16lies

[16lies]

had it been anyone but ahn yoojung, seulki estimates that it would take her approximately two seconds before she would decide to make some flimsy, contrived excuse to break free from the lengthy monologue he spews. even six years later, his mere presence still seems to have an inexplicable hold over her; his small smiles pulling her right back into the past. seulki finds herself drifting back into high-school days, cotton candy clouds, salt air, idyllic afternoons spent slipping away in the park near their houses, sneaking chaste kisses amidst the field of flowers. basking in the rays of the late summer sun, and the warmth of yoojung’s smiles. surrendering herself to pure, unadulterated bliss that engulfed her whole being.

(still, whenever seulki tastes mercurial highs like this, she usually finds herself regretting it; she’s learnt, time and time again, that they inevitably end in breathtaking tragedy, wrought with the grandour of shakespearean tales. trauma, heartbreak and utter devastation of her heart. which explains why she reverts back to destructive tendencies; close enough to taste euphoria, but never enough to consume her full again.) 

yoojung is an exception, he always has been. with yoojung, seulki seems to make the crux of her mistakes. with him, she lives in a world tinted with a rosy filter, every moment tinged in vivid shades even if the reality is nothing but mere dreary shades of gray. she holds his whispered sentiments as witness that there had been something close to love shared between them when truth be, they’d lived in a hollow shell of squandered time and the words shared were trifling, holding no weight in the world they inhabited. and yet again, she succumbs to bad habits that has haunted her all this while. he tells her you mean a lot to me and seulki hears it as i still want you. 

truthfully, this entire conversation with yoojung had been sailing into uncharted territories, into a direction that she never could’ve foreseen. she could’ve weaved a hundred and one narratives but none would’ve included this freshly minted chapter. at best, she’d receive an apology - which she would graciously accept and pretend as the apology hadn’t come years too late. at worst, he’d ask for a favour - which she would’ve still sat and entertained, and then cry in the back of the car on the way home. 

this is whatever this is. he doesn’t say sorry; he says it’s his fault. he doesn’t say what happened; he waffles through it, repainting it as though a convoluted jumble of the past when she knows, for a fact, that the picture of those few quixotic months still lies a well-preserved canvas, each hue still vibrant as ever. seulki wonders if saying those two words would speak everything into existence, bringing to life the weight of his actions with a palpable presence, making the fact that he did shatter her brittle soul all too real and so, it’s better left unsaid. (the same way they’d never elucidated the state of their relationship, as though the label of boyfriend-girlfriend would somehow violently pull everything into stark reality. they couldn’t end if there was nothing to begin with.) 

“yoojung,” she says, voice uncharacteristically meek and hushed. there is no taunting bite, no polar frostiness, just a sense of vulnerability and uncertainty, a razor sharpness dulled to unassuming edges; a privilege that only yoojung is treated to. her hands reach for his, resting gingerly as she gives a barely-perceivable shake of her head. “i don’t know what you’re trying to say and i don’t know what you want me to do. we’re not in high school anymore, and -” she doesn’t know what to say and there’s another intolerable silence that hangs between them. seulki appraises all the potential avenues she could drive down, although it’s futile because ultimately, yoojung has the uncanny ability to unveil her most intimate susceptibilities. “you could’ve said bye, you could’ve given me a reason, you could’ve done this so much more differently.” 

there are tears brimming, and seulki finds it almost shameful how her heart is still in the palm of his hands. “i would’ve helped you, yoojung,” she says, shaky voice barely above a murmur. “why are you even telling me this now? does it really change anything between us?” 

please say yes.

had it been anyone but ahn yoojung, seulki estimates that it would take her approximately two seconds before she would decide to make some flimsy, contrived excuse to break free from the lengthy monologue he spews. even six years later, his mere presence still seems to have an inexplicable hold over her; his small smiles pulling her right back into the past. seulki finds herself drifting back into high-school days, cotton candy clouds, salt air, idyllic afternoons spent slipping away in the park near their houses, sneaking chaste kisses amidst the field of flowers. basking in the rays of the late summer sun, and the warmth of yoojung’s smiles. surrendering herself to pure, unadulterated bliss that engulfed her whole being.

(still, whenever seulki tastes mercurial highs like this, she usually finds herself regretting it; she’s learnt, time and time again, that they inevitably end in breathtaking tragedy, wrought with the grandour of shakespearean tales. trauma, heartbreak and utter devastation of her heart. which explains why she reverts back to destructive tendencies; close enough to taste euphoria, but never enough to consume her full again.) 

yoojung is an exception, he always has been. with yoojung, seulki seems to make the crux of her mistakes. with him, she lives in a world tinted with a rosy filter, every moment tinged in vivid shades even if the reality is nothing but mere dreary shades of gray. she holds his whispered sentiments as witness that there had been something close to love shared between them when truth be, they’d lived in a hollow shell of squandered time and the words shared were trifling, holding no weight in the world they inhabited. and yet again, she succumbs to bad habits that has haunted her all this while. he tells her you mean a lot to me and seulki hears it as i still want you. 

truthfully, this entire conversation with yoojung had been sailing into uncharted territories, into a direction that she never could’ve foreseen. she could’ve weaved a hundred and one narratives but none would’ve included this freshly minted chapter. at best, she’d receive an apology - which she would graciously accept and pretend as the apology hadn’t come years too late. at worst, he’d ask for a favour - which she would’ve still sat and entertained, and then cry in the back of the car on the way home. 

this is whatever this is. he doesn’t say sorry; he says it’s his fault. he doesn’t say what happened; he waffles through it, repainting it as though a convoluted jumble of the past when she knows, for a fact, that the picture of those few quixotic months still lies a well-preserved canvas, each hue still vibrant as ever. seulki wonders if saying those two words would speak everything into existence, bringing to life the weight of his actions with a palpable presence, making the fact that he did shatter her brittle soul all too real and so, it’s better left unsaid. (the same way they’d never elucidated the state of their relationship, as though the label of boyfriend-girlfriend would somehow violently pull everything into stark reality. they couldn’t end if there was nothing to begin with.) 

“yoojung,” she says, voice uncharacteristically meek and hushed. there is no taunting bite, no polar frostiness, just a sense of vulnerability and uncertainty, a razor sharpness dulled to unassuming edges; a privilege that only yoojung is treated to. her hands reach for his, resting gingerly as she gives a barely-perceivable shake of her head. “i don’t know what you’re trying to say and i don’t know what you want me to do. we’re not in high school anymore, and -” she doesn’t know what to say and there’s another intolerable silence that hangs between them. seulki appraises all the potential avenues she could drive down, although it’s futile because ultimately, yoojung has the uncanny ability to unveil her most intimate susceptibilities. “you could’ve said bye, you could’ve given me a reason, you could’ve done this so much more differently.” 

there are tears brimming, and seulki finds it almost shameful how her heart is still in the palm of his hands. “i would’ve helped you, yoojung,” she says, shaky voice barely above a murmur. “why are you even telling me this now? does it really change anything between us?” 

please say yes.

[16lies]

— clarice lispector, the stream of life

[16lies]

[16lies]

for @plushvibes

to say that seulki hates her mother is an understatement. because quite frankly, to seulki, everything wrong in the world can be chalked up to her mother. even after twenty something years, there’s this pervasive feeling of visceral disgust that cloys to their every interaction. to her, her mother is irredeemable. 

the movies and books tell her that a mother should be the very image of nurturing devotion, unconditional love, but in seulki’s eyes, her mother has contorted into some demonic abomination of groveling, weak-willed desperation. there’s something irrevocably pathetic about watching a person posited to be a paragon of virtue grovel for the worthless scraps of attention. not only from her father, which had been humiliating enough, but also from anyone with a net worth of more than a billion won, as if they hadn't been able to feel the palpable desperation seeping out from her pores. 

(sometimes, seulki wonders if she does truly despise her mother - or whether her antipathy is nothing more than a camouflage for her fear. if she doesn't detest her enough, eventually, she’ll inherit her mother’s failings and in ten years down the road, her daughter will be looking at her with the same veiled repugnance as she begs for a shred of respect.) 

still, that means that by extension, seulki does not like shiah. it’s inevitable; shiah has seulki’s mother’s blood coursing her veins, carrying the genetic predispositions and identical deficiencies. science doesn’t lie, and all seulki can do is hold back a wave of nausea as she watches shiah reenacts a scene she’s seen one too many times. big brown eyes, a glimmer of hope, a bashful - almost mousy request to help her fit in. seulki had laughed in her face, then spewed acerbic insults that had been disproportionately malicious to such an unoffending and well-meaning request. and ever since then, that one small lesion that shiah had unknowingly caused festers into a putrid, dangerous sore. a long-brewed animosity, that seulki herself knows it wholly misplaced.

the erroneous acrimony colors their interactions, even after high school. even after shiah suddenly steps into riches. even after shiah’s somehow in the same circle as her, has her arms linked with her ex-boyfriend. even after she manages to worm her way into partying with seoul’s elite. in seulki’s eyes, shiah will never amount to anything more than a carbon copy of her mother. 

for the most part, seulki has managed to keep shiah at arms’ length with the help of a lengthy page of excuses. but as it has been for the past few weeks, seulki finds herself to be the butt of fate’s joke yet again (a form of karmic retribution, most likely). because she finds herself stuck in the same guided tour as her beloved cousin. manages to ignore her up until thirty minutes in and she feels shiah accidentally bump into the back of her louboutin suede pumps, and suddenly, she’s sixteen again and shiah is asking her for a favour and she snaps, “be careful.” narrowed eyes flicker up and down, before casting a withering gaze her way. “those shoes cost more than your entire outfit.”

[16lies]

jaerim and seulki dated for six months. six months - a year, if you asked anyone else and four months, if you exclude the time they spent on a break. six months living in a house of cards; a convoluted, intertwined knot that she could never disentangle from, one that she both loathed and coveted. their relationship had always been a paradox that seulki had been ashamed to say she took pleasure in: she’d spent her whole life curating the perfect existence, painstakingly controlling every minute detail, seeking control in every possible path. yet, when it came to jaerim, it was the lack of it that makes her come crawling back to him, time and time again. he smiles at her in a crowded room, just the faintest hint of attention, just enough to make her feel special, and that’s enough for her to lose any semblance of rationality. (most of the time, she loses her entire mind in the back of her family’s limo. most of the time, he’s there with her.)  

a six month relationship in exchange for a torrid love affair that lasts for almost five years with no seeming end.

they’ve persisted through countless unsavory exes, death threats (seulki’s fault. should’ve had the foresight not to sleep with a lawyer), condemnatory friends, graduations, the return of gossip girl. but none of these trifling hurdles can match up to one picturesque girl, all glossy chestnut hair and scintillating smiles, all blindingly luminous and radiant. fucking hell.

but tonight, he is hers. he looks at her with such frustration that seulki feels a swell of pride bloom through her insides, heart throbbing wildly against her chest. good for him, she’d always thought he looked sexier angry (doesn’t know if it’s because it’s nice to see another side of him or the fact that only she has had the privilege of seeing him flushed and furious. probably the latter.) maybe if she was still playing into the whole devoted couple act, she’d try to calm him down, pat his arm or do whatever docile girlfriends do. 

unfortunately for him, the show stops as soon as they’re away from the leering eyes of the crowd. arms crossed defiantly across her chest, no love lost between them as he restlessly demands for an answer. seulki makes him wait because she fucking can, and she takes her tom ford compact powder out of her bag, reapplying her lipstick with meticulous care. the damage has been done, the missile has been fired and she couldn’t care less about the destruction that followed. after all, seryung and jaerim didn’t give a second thought to her too. so, she thinks of this whole charade as returning the favor to them. 

“what’s wrong with pda? we’ve done worse than that,” she drawls. she’ll take her own sweet time, let him stew in his irritation and confusion and discontent as she had the night before. a thick silence falls on them, the weight of tacit implications and covert motives of whatever had just taken place. if the five years hadn’t gone to waste, then jaerim should know that the silence was a response in itself, because fuck that, seulki doesn’t want to say her name aloud because saying it makes it real. tangible. corroboration that what she had done was solely because of her. 

but love, lust, always her fucking kryptonite; especially when they look like jaerim and especially when she’s out to kill. 

“okay,” she says, biting down on her lip as though it could physically quell the bile and fury rising. she’d sunk it into the crevices of her being, but fucking jaerim and his fucking ability to make her feel everything in tenfolds. and so, she steadies her voice as stares at him, a vengeful glint glimmering in her eyes. speaks with seething malice, each word punctuated and dripping with malignant venom. “so it’s okay when you go on a date in public but it’s not okay when i kiss you? you’re scared she’s going to dump you again? i mean, it doesn’t make a difference, does it?” scoffs snidely, blood-red lips curling with contempt. “you’ll always run back to her anyways. just another boy who would bend his back for someone who doesn’t give a fuck about him. just another toy for her to play with. wanna guess how long it’ll take before she gets bored of you?”

locks eyes with him, stare bearing into his, spilling with a potent mix of contempt and provocation. “i give it two days. you?” 

[16lies]

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[16lies]

to seulki, anger is worthless. illogical. a fucking foolish excuse to host a humiliating parade of intimate sentiments, a plethora of weaknesses flaunting for all to exploit. nothing to gain, but all to lose. seulki has long sacrificed the privilege of manifesting unadulterated rage; after all, only those with little in their pockets can afford to be angry, whilst seulki has too much precariously balanced on her plate to go on an unrestrained rampage. and so, when she’s eight, she learns how to quell her fiery fury, deeper and deeper, only to unleash in the privacy of her own room. (it’s never private, when all the housekeepers whisper about how the youngest jin daughter has yet again, torpedoed her bedroom. smashed the mirror in her bathroom and the handles of her wardrobe. gotten stitched up by the house’s nurse at the crack of dawn.)

honestly, a part of seulki feels a sense of envy towards raon; green eyes leering at her unabashed fury - no filter, no qualms, no thoughts about the ramifications. a fantasy seulki doesn't even dare to humor. it’s rather amusing, to say the least - definitely much more than the fabricated conflicts, contrived interactions and manufactured emotions on television. something incredibly riveting about raon’s unfettered outbursts and for a moment, seulki wonders how someone could be so rash? be willing to gamble all for the sake of her feelings? what more, in front of her?

when she’d dipped her toes into this whole bar purchase, she had really believed that raon could be a worthy rival, but at this point, it looks as though this is a mismatched battle, one where seulki knows she will walk away with a crushing triunmph. nothing she really has to sweat over. and so, she smiles serenely, a tranquil cloud covering raon’s acidic rain of words. her heels tap on the ground as she speaks, “i am above everyone else,” she says, matter-of-factly. no frills, no threat, just the unvarnished reality of the world. 

and she really is above everyone else. in fact, raon’s lashings barely graze her skin because seulki has long understood the perilous nature of anger; biting words are written off as the irrationality of personal convictions. she’s just angry. it doesn’t mean anything. it’s only when raon has the fucking audacity to talk about pitying her that she feels ire simmer under her skin. and so, seulki takes a hit of her watermelon vape (nicotine has always been an efficient grounding mechanism for her), letting the sickly air billow through raon’s words and shroud her face like some honeyed, toxic haze. 

she closes the gap between them, gaze locked onto hers, darkened orbs, glinting with malice. unyielding and bloodthirsty. “you don’t scare me, raon. you can throw a tantrum, throw yourself the most pathetic pity party, sprout shit that i’ve heard before and guess what? it doesn’t fucking matter.” another hollow smile, as she prowls around the girl. “in case you haven’t heard yet, i am actually powerful. you can pity me all you want but at the end of the day, i’m the one who can make you disappear with a snap of my fingers. this is me giving you a chance.” 

cocks neatly plucked right eyebrow theatrically, before brushing past her with a shoulder nudge. “watch your step.”

[16lies]

for once in her life, seulki realizes that she holds all the cards in her hands. never has she ever seen seryung in such a vulnerable and defenceless state; the old seryung, the one back from high school with her gleaming box-bleached blonde hair (no one should be allowed to look so good without having to fork out thousands of dollars but seryung does), giggled away all the passive-aggressive missiles seulki bombarded her with and beamed her way through seulki’s viciousness. the new seryung smiles too, but it lacks the luster of her unflappable confidence and if seulki peers close enough, she can almost see the palpable desperation in her words. 

also, there’s something unfamiliar in seryung’s eyes; she’s watched seryung shimmer out of the stickiest situations, hugged her through the darkest of nights when seryung’s mother absconded to god-knows-where for god-knows-how-long, brushed away mascara-streaked tears during countless heartbreaks. but she’s never seen this look of forlorn hopefulness in seryung’s eyes before (she’s seen it in herself though, every night after seryung had left and she’d come home after day after day of pretending like she hadn’t lost everything overnight and she’d stare at the revolting reflection in the mirror, wondering why she still wished for seryung to come back.) 

for the first time in a long time, seulki lets herself feel content. straightens her back and watches, with wretched amusement that seoul’s it girl, the dazzling array of glitter and sparkles, im seryung is at her mercy. deep down, she knows that if the roles were reversed and if it were seulki who was hopelessly imploring for seryung’s forgiveness, seryung would’ve never let it go this far. would’ve accepted seulki with warmth she never deserved, and a hug, scented with seryung’s trademark earthy sweet custom essential oil blend and the familiarity of a decade-long friendship. how fucking infuriating; even in her thoughts, seryung prevails. 

“then why’d you come back, seryung? if you wanted to leave everything behind so badly, why are you here again?” she cuts. her tone is measured, deliberately cool despite the razor sharpness of her words. a perfectly sharpened spear aimed straight at seryung. seulki savours in the moment; after twenty-something years, she thinks she more than deserves a minute or two basking in the radiance of the limelight. 

but perhaps, coming off the high of victory is why she lets seryung put her fingers on her arm without yanking it away immediately and adding an extra 15 minutes in her shower routine, to scrub at her skin as if it could wash away the traces of seryung’s touch. why she lets herself indulge in the faded recollections she’d long relegated to the past - because even through all the ugly, there’d been the good too. the first sips of alcohol shared in seryung’s bedroom, cackling over how horrendous go yurim in their biology class looked with her bowl-cut despite her proclamations that it was “avant-garde”; late nights planning jaerim and seryung’s predestined happily-ever-after, cutting up pictures from vogue they’d snuck from their mothers' collections, and concocting schemes of how seulki would be a bridesmaid and fall in love with one of jaerim’s rich cute men of honour; mornings spent playing tennis, seulki whacking tennis balls in the direction of ugly boys who even as much as dared to look at seryung.  and seulki has never been particularly greedy (or so she says), and maybe, she’s indulged enough in seryung’s discomfort. played god, tasted the euphoria of an almost-inconceivable win. (truth is, the more likely explanation is that seryung’s pleas work because despite all her valiant attempts, seulki is just like every other human susceptible to im seryung’s charms.) seulki clicks her tongue. “i have some time on monday,” she replies, all pragmatic, as though seryung hadn’t just spilled her heart out to her. “the usual bar. i’ll see you there.”

[16lies]

seulki doesn’t trust won. the fact that he’s been in her life for as long as she can remember is of no significance; what matters is that when their gazes lock through the mirror, she sees herself in the abyss of his eyes. the same cardinal misdeeds, the same hollowness, the same razor-edged ruthlessness that she knows would inexorably end in a greek tragedy. a murder-suicide of sorts. she doesn’t trust him, but neither would she trust herself. and perhaps, that is the thrill of it all. a perpetual rollercoaster ride; a decade-long ascend up a slope, the adrenaline rush of facing the inevitable plunge (they’ve come close to crashing, and the threat of it looms in the background and seulki thinks it wouldn’t really be fun without it.) 

and so, she lets him touch her, goosebumps trailing his fingers. lets him watch her as she takes a puff of her guava-flavoured vape and blows a stream of saccharine smoke into the air above their heads. her mother had forbidden smoking in the house a few years ago, but it wasn’t like she had any real authority anyway. “okay,” she says, voice breathy and only the slightest bit indecent (only the slightest bit, just the right dose to feed his imagination). makes no effort to pretend that she doesn’t bask in the attention he lavishes on her. “let me guess. the girl at the bar fucked you so good you decide to go with her instead?" blinks innocently, long lashes batting against her cheeks, a paradox to the filth escaping her lips. exhales another suffocating cloud of smoke, masking their faces for a brief second. “you could do much better,” she continues, fingers reaching out to meet his - an unspoken end to her sentence (me.) her back grazes against his thighs; another round of loaded brushes, always something more than platonic amiability but nothing enough to act upon. just enough to paint salacious sketches in their minds. “we always finish what we start, won. i’m not interested in playing any other games, anyways.”

[16lies]

[16lies]

ELEKTRA by Sophokles, tr. by Anne Carson

[16lies]

[16lies]

it’s a fact that seulki is not jaerim’s first love - no one needs to tell her that. a firsthand witness to the crime; she spent most of her formative years stuck in an unfortunate trio, watching and hearing all about jaerim and seryung’s teenaged escapades. so, she knows. she knows all too well. 

but in all honesty, coming from a place of unfeigned veracity, it doesn’t fucking matter. fuck that contrived, nonsensical you never forget your first love bullshit. it doesn’t matter because when it’s two am and he’s just broken up with his sixth girlfriend of the month, the number he dials is hers. when she’s drunk in the backseat of her family’s private limo, it’s his house she gets dropped off at. it’s her lips that paint his body shades of red, her ferocity that unsheathes unbridled fervor in him, her touch that he recrudesces for  - and really, that is all that matters. 

seulki knows that it’s 2023, and fighting over a boy is the complete antithesis to feminism and all that she stands for - or at least, all that she reposts on instagram. but honestly, fuck seryung and fuck jaerim and fuck this entire stupid fucking thing. (so, it’s seven pm and no one is keeping count but seulki has had seven shots of tequila, countless flutes of champagne and right now, is about a quarter way through on a bottle of gin. the drinking incites the scorching fury, and then, she makes the irrational decision to get on her phone and fucking hell, there’s another fucking photo of seryung and jaerim all wrapped up, cosied around each other like they're fucking teenagers again, and seulki hurls her rose gold iphone 14 at the wall.)

but seulki also knows that she cannot - will not - give seryung the victory; at the very least, not without spilling her blood too. and so, the next day, when the rage simmers to pure spite and vengeance and she's meticulously strategised her act of retaliation, she strikes. today, she’s armed with a new space gray iphone 14 and snug little black dress that she knows drives jaerim absolutely feral. (the dress will work. it always does. he tells her that three years ago, after she gatecrashes his dinner date with some bleached blonde with an equally blinding smile and he says she can only ever do it again if she’s wearing that dress or nothing at all.) 

she saunters up to him, contradictorily serene smile playing on her lips, as if the last time they spoke hadn’t been a mess of tears, hickeys and lies along the lines of “shut the fuck up, i can fuck myself better than you can.” “jaerim, hi,” she greets, all uncharacteristically innocuous and sugary, as she runs her fingers up his arms, tracing the contours of his muscles with a feather-like touch. could’ve been a moment of delicate affection between two exes, if not for the icy chill of her calculated caress. 

and in yet another measured move, she takes a step closer to him. lips hover inches from his, close enough to taste her honeyed grapefruit-flavored breath before pressing her lips against his. this time, the fever high of fraught kisses is replaced with a kiss that is so chaste and tender, almost to the point of being uncomfortably intimate. it’s not them; it has never been them.

(that’s how you win a war.)

slowly pulls herself away from him, “i’ve missed you.”

for @remrse

[16lies]

he was never hers. 

not then, not now, not ever. 

yet, seven years later, she’s still incapable of looking at him without the tremendous agony of inexplicable endings weighing down on her chest. seulki knows that she should let bygones be bygones, make peace with the bitterness - hearts have been maimed for less, there isn’t anything of substance that she can cling onto, save the trifling memories of a few fleeting months. yet, yoojung still holds her heart in the palm of his hands and every year, she still mourns the loss of what they could’ve been. the ghost of his tenderness haunts her; and the traces of his gentle touches still linger on her skin. 

sure, there have been other people: he who shall not be named who spurred her into perfervid sins that could last a lifetime. jaerim, who makes her taste the sweetest of nights and the most acerbic of words - the intensity of emotions unparalleled by anything in life. but they aren’t yoojung; no, they could never be yoojung. yoojung with entrancing whispers and unsullied affection, that for once, made her believe that she could be a good person. yoojung, who held her with no qualms about her indiscretions, smiled at her like he meant it. yoojung, who was hers and only hers. 

the worst part of it all is that she holds no understanding of what really happened. it’d been a rose-tinted reverie until a cruel, piercing silence roused her into a reality. it’d taken place a few days after his scandal had broken out. in a fit of despaired heroism, she’d even yielded to her father, pleaded and begged if he could do anything for him. seulki, who’d had lived eighteen years playing an unceasing game of power with her father, conceded all for a boy to shatter what little she had left of her heart. discarded her, as though she'd been a besmirched stain on his future. (her father never lets her live it down. looks at her with disdain, almost as though he sees her mother in her.) 

the logical and rational part of her knows that walking away is the only recourse left. let him be nothing but a stranger whose laugh she can vaguely recognize. but logic and reason be damned; they’d waned the moment yoojung told her that she was the most beautiful girl in the room with a kind of warmth she never knew was possible. truthfully, fate has always been a foolish, laughable notion to seulki; an illusion of hope for those without the money or privilege to buy. but for yoojung, seulki lets herself believe in the fallacy of fate, lets her shoulder brush across his in crowded rooms and lets herself wonder if this time, he’ll turn around. 

it’s a friday, five pm when he invites her to a cafe the next morning. it’s definitely not the first time they’ve shared a conversation since the fallout; seoul is compact, but the elite circle is even smaller. they’ve exchanged niceties, but never in a private setting like this. once again, as with all matters relating to yoojung, without the application of logic and reason, she goes. and when she sees him again, there’s a flutter in her chest; as though little bird wings are trapped between her chest. as though he hadn’t cracked something deep in her lungs in two. 

for brief moment, when he speaks, she does regain her senses. even feels a surge of anger. seryung, yoojung, all the fucking same. unresolved finales, silence for how ever long it benefits them, coming back in her life as though nothing changed and they hadn’t been the catalyst for the worst fucking year of her life. seulki can only stare incredulously at him, wills herself not to throw the glass of water into his fucking face. “yoojung,” she starts, voice neutral. eyes void of any feelings. “first off, i’m in law school. i’m not qualified to give you advice, and i won’t because there’s a likelihood that you could sue me. and i don’t think i would like to take that risk.” 

smiles blithely. “secondly, is this the only reason why you called me? because i’m pretty sure your family has their own lawyer to speak to.”

he was never hers. 

not then, not now, not ever. 

yet, seven years later, she’s still incapable of looking at him without the tremendous agony of inexplicable endings weighing down on her chest. seulki knows that she should let bygones be bygones, make peace with the bitterness - hearts have been maimed for less, there isn’t anything of substance that she can cling onto, save the trifling memories of a few fleeting months. yet, yoojung still holds her heart in the palm of his hands and every year, she still mourns the loss of what they could’ve been. the ghost of his tenderness haunts her; and the traces of his gentle touches still linger on her skin. 

sure, there have been other people: he who shall not be named who spurred her into perfervid sins that could last a lifetime. jaerim, who makes her taste the sweetest of nights and the most acerbic of words - the intensity of emotions unparalleled by anything in life. but they aren’t yoojung; no, they could never be yoojung. yoojung with entrancing whispers and unsullied affection, that for once, made her believe that she could be a good person. yoojung, who held her with no qualms about her indiscretions, smiled at her like he meant it. yoojung, who was hers and only hers. 

the worst part of it all is that she holds no understanding of what really happened. it’d been a rose-tinted reverie until a cruel, piercing silence roused her into a reality. it’d taken place a few days after his scandal had broken out. in a fit of despaired heroism, she’d even yielded to her father, pleaded and begged if he could do anything for him. seulki, who’d had lived eighteen years playing an unceasing game of power with her father, conceded all for a boy to shatter what little she had left of her heart. discarded her, as though she'd been a besmirched stain on his future. (her father never lets her live it down. looks at her with disdain, almost as though he sees her mother in her.) 

the logical and rational part of her knows that walking away is the only recourse left. let him be nothing but a stranger whose laugh she can vaguely recognize. but logic and reason be damned; they’d waned the moment yoojung told her that she was the most beautiful girl in the room with a kind of warmth she never knew was possible. truthfully, fate has always been a foolish, laughable notion to seulki; an illusion of hope for those without the money or privilege to buy. but for yoojung, seulki lets herself believe in the fallacy of fate, lets her shoulder brush across his in crowded rooms and lets herself wonder if this time, he’ll turn around. 

it’s a friday, five pm when he invites her to a cafe the next morning. it’s definitely not the first time they’ve shared a conversation since the fallout; seoul is compact, but the elite circle is even smaller. they’ve exchanged niceties, but never in a private setting like this. once again, as with all matters relating to yoojung, without the application of logic and reason, she goes. and when she sees him again, there’s a flutter in her chest; as though little bird wings are trapped between her chest. as though he hadn’t cracked something deep in her lungs in two. 

for brief moment, when he speaks, she does regain her senses. even feels a surge of anger. seryung, yoojung, all the fucking same. unresolved finales, silence for how ever long it benefits them, coming back in her life as though nothing changed and they hadn’t been the catalyst for the worst fucking year of her life. seulki can only stare incredulously at him, wills herself not to throw the glass of water into his fucking face. “yoojung,” she starts, voice neutral. eyes void of any feelings. “first off, i’m in law school. i’m not qualified to give you advice, and i won’t because there’s a likelihood that you could sue me. and i don’t think i would like to take that risk.” 

smiles blithely. “secondly, is this the only reason why you called me? because i’m pretty sure your family has their own lawyer to speak to.”

[16lies]

seulki has always been fond of pretty things; to collect them in a treasure chest, showcased for her eyes only. sometimes, for prettier things, seulki takes irreverent pleasure in watching how far they’d go for her, how much they’d take from her before they break. 

it goes without saying that ki raon is undoubtedly one of the prettiest things seulki has ever laid her eyes on. she gifts seulki cocky grins; all insolent and brash, as if she holds diamonds between her lips, as if a prize seulki should be honored to win. bites at her with a ferocity that no one has ever had. and oddly enough, there’s something inexplicably tantalizing about a girl with unabashed rage. 

it’s all for her to witness when she steps into the bar, stilettos clicking against the grimy floor, celine jacket draped around her shoulders, the scent of honeysuckle and plush rose trailing behind. as anticipated, raon fires at her - all stray bullets, and tempestuous lambasting. maybe, if it had been anyone else, seulki would’ve been struck by aggravation but because it’s raon, every drop of fury prickles at her skin, an electrifying spark. how exhilarating. after all, they’d just fucked a few times; it wasn’t as though seulki had promised her sweet nothings and sweeter gifts. (the more inordinate the response, the more seulki has to relish.) 

an idle smile, tinged with shades of unfeigned amusement, tugs at the corner of her ruby lips. “hi, babe,” she says, all nonchalant ease and elegant saunters. very much unbefitting of a rundown bar and a provoked raon. 

“don’t be so hard on yourself,” she continues, fingers tracing roan’s jawline before resting at her chin. her touch leaves an icy chill, laced with poison; inconspicuous but potent enough to kill. raon made her bed when she let seulki kiss her a month ago. “you’re more than a little fish to me.” 

“and it’s pretty here. it’s not illegal to pick something that’s pretty, isn’t it?”  

[16lies]

[16lies]

for a brief moment, seulki wonders what would happen if she shoved seryung down the stairs. watch as her body crumbles to the ground, all irritatingly flawless chestnut waves splayed on the marbled floor. god, even then seulki is certain that seryung would have fucking otherworldly ability to still look infuriatingly beautiful injured. like some kind of twisted america’s next top model challenge.

but then again, if she did push seryung, for once in her fucking life, seulki could (quite literally) have leg-up on her and maybe this time, she could weave a truthful account of how only one person had gotten hurt. and unlike the past few years - at least this time, it wouldn’t have been her. 

but she doesn’t. of course, she doesn’t. seulki fights wars with glacial smiles and even colder acts of senseless stabs in the back. and well, seulki isn’t eight anymore. (back then, during their rose-coloured days, they would laugh about it because seulki did push seryung down the stairs in a fit of rage when seryung wore that lime green dress better than she did. yet, even at eight years old, seryung had a disproportionate amount of grace and poise. she didn’t cry. just stood up, giggled, wrapped her arms around seulki. seulki has hated her ever since.)

so, seulki smothers seryung’s excruciating enthusiasm with a vacant smile. lets seryung press her cherry-scented lips against apathetic cheeks. “that’s okay,” she replies, voice impassive (sounds more like a ‘fuck off’, really. not that it would rattle seryung.) glazed eyes wander across the room - seryung isn’t worth the price of her attention, she’d sold it off the moment she let seulki speak to an automated voice seven years ago. arms crossed, taut, against her chest as if a safeguard against seryung’s uncomfortable exuberance. “things have been crazy for a long time, haven’t they?” 

she’d sworn off trying to discern the workings of seryung’s minds a long time ago, but somehow, seryung always brings the worst in her. what the fuck did she think would happen? did she think that the basis of their friendship had been so intrinsically associated with fights that she could waltz back here after seven years of silence and perform the same routine? maybe, if it had been seven days and not seven years, seulki could’ve been more forgiving. but time has done nothing but let the wounds fester and resentment brew, and now, seryung’s laughter sounds like nails against a chalkboard and seulki almost winces - but years of secondhand embarrassment watching her mother grovel at the feet of the elite has taught her better. 

stares blankly at seryung instead. doesn’t even offer her the privilege of a scoff. “sorry,” she replies, not an ounce of remorse in her voice. “i’m really busy these days. maybe you can leave a voicemail?”