cloud of discomfort. and she coaxes herself into thinking for a split second, that maybe she’s allowed to feel this way because the pain at this point becomes an unbearable weight that relieves itself in the melancholy midnight. 

Don’t tell me that I can’t help how I feel It was really hard even up till today

when she’s forced to question how she remains in this state, a full circle of events leaving her stranded in the first place she started — tattered and bruised, painting her heart in solemn blues and somber purples — the words no longer phase themselves into coherencies, just smeared thoughts of dubieties. 

because in the beginning, she was trapped inside her own game of charades. a facade of whimsical words and surface-level expressions, never meant to ever puncture deeper than the skin settling on her bones.  

one touch of intimacy that heaves something heavier than sensual pleasures, then she loses control. it jolts her soul astray, outside of her body. and suddenly, she becomes wounded and lost — relinquishing every trace of the control she has over her trembling heart. 

she’d repeat to herself each time, it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay. and maybe this was her version of permanency that life would gift to her like a sheltered prize of her sufferings coming to fruition. but fear leaves her dwindled and done, and she runs once more.

the words come easy to her, and her pen rustles with the blank paper now becoming saturated with splotches of black ink relieving itself. she writes and writes until her wrists become achy and shaky, and the red tinged eyes find solace in a meager blink. tonight, she plans to write until the pain becomes numb. until the pain no longer becomes a force that wrecks her soul.

All of that At first, I didn’t feel anything But the deeper this got, when I was in your arms I suddenly got so scared of the end So I tried to be alright

catharsis doesn’t feel as good as she’s imagined it to be. it leaves her more frantic with more pops of thought that peek past each word she writes. and now the phase of dejection ensues — a silent sigh that echoes through the hollow shelter of her body.

“i’m sorry.” she whispers underneath another breath that hums inside her lungs. 

 I’m sorry Please understand me I know it’s not easy But I can’t do this anymore

and maybe she writes it to shush her own growing guilt that looms over her daily knowing the sentences would never reach its rightful owner. and maybe it’s just wishful thinking to presume such an audacious sentiment — that it’ll efface each speck he’s drawn on her. then again, she knows the harsh reality that settles deep in her stomach — he’s become permanent. permanently etched into her heart, while the physical presence remains off in the distance.

[404fmdminjung]

full lyrical verification for dark clouds 

summary: downpour season marks korea’s july — cue minjung and notebook sitting in the corner of her veranda, playing with the droplets of spilt coffee while writing a rap verse. a song for the people around her if she’s ‘okay’ after each and every single tumultuous breakup. @fmdkami warnings: none wc: 1008 (without lyrics)

there are sunny days in the summer time — the temperature peaking over thirty-six, her limits tested. it comes as an obstacle that hinders her from stepping outside the doors on a day off, finding peace and coolness in the safety of the walls that trap her and the nespresso machine that lends itself a bit short from her normal routine of a walk narrowing to blue bottle. 

then, there’s the season of sonagi, downpour that doesn’t cease. five days of the week, a heavy rain for two days of the summer heat — another obstacle. yet, there’s no bitter resentment for the rain, the wash away of people clashed below and full on emptiness that leaves nothing but the white noise of droplets smashing against her window pane.

and she doesn’t complain, nor badger her phone screen for a quick delivery an full succumb into a first world issue. minjung makes the most of her time, perched in the corner of her veranda where the separation between the outside and inside leaves her dazed and the only thing she does is sit still with a straw pressed between her lips and eyes staring out into the void — 멍때리는 재미이라고 해야하나? (is this fun out of doing nothing? rough translation bc 멍때려-ing idk i can’t find a word for it)

she remembers each person that asks the same question programmed during the aftermath of a breakup — are you okay? and she sees herself to be like the dark clouds in the outside — cloudy, dreary. moments of recollection haunting her, and she’s left to shut out the outside voices and hungry noses hinting at their next topic of gossip.

i wish it would clear up, or at least a cool breeze would show it’s gray all day today, gray clouds follow me.

the words scribble themselves on paper, and she thinks the breakup to be a looming cloud of misery — a constant reminder of love and broken feelings, no longer valid. a void that’s meant to remain never to be filled. time doesn’t do much to anyone, nor does it hide away the complexities that entangle her with memories. what she wants to call for is salvation in the form of fresh air, or something less suffocating — a clear ray of sunshine, promising better tomorrows. but in reality, what she gets is the trail of gray clouds that hover over her.

i ignore my friends calls i answer after a day it’s obvious they’ll all ask ‘how do you feel’ and i’ll force a smile, do i have to do this?

and it becomes a product of routine, she realizes while writing this down. a product of a to b, x to z. the woe is me role she’s placed in when the tears of an ending lodge themselves like a heavy weight pressed against her throat — and all she wants is silence. nobody asking ‘how do you feel’ because in retrospect, if she flicked them all the middle finger asking them how they feel amidst the violent force of a heart being pulled directly out of the chest. they’d answer the same way anyone else would with a heart out of the body, barely beating. dead.

it’s a sarcastic story she writes today, a big ‘fuck you’ to all who ask about the decline of a relationship. she’s at fault, a love that doesn’t necessarily keep up and pin to her mind. in her eyes, she’s the wind — never pressed to one place nor allowed to accept the notion of permanency. she wants it, craves it. yet, it’s always unforgiving.

clouds above my head trying to cover my smile rather, can’t it just pour? drip drip drip drip (뚝 뚝 뚝 뚝)

it pulls the edges of her lips into a smile, the way the contrast of 뚝, the sound of fluttering raindrops and the onomatopoeia of tear drops of how children are told to ‘stop crying’. in reality, she just wants something cathartic, no longer held back by the presence of pretending to be something. and maybe, if she gave a middle finger while crying then people would leave her alone to be the lost girl sad.

they all say time is the balm glided over wounds, and she knows it’s no save-all for broken hearts. it’s a distraction, a numbing effect — a blurred image of old-vivid paintings. and that’s when she can swallow the bitter pill that she’s fine, yet her mind pulls into place the people that ask. suddenly, the blurred outlines detail themselves into finite lines, perfected and shaded. and she writes her response in one simple statement.

now i’m fine, don’t ask about him there’s more things to talk about why do you just hit it where it hurts the sky is clear now, i’m really fine i used all my emotions and i’m numb. so stop worrying about me.

she knows she’s lying through the smirk on her lips and the edges of the pen dancing along the paper. ‘i’m fine’ is a scapegoat, a hideout away from the harrowing pain held around her heart. a wish for nobody to worry, and maybe she’ll stop thinking to each press of her lips against milky skin and the depths of rooted talks grounding her soul to theirs. 

so, she writes down the only words of honesty that come straight — the words that she means to say, yet held back by the pride that keeps her facade strong and sturdy away from the rocks of pitiful stares and sympathetic hums. 

actually i think i held it in too much i wanna cry because of me, everything around me becomes darker in hindsight, i’m the dark cloud

a bit self-depreciating, but it’s the way she views herself. a terrorizing wrecking ball ready to stir chaos and devastation to any hint of kindness or any flinging fledge of love thrown her way. she knows how to love, a heart that only shows slivers of itself in moments of vulnerability. big picture — she’s got a heart too big for the world, capable of too much love that it scares her into sliding into a faux fixture of a dark cloud, encompassing everything around her.

—

she scribbles down whatever’s left in her head till she’s left in the same position of a dazed headspace. a continuation on a coffee she’s sipping, and the same visions of racing droplets against the window as she cheers for the straggled one at the top to win.

[404fmdminjung]

lyrical verification ; x

summary: lyric verification to X for lovebusiness. a first song in a series of two. this one starts off with old dead flower decor and an old journal entry. past memories come to surface, and it’s a hysterical catharsis - lyrics coming in the form of a personalized ‘fuck you’ letter. warnings: mentions of smoking tw wc: 900, not including lyrics

for the first time, she’s sitting there silently with words lost in her head as the pen balances between her two fingers. it teeters between the tips, and she spins it around hoping a light of inspiration will take place instead of the flickers of the candle tonight. 

the instrumental’s been done, a god-sent gift from the lightening hands of joo. she captures the essence of the underlying synth and the organ-like keys trickling a ghastly tune, and it sounds like the keys are mourning - a sad wistful drag to the ground. a sound she wants to aim straight into the terror of her heart.

she pulls the earbuds back to her ears as the beginnings starts to echo thorough. she’s lost in another dimension as the drums start to pick up. her head nods away, but it’s no use as the words still don’t come. instead, incoherent rambles, drabbles of tongue jump off through the ceiling. 

her eyes revert to the wall in front of her - dead flowers hung from the withered roots, dried petals so fragile touch. one gentle tap, and comes a fluttering pile of dusty rose hues on her ground. he used to call her flower, but fell right through the cracks between their hands interlocked. a love comedown, a cacophony of break downs.

it’s something to write down. a start.

Flower fell to the ground You call me flower before And I wanna love come down I wanna break down Fall down, fall down

a smirk entrances her face like a battle of the wits of words coming to lash out in their terror. it’s a game of cards and tricks, and almost something short of pitiful when the memories of the flowers come to light. 

she remembers. 

the early hours of sunrise and the visceral thoughts that frenzied her mind, too strong to muffle inside the piercing silence. she knows the date and time, so her hands do what they do - overdrive actions on autopilot, sifting past the pages of her journal to an earlier entry.

sweet whispers underneath vulnerable talks under the moon. a half dazed drunken confession, minutes from blacking out with the cigarette hanging from the crooked grin slapped across your face. a moment of honesty, i know. i could see it the way your irises narrowed in a bit deeper than all the times we spoke nonsense and lies. you clasped your hands, and i don’t know if it was your weakness that came to light, when humanity flowed out of the short breaths of your speech. hands clasped, and i could’ve sworn i love yous spread across the sheets that night. 

she re-reads her writing, and a sardonic laugh nearly bursts itself out. no restraints. an ignorant bluff that hides the pain that dwindles inside. a pain visciously ripped back open at its seams with each voicemail that comes like mocked reminders.

I believed you when you promised me When you prayed with your hands together like a mosquito I thought you meant it I'm the fool It all meant nothing Now I know I thank you

I'm busy, don't call me, especially when I'm asleep at night

stupidity hides itself in many ways, entraps you against its walls as it stares you down and laughs behind its curtains. transient moments of ignorance that coddle the aches of the heart and puts her on cloud nine - like reality didn’t exist and the words spoken were brazen folds of honesty. hindsight, retrospection. it unsheathes the filters around the eyes, and reveals the venom laced around each sweet whisper.

the wounds recover, etching themselves back to place leaving nothing but the tufts of leather wielded over. it’s a makeshift stitch - a bandaid that presents a suit of armor around, and now she carries a harder shell. nothing surprises her anymore, and nothing affects her because the aftermath of his own reigning mental terror in an never ending game of cat and mouth unveils its effects years running. he’s made his imprint on her, shattering her came of charades, making her feel. a drug and poison wrapped up at once, and she’s only sure she’s made her own mark across the skin of his spine.

“fuck you. you made me this.” a mutter and she can almost picture his own his cocked up smirk and dead solemn eyes staring at her, a dead-pan gaze that never wavers.

You made me

“bitch.” she can hear his response, a five letter word that strikes her from every angle - yet, her face remains the same. it’s the same way he utters it every single time, and it’s as vivid as the first time it flees his lips. she laughs in his face, begs him to put his hands on her. what she wants isn’t a makeshift fairy tale idealized vision of love in painted visions of pink. what she wants is the oxblood red, vibrancy that carries the mixture of blood and pain.

she feels the pen pressed hard against the insides of her fingers, imprinted deep upon the callouses formed over the years of emotional wreckage. the words flow as the curve along her face widens.

You made me bad and naughty Call me a bitch I'm proud of it What I want, you got it wrong Stop it, I gotta go

he made her like this, and she made him like that. oil and fire set ablaze where the ashes of them set the way. memories of driving along the highway on a midnight escapade of secrets - the winter breeze stinging upon her fingertips freely hinging out the windows. the small curses muttered smudged between the floating lights of gangnam. laughter filled the air. a momentary bliss.

On a winter night, I'm taking a ride on the riverside highway That we used to drive on We were in that small Pride next to That Hummer Benz and Rover Step on it, you got it switch lanes let's ride it Beep beep, you losin', curses coming from your mouth

fleeting moments of happiness, and the overarching gloom that surrounded and intertwined the two souls. it’s a story written for to him, but one song doesn’t fill the void that he’s left in her. a void that’s been silenced by the mask painted on her face. tonight, it sees the light.

[404fmdminjung]

lyrics verification ; soulmate 

summary: minjung’s sitting at a coffee shop as a conceptual though about soulmates comes after observing one too many middle school couples in ‘love’. she wants to call it ignorance to what love really entails, until she comes to the conclusion that it’s just a unique characteristic of young love, a blessing in disguise. she writes their backstories, and it becomes a string of lyrics written in thirty minutes. aka shit verifications but i love this song so much ㅎㅁㅎ notes: lyrical verification to @fmdsophie / @fmdyul ‘s collab wc: 920

it becomes a right of passage, or some continuous sick ploy on her own occupational endeavors each time she finds her own apartment suffocating her bursts of inspiration. it’s amidst these odd predicaments she finds herself tucked away in the corner of the twenty four hour coffee bean near by.

five pm rids the office workers’ bodies scurrying into the room, in hopes to bolster their moral with a shot of expresso. as the 9-5 workers shuffle out in hopes to maximize their few hours of new-fledged independence inside dingy bars, relieving their stress through drunken confessions, a new group of bodies shuffle in. the students marching away like freed prisoners, in hopes for a few hours of rest before the remainder of their day becomes whisked away back into the prison-like hagwon.

some students spend time to sleep in the other corner, eyes closed and mouth slightly agape underneath the cushion of their own hardened backpacks. some students burrow their own shoulders together in a ring of war, diving right into their phone games only to cuss and yell with each loss of pubg. and then, there’s the odd sect of couples, still clad in their middle school uniforms, sheepish eyes gazing upon each other, wary of the observers as their hands remain intertwined on top of the table - words like “jagi” and “yeo-bo” echoing out of their mouths.

minjung wants to roll her eyes, shake her head in protest of what their words really entail. a symptom of infatuation, misconstrued for love - a realism that’ll hit them when they grow with age. but, her heart can’t help but feel a bite of jealousy at that adolescent innocence; because in their moment, the young hearts and lovestruck eyes hold the notion that soulmates to exist while she was only a bitter adult, half of fifty, firmly holding onto the opposite.

their voices have quieted down, and so, minjung plays her own game of fill in the blank - conversational cues forcing her to rid the sheath of hobbes, and wear the shoes of the youth. she peers into the way their hands are so enveloped with each other, like a transparent string of red fate ties them to each other. starved for this specific type of love and infatuation, it’s a lifetime of only parental worries and educational misery at that age - a lifetime of distress swept away after waiting fourteen years to meet the soulmate they dreamt about.

You waited for a long time Hello, my soulmate Everything became more like you A transparent knot has been tied You can’t leave this place, not even for a moment

a story teller at heart, she finds herself crafting the backstories of the two teenage strangers seated a few meters away. they’re next door neighbors, family friends from a young age - from fleeing the confines of their diapers to running away to the nearest street food stand during hours of homework in the late nights. the little girl cuts her hair one day, and shortens the hem of her skirt by a few centimeters. the boy grows a few inches taller, and the tone of his voice drops to a low husk. a cascade of events that transpires their new found feelings and novel confusion - emotions never felt, rising up to the brim.

Why did it have to be you? Every day, I’ll tell you a different reason Even if I can’t recognize the shape You’re the person to draw the outline with

when their abashed emotions come to light under the full moon on an autumn breeze, diminishing the distance between the creaky swings of the neighborhood moonlight, the little girl reveals her own painting, a portrait of him. red tinges of pink kiss upon the apples of her cheeks, a shaky whisper unmasking the duality of its meaning - 고백, she confesses. the boy, shakes his head twice, the mirror image of his own reddish hues resonating across his face and a tangled pit of sensation dancing in the pit of his stomach.

she’s an expressionist, sketching away the outlines of her future on sketchbooks, detailing every pivotal moment inside the diary locked away in the cracks of her bed. he’s a wanderer, not a care for the world around him, struggling to find an adventure to quell his boredom each day.

suddenly, they’re not so different anymore and suddenly, he’s an artist adapting to the nature of her words while she’s the adventurer, willing the travel the seven seas with her hand in his. first love is the notion that ties the two together.

Love is the true art My expressions are increasing with time You make me write words and draw pictures Every time we meet It feels like I’m going away on a trip somewhere Oh I’ll stay by your side

the world stares at them - in the middle of their youth, cracked voices and bodies too big to fill their tiny souls, what do they know? the magical essence of youthful love is simple - it transpires them to a world, a desolate island made up of them. the clouds don’t coddle their sunshine, and the flowers don’t wither from periods of drought. it’s a special island, a secret cove folded away and only unraveled by their melting eyes.

In the middle of their youth A girl and a boy live on a small island The mood is like the weather here Bright red fruits have blossomed The other side felt a little unfamiliar But now it’s the place I cherish the most

a place where only they know, and they can hide. they take the sand ticking away in their hour glasses, scattering it across the shores of their island where the waves engulf and wreck through the concept of time. time hinders, seizing any opportunity to instigate uncertainty through insecurities. where they are now, feeling the warmth of each other’s hearts and the imprints of themselves juxtaposed upon each other’s reflection, is an ode to love.

These day We’ve both taken out our own clocks And we’re pouring sand inside without holding back Even if we only have great days ahead of us I only want to go back to your heart

-

minjung scribbles away in her journal, words jumbled against each other in a culmination of scratches barely legible to the human eye. her fingers ache with the pressure of her own pen smashed against the skin of her fingers, but the warm outlines of the story she wrote subdues the pain. it’s a story, one that’s never been written in the chapters of her own life. life loved to mock, shatter her own optimism. she was never meant to be the leading star, just the vicarious author sitting in the background.

[404fmdminjung]

creative claims — through the night

summary: full circle closure, written sometime in may warnings: none wc: 1294, not including lyrics

full-fledged acceptance.

it’s what’s become at this point — what’s been festering upon months and months of self-ruination. lapses of judgement in drunken night calls, the voicemails sent to a near brick-wall with radio silence in return. she’s been through it, each night when her knees hug her chest, arms circling around to feign the warmth she’s lost all along. then, spread along the bouts of anger where her skin brims shades of red, body quivering when she finds nothing to soothe the wounds.

by now, anger. sadness. dejection — it’s all passed. all become a past time when her mind ends at a blur, a gray canvas now. smeared like charcoal where the lines no longer discern themselves to a full figure. instead, she recollects pieces of the blur, pieces of the smudges — the imperfections that make him whole.

she’s written him a song for each caveat she’s stepped through. each fragment shattered and now lining the path she’s stepped upon. her feet jagged and now left with a heart bleeding that red — it’s no longer vibrant, no longer as robust as it was.

it now, just all feels like a standstill when her pen barely grazes the surface of the paper.

she’s gone through it multiple times by now, written him countless letters that martyr away each shrivel of her dignity. her last piece of pride, now severed and left in the dusk when she holds the notion of something she’s shied away from accepting all this time.

tonight, this letter doesn’t get sent. instead, she saves it for a song aiming it for full-blast past the speakers and the run-down noraebangs of seoul. for each person suffering the commonground of heartbreak and the inability to let go — she tells them: don’t let go. keep it as a saving grace, a piece to fill the void where closure leaves the echoes bellowing.

she still loves him. still loves the dimpled smile, and the gentle touch of a burning skin-on-kiss rendezvous. the kind that doesn’t settle amongst the weekend fervor but lingers during the weekday bustle while the rest of the world is hinged on the standardization of a nine to five office job. 

(she hopes he knows. hopes he still gets it by the time the melody reaches his ears).

tonight, i’ll send the glow of a firefly to somewhere near your window it’s that i love you

her hand rests on the i love you written. stubbornness writes itself easier when she doesn’t let go — doesn’t let herself fall uneasy on the inability to accept. because by now, she’s accepted it all and let herself throw back and close her eyes. sober thoughts lead to the harrowing replay of their first meeting, the first random encounter all avalanching itself to a stage of destruction of lips on lips. 

(given the chance of any sort of do-over, and she’d been dead straight taking his hand and darting in the opposite direction of where the tides pull them. reckon with nature, it’s never a safe bet to fall backwards on the status quo. but that’s still something she’s willing to take, knowing the repercussions far better in hindsight). 

remember our first kiss i close my eyes whenever i can and go to the farthest place

perhaps, the downfall was merely an effect of her own shortcomings. the white elephant weighing down in the room that she chose to avoid each time merely for the sake of sole comfort inside her own walls — what she didn’t know then, she knows now. 

transiency, and that’s how he’s always felt. like the letters on the sand, with the tides of the wave pulling him in further away each time. she’s no longer trapped in the undertow, and now she’s still on shore while he’s far off — he’s bound to disappear. or at least she thought, a far place where it doesn’t bring her. sadly, hindsight doesn’t tell you how it feels to be left with the gaping emptiness of a distance that doesn’t lessen with the words that don’t move without action.

and the words she writes becomes the words she’s never said, won’t ever say. the words that’ll stay inside a melody in a soft hum past the speakers — courage is a shortcoming, and she stands on the ledge barely wielding together the last pieces of sanity in crude honesty.

just like the letters on the sand where waves were i fell you’ll disappear to a far off place i always miss you all the words in my heart i can’t show them all to you but it’s that i love you

it’s better late then never, or at least that’s what the half-sheltered judgement of her own heart on her mind takes. the lyrics become closure closest to what she’s never grappled with on her own. if anything, the lyrics become a salve to her wounds — whether he’s left with any at this time, she’ll never know. or maybe, she just never wants to find out.

—

the first listen of the composition becomes easy: an easy guide to place her words with the tune, the hums seething itself into place like pieces of a puzzle. 

the second listen becomes harder like the song’s become a piece of her that she’s finally filled the empty mold for. her heart on the line, it fragments a bit further upon each strum of the acoustic guitar then the near minimalistic instrumental — it strikes a chord, leading her to grin. smile at the thought of sooah getting her words for face value, then taking it a notch deeper. then, it thins out when a heavy sigh leaves and the song becomes bare bones for the words to take precedence.

too bare, and it leaves her reckless and stripped open to vulnerability. too much vulnerability, exposing each wound and the small details never overcome. it’s never been a sense of silence, but if anything — she wants to buff it out with some bump of defense.

defense comes and mends itself in the additon of piano. small light two-note chords that lull and center the note by note play of the guitar, 

there’s barely a touch to add to the instrumental — it hits straight on for the image in her head. no time for second guesses, and she takes it in, all of it with her little bits of piano sprinked onto the recording booth. 

they say method acting is the newest craze, and even seo minjung falls victim to it when her bare-face enters the walls of bc, her clothing minimal in his old pajama pants and the ragged shirt she wears like a physical shield. head strung low, she pulls up the recording file of the instrumental, before the clicks away to fill the blank file into the one bolstered up by the composition.

her headphones ring in, and today, there’s a sheath of bravado leaving her to man the entire booth by herself. the mic steadies itself in front of her, and the beginnings of the first verse take itself as a soft spoken sentiment, akin to a confession she’s never verbalized with her own voice.

she finds the courage inside her voice, singing as if it’s nothing more than a sing-song confession of lighthearted secrets now unveiled. it’s less about the ostentious decorations, less about the runs of her voice or stretching it to where it strains her voice — instead, it becomes a song about singing soul-deep, breath heavy.

it all starts to take shape the way it began, the way she fell head-first with her eyes closed. a free-fall back into the ignorance that only came like a roundabout during a taste of childhood.

childhood love, or puppy-dog oblivion?

it’s neither, not when the first real taste of the back and forth tempest tide love still manages to mangle itself around her. it’s still visceral in the presence, palpable to touch each time her eyes close and the voice sings to a name she no longer sees face-to-face.

the words she couldn’t say back then, she says now.

acceptance, and it’s become full-circle with the bittersweet taste of half-hearted closure.

[404fmdminjung]

creative claims verification ; ghost

summary: full lyrics, for @fmdsan warnings: none wc: 640

it comes as a quick text message she gets from san — an unlikely person at a crossroads. a mutual understanding in forging pieces of creativity into one space. separate companies, yet it feels like gold star turns a cold shoulder for each time dimensions gives her a hint of something warm. minjung doesn’t complain, no. it festers something inside — something that cures her boredom. on days where everything drags on, she finds herself inside her notebook. words writing themselves in distorted pictures of first-hand accounts.

today, there’s a catch. a challenge that forces her out of the usual zone of drunken speeches and internal monologues. she’s told it’s a follow up to a song that didn’t come from her heart nor the lacerated heartstrings. snow — the part one.

seo minjung writes part two. no context. no background noise. just her take upon a song and how her mind construes the dots that’s left blank. and to her — snow feels like wishful thinking of lovelorn blues.

the brunt pain that comes from the harsh winter breeze chipping the tip of your nose, yet the wistful warmth that comes from skin on skin contact underneath the sheets. the days where being inside feels like another realm from the outside world. but what minjung things to that prelude — is a crash and burn mess of a relationship. hail mary. fire. 

something that goes ablaze. a haywire detonation — and what becomes of the remnants are the harrowing memories of a ghost. a shadow in the past that you can’t shake off despite each step into some sort of closure.

she starts off with a narrative of something honest, and heavily blunt. it’s etched in black and white with how direct the words are. and what follows of lost memories is the constant reminder that keeps her heart low. shattered with a head that falls rampant, peeling back the layers that hold her still.

in my faint memories, just out of reach you’re not there. your afterimage is still left in my mind. it’s not fair, but why my love? it’s driving me crazy.

when the dust settles, ex-lovers turn into shadowed memories. the looming darkness, where silence plays the backtrack to tears and shallow breaths. a one eighty shift, no. transformation that comes from one spark of a memory  — minjung knows that feeling like a second set of skin. a set of smiles that speak more words than she’s able to, and a dip in her head that coaxes everyone around her to believe that simplicity comes with air-filled thoughts and silly words. when in reality, one off-step into the same musty alleyway can trigger an avalanche — a disaster. a calm heart broken right then and there.

When the still silence surrounds us You trap me deep in my dreams Deep in my dreams You flood into and stir up My calm heart.

a ghost is what he is. a ghost is what every ex-lover is. they’re not tangible, not present.  far viscerally seen in the memories only to leave inside traces of dust the second she reaches out. it’s the thought that drives the sketch of a ghost across her notebook — an angry ghost that hides behind delicate words and soft shades. in the end, the only thing the ghost does is come and go without a word — she knows better than to trust a ghost.

Even if I want you so much it drives me crazy, you Ghost Even if I want and call for you all night long, you Ghost You came to me and left without a word, you ghost.

the second part to a sentimentality that pockets itself in the wintertime becomes a song about lost lovers and torture that beams from looming heartache. and maybe — this is the reason why gold star likes to shackle her tot something less morbid. less eerie. more regal like the way they want to present. but she flashes the middle finger in a song written for dimensions  — a darkened piece meant to shine light to fragments of her history.

It'll get better over time

the last portion she jots down becomes the save piece of optimism. the brush for the hopeless romantic clinging onto songs as balms to the unresolved wounds they hold. but she’s no optimist weighing any truth to the five words she finishes off with.