hgriohxxxxx - Tumblr blog

[hgriohxxxxx]

minjoon‌

“me?” he cocked his head to the side. jeon minjoon’s actions actually catching up and tearing down what was left of that image his parents had so carefully crafted? unheard of. “never, somehow i always get away. seoul pd must be busy.” he didn’t mind admitting that much, even if it was through the guise of a joke.  “you could call them, turn me in – it would make things fair.” he relaxed now, shifting into a far more comfortable position and letting the background chatter drown out the worries. 

so the words just appear on his lips before he can grab on to them. “i didn’t think you would, but – i’m glad you showed up.”

“nobody can seem to.” rioh pairs it with a smile, and it looks pleasant enough. the way his voice sounds is pleasant enough, too. a near-inaudible strain and the flex of his jaw before he he distracts himself with his coffee. it’s something that grates even when it has no right to. of course everyone expects it out of him, and who is rioh without the ice? that career robbed from him and he wouldn’t be anywhere near where he is. an office worker instead, maybe. and would that be any better? he chews at his straw again, a quiet contemplation. eventually, he lifts his shoulders at the question. not because he doesn’t care, necessarily, it’s just that he doesn’t want to talk about it. not here anyway, and not with minjoon.

instead, rioh deflects. angles it back on minjoon and cracks a smile at his answer. “practically infamous.” he decides, his own posture loosening as minjoon sinks back into his chair. “i could, you’re right. shouldn’t you be offering me something so i’ll keep my mouth shut?” he jabs his straw around at the contents of his glass. mostly so he can keep his hands busy, though it’s not really a conscious decision. 

once new glassware comes out, he’s redirected. makes sure there’s enough split between them -- though he drinks this distraction down. he figures minjoon will follow suit. 

it’s more sentimental than he expected, what minjoon says next. rioh’s not entirely sure how to respond. how he wants to respond. so he drinks a little more instead, until the orange juice rubs a little too acidic at the back of his throat, and he has to muffle a small cough into his sleeve.

“i mean, yeah.” his voice comes out rough, and he clears it once before he continues. “of course i would, i mean. we were...friends” -- and that word hands like a near-question -- “for so long...just...” another shrug, and he knocks a nail against the mostly-emptied cup. listens to the crystalline ring of it. “you know. why wouldn’t i come?” if anything, rioh would’ve guessed minjoon would be the more liable party to keep things finished. but he doesn’t voice it, maybe he’s too sober for it still.

recollect.

[hgriohxxxxx]

minjoon‌

a smile, normal and, if anything, not entirely a facade. for a second he’d forgotten he wanted to be here. this was difficult, this was uncomfortable, but it was better than nothing at all. he would take this over radio silence. “oranges are healthy, why not. but don’t make me day drink alone.” minjoon doesn’t think twice about his choice, the bubbly small talk exchanged with the cafe staff, nor the fact that they’ve been here for minutes but had yet to really talk. so he eases into it, as casual as their surroundings. “how have you been?”

rioh hates uncertainty. it’s a little funny how often he finds himself trapped up in it. moments where he’s at a loss for words. stuck in place and unsure of what to do with his hands or his body. and now it feels like uncertainty has pulled up a chair and joined them with how present it feels. like its invited itself into the conversation before it even had a chance to start. rioh bites at the tip of his tongue when minjoon responds. it matches the impersonal feel of rioh’s own statement before. teeth-to-tongue and it stings like a distraction. he knows through experience if he bears down harder it’ll swell and he’ll talk with a lisp for a good hour. he curls his tongue up to press at the roof of his mouth instead. bad habits; rioh often lives in them.

“sure, let’s get a pitcher.” cutting corners on the path leading away from sobriety. and something he hopes will call out toward bygone days where they split too much to drink between them. ended up with slurred words and linked hands and jokes lost in the shadows of a blackout-stupor. but he recalls it with a fondness. the memory sits warm with him, like a sunspot spread out across goose-bumped skin. fights back that flood of trapped up memories. can see the wide span of minjoon’s hands, and it reminds of the way rioh liked to press his thumb in between the jut of his knuckles until minjoon’s lips would twitch in a fond sort of annoyance, and he’d grab at his hand to stop him. rioh’s never been good at asking for what he wants. he just presses bruises into soft spots and hopes he’ll eventually get his way. 

it had worked with minjoon. until it hadn’t.

rioh catches a teardrop of condensation with his thumb. smears a smiley face into the side of glass with it. watches it drip itself into a disapproved sort of frown soon after as he plays catch-up with his thoughts. “i guess alright. mostly the same.” most of what he’s willing to share is the same, at least. “just skating, really. did alright in canada a few weeks ago. bronze.” even as he says it like a triumph, rioh’s nose curls in distaste. like he hates himself for it. “what about you, manage to get arrested yet?” the corners of rioh’s lips twitch up; sly, like a fox nosing out a burrow of rabbits. it feels almost like a throwback. and it had been part of the reason rioh had been drawn to him in the first place. he always sort of liked the way trouble made his heart race. the quick pull of it that shot adrenaline off through his veins like a drug. made everything seem less rote. like he might’ve actually enjoyed the experience of living. 

“or have you learned to pick better hobbies by now?”

the way rioh says it makes it sound like he hopes he hadn’t.

recollect.

[hgriohxxxxx]

「PORTRAIT」

[hgriohxxxxx]

recollect.

@hgminjoon​ / mid-morning, cafe.

underneath his tongue rioh tastes the blunt tang of pepper. the kind of taste that tickles at the tip of his nose. he grinds the gum between his molars to release more nicotine. essentially futile, but he can at least tell his coach he’s been trying harder without lying entirely through his teeth. the server rounds on his table twice before minjoon finally slinks in, an alley-cat creep and rioh can’t really figure out if he’s offended by all the natural light or just wary of this entire situation. maybe it’s just his face. it’s been too long now for rioh to have a straight read on him -- and did he ever, or did rioh just like pretending he did? probably the latter. 

he takes a bitter sip of the americano in front of him. the ice has melted into a pebbled mess, but at least it means it’s easier to drink down. “i didn’t get you anything.” rioh’s voice sounds bland as he stirs his ice chunks around with the end of the straw. he knows minjoon’s old habits, what he’d order at a cafe, or a bar. the kind of food he’d crave at two in the morning when they were both drunk and starved. but it’s been a long enough time now that it might’ve changed. and he’d been late, anyway. by now rioh’s had punctuality pounded into him. late to practice when he was young and he’d regret it half an hour in, and then later back at home.it’s hard not to show up to things ten minutes early nowadays.

rioh wonders, abstractly, if this is nice. seeing him. chews at the tip of his straw as minjoon folds into the chair opposite him. rioh flicks the menu his way with a finger. it does feel nice, in a way. a reunion. some part lost, missed. but not entirely found. it’s different now, between them. it’s impossible not be different with the way everything fell apart. but he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t miss minjoon’s presence in his life. if that initial collapse and wave of anger and immolation didn’t leave him feeling a strange, overwhelming shade of lonely. the kind he kept to himself. he’d always sort of assumed that in the end they’d gone scorched-earth on everything between them. rioh almost unhinges his jaw and lets leave a misplaced sentiment of ‘i’ve missed you, you know.’ but he doesn’t. it’s for the best, the fact that he wants to already leaves him swimming in feelings of idiocy. 

“they have mimosas.” rioh informs him when the quiet starts to feel physical. falls back on that shared hobby of drinking and -- in rioh’s case -- using it as an excuse to open himself up.

[hgriohxxxxx]

secrets.

@hgjaesung / late afternoon, rioh’s apartment.

there’s a strange feeling that comes with keeping so much of his life hidden behind the veil. a necessary sort of thing. not only for his own career, but taehwan’s too. and there’s more, of course. past that. feelings and anxieties and injury. desperate, ugly sorts of moments. the kind you bury and are left to rot. because nobody wants to see it. everyone likes pretty things. so that’s what rioh shoots for. but it feels heavier, lately. things between him and taehwan. heavy enough that he doesn’t want to continuously carry it around by himself. so here he is, with jaesung sitting in his apartment, drink in hand. rioh takes a sip -- “we haven’t talked in a while” -- and tests the waters.

he trusts jaesung, trusts him more than most people. he wouldn’t be playing out the potential for conversation in his head if he didn’t. rioh sighs, tips himself to the side and lets his temple rest against the edge of his couch, back fit to the armrest so he can face jaesung. “about like. i don’t know. important shit.” start. stop. start. rioh has a tendency of chopping up his sentences into tiny, fragmented pieces when he’s unsure of what to say. and sometimes when he isn’t. he’s not sure he’d ever consider himself to be well spoken. 

rioh balances the glass against the edge of his knee. watches light fracture out from the angled surface. rioh doesn’t really like opening up like this. pulling focus in on himself. it has this overbearing sense of awkwardness to it. and maybe that’s why he has such trouble maintaining lasting friendships. “how has work and everything been going?” he knows enough to know jaesung isn’t immensely pleased with how the dominoes are falling. that’s somehow easier to talk about than himself.

“my coach has been fucking annoying lately,” it’s an easier lead to pull with. “and stuff.” he stretches a leg across the cushions to prod at jaesung’s leg with his toes. 

[hgriohxxxxx]

soohyngs‌

she merely shrugged at his question. soohyang never thought she’d go back to skating but here she was. it was true what they say, old habits did die hard. she found herself itching to be on the ice again, itching for the feeling of emptiness as she glided on her skates. “it seems like my body missed the feeling of landing on the ice. a reminder that the world was a cold place indeed,” she sighed dumping her bag on the floor beside her before sitting down to put on her skates. it obviously wasn’t a good day for her. “you finished your training?” she asked, looking up at him as she laced up her skates. “sad someone won’t be whopping my ass today then.”

there’s a shift to things, isn’t there, when a change happens? something popped out of a place. like a creaky joint put under too much pressure. displaced. and even when the doctor cracks it back where it belongs, it always feels just a little bit funny. starts to ache when it’s about to rain. the same goes, rioh thinks, for relationships. it might be nice to slide back into what they were. erase over their history and apparent problems. those bitter feelings it dragged up alongside it. like submerged skeletons from a bracken pond, something rioh doesn’t enjoy facing. maybe if he were a better person. 

if he were a better person he could forgive, or forget, or whatever slogan people like to sling around like it’s easy. but it’s not easy. it feels the same way as when he fucks up in front of someone important, someone who expects something from him. that wash of shame. soaked in it, and it’ll eventually just turn him angry and trembling. it’s hard to jump that hurdle; when someone cuts at ties and casts away riding on an explanation that he just made them worse. it’s the kind of thing that never really leaves. stowed in that box reserved for what-ifs and humiliations that tend to be ruminated on at three in the morning, sleep nowhere to be found.

but he’s here pretending anyway. out of hope, or to save face. he can’t make ends of it either. despite the stiff way he curls his fingers and prods his nails into his palm. a nervous translation of energy. it sounds like a quote, what she says, and so rioh arches a brow. “movie?” he wonders, because at least that’ll push them into a vague direction of conversation. “yeah, for today.” they were friends long enough to where she’d been witness to his choppy schedule. one that consisted of skating and gaps of time reserved for all other things. socialization only sometimes managed to sneak its way in.

“that six year old could give you a run for your money.” he nods his head out toward the rink, a general guess at an age as he watches a girl wobble her way across the ice. leaves it up to soohyang whether she wants to take it for the joke he meant it as or an insult. “what’ve you been up to?” rioh asks when the quiet creeps up on him. he can’t quite figure out what constitutes as rude between them anymore. 

jilted.

[hgriohxxxxx]

minho

the elevator doors open fully, so minho takes initiative and exits first. the color changing LED lights and pounding music from behind one of the unit doors a dead giveaway for where they’re headed. “do you even know these people?” minho doesn’t really want to know the answer, but he asks anyway as they get closer. rioh wasn’t one to care about the details, it was the booze that mattered most. the other probably didn’t even know whose party it is…which really only confirms minho’s prediction that south korea’s treasured figure skater would eventually end up at the bottom of the ocean. reason? son rioh hangs around shady strangers too often for nothing to happen.

— 

rioh likes minho, though if anyone were to ask why and where the similarities lie it’d become a physical study in watching how long someone can pointedly pick at their nails until they finch at the blood and use it as an excuse to remove themselves from a situation and find a band-aid. in minho’s defense, that’s how rioh would act at the question for most people. he’s bad at pointing out reasons, and usually it boils down to a feeling. and it’s hard to translate feelings into words -- it always has been for rioh anyway. 

because sure, minho’s here looking thoroughly done with rioh and they’ve only come face to face five seconds ago. but rioh still likes him, even if it means he has to half-drag him off when he’s caught up in a frantic state of mind and in need of an outlet to pour that manic sort of energy into. he can’t explain it, it just is. maybe minho gets it too. maybe that’s why he follows him onto the elevator and waits. doesn’t prod at buttons until it releases him before he reaches that threat of a good time. 

“you have so much money that i’m never buying myself food for myself around you, like, ever.” rioh decides as he tugs out his phone to peer at the screen. swipes away a few messages before it disappears back into his pocket. a jagged crack on the face of it, shattered out like a spiderweb. had forgotten to take it out of his pocket before he landed wrong on the ice. he hasn’t gotten around to buying a new one. “fine, make sure i don’t make any bad decisions if you want to be my designated chaperone.” this time it’s rioh’s turn to roll his eyes. it’s often difficult to find enough empathy to see things from minho’s particular point of view. mostly because minho’s particular point of view tends to be boring as fuck, and rioh wants no part in this. something he’s said to minho’s face at least twice -- once while drunk. 

“kind of?” rioh offers when they reach the door and are let inside. that essentially means no, but it sounds softer this way so rioh leaves it well enough alone. he can tell minho’s on his heels as he wanders around looking for drinks. easy enough to find, and he turns back to minho as he drinks down a mouthful. “you want like...water?” rioh plants an elbow to the counter as he says it, grins behind the edge of the glass before he takes another sip. “are you at least going to dance with me later, or is that a drunk only invitation?”

restless.

[hgriohxxxxx]

taehwan

tonight is not the night to be stubborn, manager’s words scoffed away as taehwan changes into something that doesn’t smell of airport sweat. works him out of the door as quickly as he can before flinging open his suitcase and fishing out the gift he had bought for rioh. he had sought it out with care, clings it to his chest as he travels a floor down. for the first time that night doubt threads through his veins, lip caught between a set of teeth as he rings the door to rioh’s place.

“can we please not fight tonight?”

⁠—

taehwan’s parting message barely slips through the cracks, but rioh doesn’t bother acknowledging it. just follows the familiar path to his front door, keys in the same code, and kicks off his shoes without pausing to set them in place on the rack. it’s a flurry of belongings winged into corners. a violent clack of metal and his car keys sliding across the kitchen counter, nearly toppling over the opposite end. his guts feel all twisted up and wrong. like his stomach might’ve drifted up near his sternum. his lungs in partial protest. he just knows it makes him feel sick. the kind of sick that he chalks up to his own fault. his therapist has other opinions, but when rioh’s gone and hit the floor (so to speak), he has a hard time remembering them. mostly it’s just a wad of angry panic and self-doubt, but it’s always been easier to get angry than to sit down and figure it all out.

so he doesn’t. 

instead rioh smokes out on his balcony. he’s carefully considering a second. lets it twist between his fingers. his thumb perched on the top of his lighter, tapping it into near-life. but that’s when the bell-chime sounds around the place. it's hushed behind the glass panel of the sliding door. he taps his fingers in a five-drum beat against the cement under him before rioh pulls himself upright and back inside. he pauses opposite the door. it wouldn’t seem like there’s any real reason for it to a spectator. rioh just draws his lower lip in between his teeth and chews, like he might’ve mistaken it for gum. mostly he’s just wondering if his actions will have consequences, if he’ll open the door and invite in a fight.

 but if he just keeps standing there and waiting for the inevitable, taehwan will just jab at the bell again. and then the anger is guaranteed. and rioh had gone and started it anyway. so he twists the door handle and lets it swing out. the relief is physical when taehwan speaks. rioh’s shoulders relax, and his stomach settles back down where it belongs. he waits for taehwan to get all the way inside, for the door to click shut and hide them both before he reaches out to touch. fingers climbing up taehwan’s forearms to find perch near his biceps, his head dropped to taehwan’s shoulder.

“yeah, i’m sorry.”

and he means it. sometimes he doesn’t. sometimes rioh grits out sorry’s between clenched teeth, and they sound like something left old and rotting. but not tonight. it’s tugged out from his chest and laid out in a soft whisper tucked into taehwan’s neck. “i just missed you.” rioh isn’t sure if it’s meant to be an explanation or an excuse, but he leaves it up to taehwan. his arms creep higher, enough to wind them around taehwan’s neck -- catches him in an embrace. he lets him go again once breathing starts to feel a little easier. 

“come on, it’s mostly clean.” he means his apartment as he drops his hold and retreats deeper inside.

sleepwalking.

[hgriohxxxxx]

jilted.

@hgsoohyngs / skate rink, evening.

people say that there’s a certain comfort to be found in workout-prompted exhaustion. all those endorphins released and swimming in some chemically induced euphoria. the sleepy trip of muscles and tired limbs. rioh expands past this. feels the ache of bruises buried deep under his skin and tucked against bones. the evidence of jumps tried, because it’s impossible to land them all. it doesn’t matter how good you are. the ice is unforgiving. curls his toes with cold and leaves him hunched up in the shower. re-remembering how to breathe without the spastic flutter of overworked lungs and the dregs of a smoking habit he can’t lay to rest. waiting for the feeling of frost to chip from his skin and melt into a swirling puddle at the drain.

he finds comfort in it because it allows him to enter a stasis of nothingness. his brain stretched into a sticky, taffy film that leaves no function for him to overthink through a lens of anxiety. about his competitions or friends or conversations he hasn’t yet responded to trapped up in is phone. and he knows he can run on autopilot into the front seat of his car, heat cranked up high enough that he’s sweating by the time he makes it back to his building. can tangle himself up in knotted sheets and find himself again in the morning. or, that’s what he usually does. this time rioh steps out of the locker room to what should be a usual enough sight. clusters of people after they’ve opened the rink up for a free skate. only this time he catches the profile of someone he’s not sure if he’s in the mood to see.

not sure if he’ll ever be in the mood to see.

but at the moment he’s busy pretending he is, and so rioh stops when he sees soohyang. she has a bag slung over her own shoulder, and it pushes an obvious question “skating again?” they haven’t kept up enough for rioh to know in that concrete way. and he could make it sound like a fact, like common knowledge if he wanted to. it’s obvious. but he lets it hang from that ledge of uncertainty, as if to emphasize their subsequent falling out. his hesitance to push himself into the same mindset of their past friendship. what’s the point? he only has so much effort he’s willing to give.

[hgriohxxxxx]

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness. And yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

Frédéric Chopin (via quotemadness)

[hgriohxxxxx]

ghost.

@hgbomin / party, late.

it’s the middle of one of those in-betweens. where everything seems to be positioned not quite right. taehwan’s busy, there’s an awkward span of time before his next competition, and making friends far more famous than he’ll ever be proves problematic when none of them pick up their phones. an exciting beginning to the night that’s led him here. a house party he’d found out through word of mouth. had immediately swallowed down many of the pre-mixed cocktails scattered in a bougie fashion across the marbled counter. done an attempt to stop feeling so very in-between. rioh would rather feel like enough. 

but the company is vague. a swarm of do i know you’s? and then rioh has to spend time figuring out if they’ve bonded out back behind a gas station, chain smoking their way through a pack of cigarettes at three in the morning, drunk enough for faces to be remembered blurred. or else, did they just managed to spot him on tv one day before they flicked it over to something far more entertaining. 

a great way to spend the night.

made greater when a more cognizant acquaintance comes into view. backed into a corner like a maimed deer and it’s made apparent that rioh’s use of the word entertainment is entirely sarcastic. “bomin,” he says anyway when bomin stops in front of him. the name works its way casually off the end of rioh’s tongue, like he hadn’t hit ignore the last time bomin called him, like he hadn’t opted to leave his last three texts on read. in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? rioh feels very deeply that he doesn’t matter much to bomin either, found in the way where he’s not even sure what they are. they sidestep the label of friends, are far from the idealized concept of lovers. at best, rioh is (was) a well-kept secret pulled out when they’re both bored and lonely enough that vodka can no longer fix it. must be used as lubrication to smooth the way into making bad life choices instead. 

he’s a little surprised bomin’s not attempting to shove them both into a linen closet, just to cover up all that paranoia of people potentially spotting them and jumping to conclusions in a jack-rabbited frenzy. maybe it’s coming next. rioh has no idea what to say, and so he settles on neutrality. 

“having fun?”

[hgriohxxxxx]

「 WANT MV MAKING 」

[hgriohxxxxx]

taehwan‌

he’d rather chase something permanent. doesn’t waste a minute to claim what’s his as soon as it’s appropriate to do so. radiating possessiveness as taehwan curls his arms around rioh’s slim body, nose nuzzling his neck to breath in his smell. it might be his sweater but it doesn’t quite smell like him anymore. “hmm, it looks good on you.” but the sentiment is too short-lived, chuckles dulling down in acrimony as the reality of their situation sinks in. “you know he will ask questions, ri. he’s not going to stop calling if he doesn’t know where i am.” he shares rioh’s disdain, wishes he didn’t have to go spend another minute with his manager but it was a small sacrifice for a whole night of peace. “look, i’ll get rid of him as quickly as i can, okay?” words spoken in a rush as eyes momentarily fleet to the elevator doors. they were almost at his floor. “i promise to make it up to you.”

being with taehwan sometimes feels like being in a relationship with a gashapon machine. spare change has to be collected, time allotted, and then rioh has to stand and wait for an opaque capsule to wind it’s way down a plastic shuttle with a cheap surprise. finally, he cracks it open and collects his reward. a face-time call, a jet lagged week of rest (read: not at all rest) in between a concert and a new promotional cycle, a non-date spent crammed in one of their apartments because the repercussions of it getting out for either of them would amount to some form of career suicide. not that it all comes back to taehwan. he’s just forced far deeper in the realm of psychotic celebrity than rioh will ever be. outlined by the fact that rioh’s shuffling himself on a plane soon, too. mismatched, and rioh sometimes wonders if it helps or hinders their relationship. all that time apart doesn’t leave them with the chance to get sick of each other. an experimentation in distance and the concept of fond recollection. 

but the thing about a recollection is that there’s no present to sully those memories. but now the present is standing in front of him, reminding rioh just how much he hates certain aspects of taehwan’s career. it starts off nice. disappearing space and taehwan burying his way into rioh’s body. head tucked away in his neck while rioh eyes the numbers of the elevator as they climb their way to higher floors. waits for that symbolic alarm, when the door dings open and he’ll nudge taehwan away before anyone can think they might’ve spotted them together like that. wandering lips and the possessive curl of fingers digging under the hem of taehwan’s shirt is -- perhaps -- harder to play off as pure skinship to anyone brandishing a phone camera.

“turn off your phone.” rioh omits the ‘fucking’ he wants to slot in between ‘your’ and ‘phone’. he’s trying to head off the threat of an argument. two minutes into seeing each other doesn’t seem like a good run time. despite it, there’s an evident strain to his tone. an abundance of patience has never been a tool in rioh’s arsenal. but then it’s settled, in the sort of way where taehwan decides what he’s going to do and rioh’s made sour on it. he untangles his fingers and shrugs taehwan off his shoulder. a coincidental match-up as the number creeps higher toward it’s destination.

“mm, right. can’t wait, gonna sign my skates?” rioh shakes at the strap of his own duffel bag, manages to translate sarcasm into something physical before he slides out past him and onto his floor. “if it’s after midnight don’t bother, i have practice in the morning.” he says it toward the closing doors, isn’t sure if his words get clipped off by the metal snap and whir of cables as they drag taehwan one floor higher. rioh chews at the edge of his thumbnail as he keys the code to his apartment, scatters his belongings with all the force of an emotionally dejected hurricane.

sleepwalking.

[hgriohxxxxx]

flight risk.

@hgyeojin / psychiatrist’s office, late evening.

there’s an intense and sometimes overbearing pressure that comes attached to being a professional athlete. sports that are packaged up by countries, nationalism held under a banner of good sportsmanship -- but then by the end of the event everyone’s ripping into the bias of judges and wondering exactly how much the price tag was to pay them off. at least in rioh’s sport of choice. it’s harder to pick a decisive winner when there’s no goals to score. hard to compete if you land wrong on a quad and crack a bone, rip a muscle. not that he’s been seriously injured yet. but it’s the running commentary of worry that morphs into anxiety. it’s normal, you know his coach had told him, once he’d progressed enough to hire one of those big time types who’d been training kids up to the olympics for years. it’s normal for athletes like you to have a therapist. 

and it is. but it still feels like too much. and maybe like he’s unwilling to share the entirety of what’s scrambled up in his head. the full extent of his own half-cocked coping mechanisms that sometimes rise up when he deviates off that carefully controlled line and advice given to him by said medical professional. it’s funny how that happens. like walking on a bed of glass when someone’s standing to the side and offering shoes. but it looks so shiny and nonthreatening glimmering like dulled tile. 

sometimes rioh doesn’t mind it. talking in length about himself, an upcoming competition, pressure or a miscellaneous worry of the day. and sometimes he does. like now. he’s annoyed, and he’s worried. and he doesn’t want to talk about it. he wants to shove it into the back of his head behind cobwebbed memories and forcibly-forgotten humiliations and leave them there. perhaps indefinitely. it explains the spastic tapping of his heel to the floor, fast enough that it shakes at the spindly-legged chair he’s perched on. early, too. he’s been watching the clock tick down. it’s a tactic. come early enough before you convince yourself out of it, and then you’re stuck. like feet to a tar pit, forced into forming healthy coping mechanisms. 

but tar’s no match for jeon yeojin. rioh lifts his brows when she spots him, tips his head to the side, a non-verbal offering of the chair next to him. “you soon?” he means her appointment. sloughs out a sigh and lets himself melt into the chair. bad enough posture that he feels nearly guilty for it. “i want to smoke,” rioh cranes his head off toward the door, ignores the knowledge that he has a still-unopened pack of nicotine gum in the car. maybe those healthy coping mechanisms haven’t quite seeped in yet.

[hgriohxxxxx]

restless.

@hgminho / late, house party.

there’s a wide range that can define a party. there’s the kind filled with people to be and business exchanges played off like conversations. there are dinner parties. drawn together in groups of four-to-ten where the laughter accompanying vacation stories starts to sound less forced after everyone’s fourth glass. and then there’s the kind of parties that rioh likes best. held in the penthouse of a trust fund kid and enough booze that nobody eyes you funny when you sneak a bottle on the way out the door. there are a few perks to being someone with a name that can be searched up on naver. rioh considers this to be one of them.

sometimes he likes playing the role of a transient. threading himself into things and disappearing when the mood strikes him. but not always. as much as rioh’s found a reputation in mostly keeping to himself, being a little too sharp, it doesn’t mean he hates it. company. and sometimes it bears down on him a little harder. when it seems like too many people in his life are whisked away and busy. and then comes that tight flutter in his chest, where everything starts to feel just a little...much. he feels it now. rioh’s planning on drinking enough that he stops noticing it. but at the moment he’s still sober, so it explains the reason he’d wheedled minho over the phone into coming over to his apartment. 

there clearly wasn’t a plan to stay long (granted, a plan he hadn’t bothered sharing). minho knocks, rioh yanks it open, jams a second foot into a shoe, and slips out next to minho. shoulder to shoulder and his door beeps after him, hears the whirring click of the lock sliding back into place. minho doesn’t know him well enough to know the code. joke’s on him. “let’s go.” rioh says, like minho’s part of the conversation. he isn’t, but rioh walks off anyway, toward the elevator. “don’t make that face, it’s just a party. i’ve been stir crazy.” instead of the ground floor, rioh jabs at a button somewhere near the top. “i made sure there were enough politicians’ kids there that pictures won’t get out, stop.” rioh holds up a hand between them, so he can block off minho’s eyes and the angled line rioh imagines he’s pulled his brows into. he slivers two of his fingers open to take a peek at him while the elevator rocks back into motion. 

“it’ll be fun. we’ll have fun. you look like you need it too.”

he closes his fingers again, just in case minho’s face wads up into anger. rioh’s not in the mood for that.

[hgriohxxxxx]

taehwan‌

taehwan follows rioh into the elevator. drops his bag into the open space that had been meant for his manager, smiling sweetly as the metal doors ping shut to give the two men some privacy. “you’re wearing my sweater…” taehwan points out, curling his fingers around the strings that hang from the hood before pulling gently to close the space that was left between them. he curls his hands around rioh’s cheeks next and places a quick kiss against his lips. and another one down his jaw soon after. “i missed you too. i wish i could come straight to your place but my manager is on his way up with the next elevator…”

rioh gets it because he needs to. because he lives through it within his own life. a minimum bar for hours practiced every day, competitions he’s shuttled overseas for. the fact that his career is often held up like the most important thing in his life. without skating, who is son rioh? he can’t imagine it. but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t leave him feeling that lonely sort of ache when taehwan’s whisked away for too long. like standing in the middle of an old building lost to winter. drafty, hollowed out, and the feeling of frost sticking to the soles of his feet. cold and empty. but then, that’s nearly a staple to rioh’s life. so he continues on the same way he alwaysy does. might occasionally click open a news article or video clip. watches taehwan in his glittering stage makeup and a perfectly choreographed routine designed to entrance an audience.

half the time rioh’s not sure whether it makes him feel better or worse. he likes it more when he can catch taehwan in a gapped hour, a video call on kakao with his face pressed into the sheets trying hard not to fall asleep mid-conversation. it just feels more intimate. and intimacy is something craved when there’s jealousy curdling in rioh’s gut.

it’s better when they’re together. mostly, anyway. at the very least, rioh has a tendency of only remembering the good about it when taehwan’s travelling. or he is. an awkward dance where they keep missing each other by half a step. maybe if they’re lucky it’ll keep their relationship trapped in that technically honeymoon stage for just a bit longer. 

so he missed him, when taehwan was away. of course he did. missed the weight of his hands and the way he’d pretend he wasn’t staring under the shaggy mess of his bangs. but he thinks they must’ve cut his hair when he was away. can see it when he gets close enough. it’s funny, sometimes. like a game. spotting what they’ve changed about taehwan’s appearance in their absences. the joyless kind of funny. still, he missed him. misses him. even with taehwan in front of him and rioh’s finger skating across his wrist. it’s stupid. doesn’t make sense. but there’s still that resounding ache that he can’t seem to dislodge from his chest.

locked in the elevator, and the space between them diminishes. “it’s a nice sweater.” a reasonable sort of answer, but the smile rioh offers shares sentiments his words don’t. he kisses him back. something brief, and chased with a statement rioh doesn’t really care to hear. “doesn’t he know your code? just come over. he’s just dropping off luggage, right?” it’s a guess. he pulls back enough to eye him. doesn’t untwist his fingers from the hem of taehwan’s shirt. “it’s not like he knows my place. who cares?” rioh has a certain amount of derision for the intricate way management seems to twine into his taehwan’s life. like the roots of unwanted weeds.

sleepwalking.

[hgriohxxxxx]

sleepwalking.

@hgtaehwan / late evening.

when he breathes in, rioh’s lungs burn. a mix of stiff, artificial cold and exertion. he doesn’t stop his practice, though. there’s no time to. in a week he’ll head off to canada for worlds. people used to tell him that over time he wouldn’t keep feeling so anxious when a big competition crept up on him. rioh thinks they do it on purpose, so you keep on trying and trying in an attempt to get it to fade. he always feels anxious. that trip of adrenaline in his stomach, chomping at the bit like a race-crazed thoroughbred. but he still has a week. a week to try and reach perfection. that ultimate goal, unattainable. sisyphus, doomed to keep pushing and pushing. watching himself tumble back down flat when he thinks he’s reached a milestone. 

rioh stops when a maintenance worker complains that it’s sunday, that he needs to lock up. with reluctance, he peels himself from the ice. wishes he could leave his legs behind, like a fly pried off a glue-trap. there’s no time to unravel in the locker room. a shower to warm feeling back into his limbs, until he feels lukewarm. he’s pretty sure that’s going to be the upper limit of his day. lukewarm. 

he jams half a granola bar into his mouth and swallows down the almond shards of it with the rest of his water bottle in the front seat of his car. it’s practical -- the car and the granola bar. the rest of it gets shoved unceremoniously in his console, the wrapper folded over enough that it’s half hidden. he’ll be likely to forget about it. throw it out two weeks later along with a few crushed cigarette packs and a box of nicotine gum (guess who’s winning?). rioh rests his cheek briefly on his bicep before starting the car, hand clutching at the wheel. it’s taehwan’s sweatshirt, but it doesn’t smell like him anymore. he’d cycled it through the wash. now it’s what downy decides sunshine smells like.

rioh knows taehwan’s supposed to be getting in today. but he doesn’t know when. the last time he’d decided to try and wait up for him, but there hadn’t been a point. a congealed waste of hours, and taehwan had gotten in so late it’d turned into morning. so rioh hasn’t been planning on it, seeing him today. but on his way into the building he catches the boxy outline of the van they usually shuttle them around to the airport in skimming the gutter near the car port of their building. he finds taehwan by the elevator with his bag. he can tell taehwan’s already spotted him by the time he makes it close enough for a greeting. “missed you,” it’s nearly inaudible -- mouthed out. rioh skims his index finger against the inner bend of taehwan’s wrist as he slips past him and into the elevator.