#the in universe perfume taglines get me every time

[mouthlessmaiden]

What is that, Dan? What's that you smell of? Nostalgia.

The glory days.

[alumnusrp-archived-blog]

LEE HYEJIN CLASS OF 2008

DATE OF BIRTH  03/03/1989 PLACE OF BIRTH  Taebak, South Korea OCCUPATION  Reporter

HOMETOWN  Chuncheon, South Korea FAMILY  

Lee Sangjoong (Father)

Lee Sangha (Mother)

Lee Hyemi (Older sister)

MARITAL STATUS  Single

BEST SUBJECT(S)  Literature, Economics WORST SUBJECT(S)  Art SPORTS  Volleyball CLUBS  Debate, School Newspaper

The succession of all her attempts reads off with the mind-numbing casualness of a shopping list: salt, bar soap, cheap perfume, tomato juice. (The last one’s a joke.) Washed out, patted dry and clean. An effort ultimately gone in vain. A grimace, a scoff. Surprise, surprise. 

As if on command: sit, stay, soak. The unmistakable burn of gunpowder and leather, film-light on her wrists and curled deep into her hair, lingering for as long as memory itself.

It’s hard to decide which she’d rather do without.

Take the smell, for instance. The adjectives that come with it, sitting at the tip of her tongue. Acrid. Bitter. Ugly. Grandfather.

Halbae and his vehement hick tendencies; it’s only by the good grace of genetics that they continue to thrive: man to man to would-be-woman, and in a good-for-nothing house with a good-for-nothing clock set to the doldrums of a 9 to 5 schedule in a good-for-nothing town, is a girl who looks and smells in every sense of the word wildfire. His legacy lives on.

(City slicker? Fat fucking chance.)

So memory then.

Hyejin can see this room with her eyes shut just as good as when they’re open. Which they are now, wide awake and catlike, fixated over minute details, over his shoulder. A clutter of ballpoint pens spilling from the pouch. A stalk of bamboo, spring green wilting from a lack of water. And photos, so, so many photos, from tacked on to hanging by a thread above the desk.

Her nails dig sharp into his skin, and it’s less from the pleasure of their shared back-forth momentum than it is from something else. The effect is the same either way; him breathing out a ragged “fuck” against the cut of her collarbone.

On other days — better days — the boy beneath her takes to the sentimental like a bad habit: waxing poetic about things he thinks she’d like to hear, only to be left to fall on deaf ears. But today’s different. She listens to every half-murmured, part-sighed, fully mouthed thing, as though it’d be his last. Empty promises, each one, the whole lot of them. But she listens because of what it is, and she listens in spite of it. If it doesn’t stick, it doesn’t matter. 

But this does:

Smack dab in the middle of the bulletin is Polaroid girl held up by a pin, staring, smile a full show of teeth. Hyejin staring back. Between them is the swell of an unanswered question, and what had been done.

It’s April morning.

(”You smell just like him.”) (“Yeah?”) (“Yeah.”)

CONSCRIPTION  N/A EDUCATION

Seoul National University, BA Communications

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

Gobal News (Seoul), News Staff Reporter, 2016–

Pressian (Seoul), News Staff Reporter, 2015–2016

Hankyoreh (Seoul), News Staff Reporter, 2013–2015

KBS News (Seoul), Entertainment Staff Reporter 2012–2013

Daehak-Sinmun (Seoul), Senior News Staff Writer, 2011–2012

JoongAng Ilbo (Seoul), News Intern, 2010–2011

Daehak-Sinmun (Seoul), News Staff Writer, 2008–2011

The rain pounds against the window, a fury of pins and needles against glass, but it’s drowned out completely by the throb of her pulse, mind racing a hundred miles a minute. Before her is a spread of notes that take up half the span of the floor, a jumble of newspaper clippings, maps, soundbites jotted down in a haphazard scrawl.

It began like how the others did: as a story. This one starts out simple enough (or, as simple as it can get) — a sixteen year old girl who’s ran away from home so many times it’s drained the fear out of each attempt. They chalk it up to just kids being kids, one way or another. Easy to see, even easier then, to be dismissive.

But this isn’t easy. Far from it. Not when she’s been snared head-first into these grueling past few months, paper trails and lack thereof, and certainly not when there’s an outcome like this. A tumble through the rabbit hole, only for the light at the end of the tunnel to fall dim.

Her eyes drops to the sight of her phone, tossed aside, nearly forgotten until then. Consideration falls heavy, one second then two. Inhale. Easy, easy.

She picks it up, dials, then waits.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

”Hey, Hyejin. What do you have for me, find anything new?”

“I’ve finally put it all together, and it's —” A pause. “It’s a lot worse than I thought.”

”…What? Wait, you’re joking.”

Hyejin closes her eyes. “I’m not.” No amount of false reassurance could’ve prepared her for this landmine of a revelation. In her other hand is a copy of the finished piece, each letter of the tagline a charred black:

LOCAL HOMELESS YOUTH CENTER A FRONT FOR UNDERAGE PROSTITUTION RING

“Hyejin. Hyejin? Are you there?” 

“Yeah, yeah. Hey listen, I’ll send you the draft first thing in the morning.”  

There’s a moment of hesitation before he says, “Alright.”

Exhale. Easy, easy. 

(What’s fucking easy about any of this? Nothing. Fucking nothing.)

 “Alright.”