#i would give my life for her and by extension for hyeyoon

[crestedpalls]

Time that flows again, that is my gift to you:

She saw him on an advertisement again. Sol was a little sick of seeing his face plastered everywhere, but that wasn't like her. She wasn't a bitter person. She had never been bitter when witnessing another's happiness; she had cried happy tears at Hyunju's wedding, witnessing just how elated her friend was, even if she couldn't quite understand why Im Geum evoked those feelings in her. Im Sol was, in fact, the biggest advocate for grasping your happiness and not letting go. But something about seeing how out of reach Sunjae was in this timeline, with no memories connecting them and no love lost between them, made her not want to see his face.

To be honest, it was more than a little painful for her. This version of her beloved was never her high-school sweetheart, never her college boyfriend, nor was she his unforgettable first love. He was truly a stranger in every sense. She made sure he stayed one. But this was also the face of the man who had held her, confessing he loved her enough to shoulder their fate, the man who wrote a song to express his strong feelings for her—a song that only exists in her memories now. He was the same man who had made her want to live to see another day. He was Ryu Sunjae, but he was not *her* Sunjae.

The plaza buzzed with life around her. Children laughed, street vendors called out, and the faint scent of roasted chestnuts wafted through the air. Yet, Sol stood frozen, her eyes locked on the poster. This Ryu Sunjae did not remember how he used to say her name dripping with tenderness. He did not recall how fond he was of holding her face in his large hands. And to be honest, after fifteen years, Sol found herself forgetting these sensations too. The thought of forgetting terrified her; if she didn’t keep her Sunjae alive in her memories, then he would truly cease to exist. Sol took a shuddering breath at the thought and stood rooted in the plaza, gazing at the advertisement with large, moist eyes.

Sol forced her rooted legs to walk past it. past *him*. With every passing day, a little piece of him disappeared from her memories, and if she didn’t remember him, did his kisses and caresses ever happen? Did his promises and love ever exist? Sol shook her head with a self-deprecating smile. Of course they did not. How selfish of her to want traces of their love to remain when theirs was an ill fate. Should they get involved together, nothing good would follow. Sol resigned herself to this and waited patiently as she reached the crossing. When the light turned green, she would cross to the other side and leave these emotions and complications to deal with another day. She had a job to get through, and remembering an unattainable love would not help her turn in her proposal in time for the meeting.

The crossing light blinked green, and Sol stepped forward, feeling the weight of her emotions with each step. The world continued around her, indifferent to her silent struggle. She glanced back one last time, a silent promise to herself that she would face these memories again, but not today. Today, she had to move forward, one step at a time, even if it killed her inside to do so.

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My first time writing anything for a pairing but I had to to do something because LOVELY RUNNER WAS THE ONLY THING I COULD THINK ABOUT ALL DAY OKAY??? 😭😭😭😭😭

[cheolbooluvr]

the social club - chapter two

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pairing: svt x fem!reader

genre: murder mystery, angst

word count: 3.6k

warnings: graphic depictions and mentions of death, nausea, grief, swearing, our super rich and super bougie ““friends””, and um a cynical view of religion

a/n: it's here! we are getting the ball rolling on this story and honestly, i’m pretty excited. it’s been so nice seeing the feedback and asks to be on the tag list *sobs* thank you for your support thus far, and i rly hope you enjoy this chapter!! any and all feedback is always appreciated <3

tag list: @carat-cakes @lavenderautumnx​ @gyukult​ @wh4txium1n​ @twogyuu @dj-bboo

social club masterlist

my main masterlist ＼ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ／

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↤ chapter one

Dear God,

If you’re out there, why do you hate me? And why the hell would you give me such a shitty acid reflux? Why do I want to throw up so much these days?

Jesus. Oh, shit. Sorry.

It’s a bit of a bad thing when you say the Lord’s name in vain or something, right? Honestly, you weren’t sure, your parents had stopped taking you to church at a young age when they found out the pastor had 1) been cheating on his wife, and 2) embezzling money from the donations they’d ask for every Sunday after service. You didn’t care though because it meant you could sleep in later on Sunday mornings, and you definitely weren’t going to complain about that.

Yet, somehow, maybe you had found your way back into religion, begging to someone, or something, somewhere out there and asking them to get you away from here. Your vision and eyesight became murky, just like the river water that day, the one that kept running, kept flowing, and kept washing her blood and sweat downstream, leaving just her body on the bank. It stopped for no one, not even the dead.

Apparently, neither did the school. It felt like you were the only one who was still mourning her loss, bothered by the fact that someone was found dead on your campus, and not just anyone, not just your best friend and roommate, but the school’s most popular girl and the headmaster’s daughter. Surely, someone else had to have cared the way you did, right?

Blood quickly drained from your face, your skin growing colder and head feeling lighter as if it was pooling at the bottom of your body. Your feet grew heavier and dragged on with every step down the hallway as you did your best to go somewhere, anywhere but here, and fast.

A familiar voice called out to you. You looked up to see a concerned expression, one that belonged to Kwon Soonyoung. “Are you okay?” In your blur, you hadn’t realized that you were gripping onto the edge of the window sill for dear life trying to support yourself. You quickly propped your body up, doing your best to stand up straight, your knees however yielding to gravity as they buckled towards the ground. Soonyoung swiftly grabbed your arms to help you, the skin between his eyebrows creased with worry.

Soonyoung was yet another member of the Social Club, his role being the chair of special events. He was a known party boy and if you wanted to have a good time, you just had to follow the trail to Kwon Soonyoung, the boy with the slit in his eyebrow, an impulsive decision that almost ended with him having no eyebrows at all. Loud and erratic, it was hard to miss his presence no matter where you went. Time after time, you could recognize his maniacal laughter even from across campus, but something about this dude made him… approachable. According to Hyeyoon, his entire birth chart consisted solely of Gemini, and even after she had extensively explained his astrology to you, all you got from it was “he’s fucking crazy.”

“Yeah, basically,” Hyeyoon had said with a shrug, turning around in her swivel chair and shifting her attention back to filing her nails. Though it was also because of this “duality” that you’d later find out contributed to a certain softness to Soonyoung—for instance, right now was a good example. No matter how wild he could be, he cared deeply for those around him and even if the two of you weren’t close, he was never the type to just leave you for dead if you were in need of help, just like you were now.

“I’m fine,” you replied quickly, turning around in hopes that Jun had ignored you and gone inside the room.

Yet, there he was, standing in the doorway just as you had seen him initially, only this time, he was turned toward you, his eyes radiating worry. There wasn’t time for you to dawdle and you stood up hastily, albeit too hastily. The hallway seemed to stretch further the longer you stayed, your head still spinning as you brushed Soonyoung off and pushed past him, going as far as your legs would take you.

The trip back to your dorm was hazy, the walls of the buildings and trees in the courtyard all blending into each other in your mind, but the moment you shut the door to your room, you collapsed onto your bed, wanting nothing more than to be engulfed by your blankets. For the past week or so, your bed had been suffocating as if you were being held down by the shackles of grief and depression, yet right now, in this moment, you were thankful: thankful for its warmth, thankful to be in your half-empty room, and thankful for the bleary ceiling fan that spun over you as if it were hypnotizing you.

You closed your eyes but were suddenly bombarded with memories—memories of your past with…

With Jun.

Things between the two of you were complicated, to say the least. Hyeyoon hadn’t been the first person you knew here at the Academy, but Wen Junhui, your childhood best friend. The two of you had gone to elementary and middle school together, studying your asses off day and night in cram school just to get into this hellhole, though at the time, it seemed like paradise. The only difference was that Junhui’s parents could afford to send him to a school like this, and your parents could not.

Despite going to the same schools and living only mere minutes from each other, you two lived in vastly different neighborhoods. In his neighborhood, the houses were spread far apart, huge in size and newly built. Those houses had two-car garages, looped driveways, kitchens with islands, and bedrooms with walk-in closets. The backyards had green grass and sometimes clear blue pools where you and Junhui would spend your summer days playing.

Meanwhile, a short walk down the road and you would arrive at your house which was attached to two other neighbors and probably about a quarter of the size of Junhui’s. It was smaller and a lot more cramped, your parents always seemed to hoard stuff like plastic bags and containers. It didn’t matter that his house was bigger or fancier, he always preferred to play at your house because it wasn’t as “scary.” His parents were very nice people, and good friends with your parents, but they were often out of town for business, leaving Junhui to stay with you. You’d often have sleepovers and when you were really little, your parents let you sleep in the same bed. But when puberty both started to kick in for you both, they separated you, leaving Junhui to sleep in a guest bedroom instead.

When you both had been accepted into the Academy, you were stoked to be going to high school with your best friend, picturing it’d be just like how it had always been: perfect. Yet it was anything but perfect once you actually got to the school; Junhui was quickly recruited by the Social Club and started going by ‘Jun’ instead, something about how it was less of a mouthful than his full name. You weren’t one to join clubs, but you also weren’t going to stop your best friend from joining one either. Besides, it wouldn’t affect your relationship anyway, right?

But boy, oh, boy, were you wrong. Just so, so wrong. He started spending less time with you and more time doing club activities which, apparently, included flirting with the club’s sweetheart. The sweetheart was a girl who was voted on by the members to be a sort of honorary member because, of course, girls can’t join the club, and that only made the sweetheart role more desirable. Ask any girl at this school, and they’d mention their dream of being crowned the Social Club sweetheart in hopes that the Academy’s most elite boys would shower them in gifts and love. Lucky for Junhui—sorry, Jun—the sweetheart fell for him, and could you blame her? He was sweet, easygoing, funny, kind, and very attractive. During this time, you two had fallen out of touch even though you lived on the same campus, attended the same classes, and passed by each other in the hallways. You had only found out about his relationship when the sweetheart herself burst through your door and announced the news to you.

Opening your eyes, you turned to look at the corkboard on Hyeyoon’s side of the room, your attention first falling on the picture of you two at the school’s summer carnival, and then falling to a photobooth strip of her kissing… Jun.

Yeah, that’s right. Your best friend was dating your, well, best friend. Things got considerably more awkward between the two of you after that; it was hard to hold a conversation when the two of you were alone, something that you had never experienced in the past. Even though dating Hyeyoon meant you could spend more time with him, it wasn’t the same anymore. It was different when there was a third person, and in spite of her best efforts to always make sure you were included when it was the three of you, you just couldn’t help but miss what used to be. And so, at some point, you stopped hanging out with them, making up excuses about having to go study in the library instead of going to the cafe with them for the afternoon. Hyeyoon wasn’t dense, and you were sure she got the idea, and eventually, she stopped asking you to hang out with them.

You felt guilty not telling her about your relationship with Jun, but you also never felt the need to, because by then, they were already in too deep. It was better off for everyone if she didn’t know, and you just wanted to see your best friends be happy. A part of you always wondered if Jun had ever mentioned anything, but judging by the looks of it, it seemed like there was an unspoken agreement on his end to leave the past in the past.

Jun went from being your childhood best friend to just a classmate and then… a stranger. Today was the first time you had seen him since the gala which made your little run-in with him even more difficult to process. You didn’t know what he had thought of all this, if he had mourned the way you had, if he thought of you in the days following. Your mind became clouded with too many ‘what-ifs,’ exhausting you to the point of sleep. At least when you were asleep, you could briefly escape this dark reality.

———

The sunlight was bright today, perhaps a little too bright than it should have been, but that was the least of your worries. You were sitting in an open field of grass, a cool gentle breeze grazing your skin against the warmth of the sun. “Hey, silly! What are you still doing over there?” You turned your head to see a small figure in the distance beckoning you over to her. It was hard to make out who exactly it was, but you could see her smile even from where you were sitting. Your lips stretched across your face into a grin and you stood onto your feet, the wind picking up as you skipped over in her direction, yet as you came closer to her, she started running away from you, her small giggles were familiar and comforting as if you were playing a game.

She led you into a forest, the shade from the trees replacing the heat of the sunlight with a sudden chill that caused goosebumps to form on your skin. You kept trying to catch up to her, but she continued to stray further from you until suddenly you stopped hearing her laughter. The leaves under your feet crunched and when you looked down, you found that you had been barefoot this whole time. Not only that, the leaves had dark spots, as if someone had splattered paint on them. Looking past the few under your feet, you saw that it created a trail even deeper into the trees and so you followed its path. As you continued to pursue this unconventional trail, the sky grew darker and your skin grew colder. Your heart began to palpitate with every step you took until you had reached the end of the flat ground before it tapered harshly downward. At the bottom of the steep hill was a river which you recognized as the one by school. The sound of water gushing filled your ears, and day turned to night in the blink of an eye.

Your attention was suddenly caught by something dark along the bank. You froze, your breathing sped up until it no longer felt like any air would come out—you were now choking, your throat constricting around nothing. Reaching your arm out, you tried to grab for the figure, for her, but she was too far away. Suddenly the ground felt like it was stretching, the distance between you growing at a hyperbolic speed until she was out of sight, the world suddenly black.

———

Your body shot up in a cold sweat, your lungs working double time as you panted, trying to regain some oxygen you had lost in your sleep. There was a quiet, gentle knock on the door. Grabbing your phone, you checked the time. 9:00 AM. The blinds in your room were slightly open, allowing in a bit of sunlight through the cracks.

You threw your legs over the edge of your bed and slipped your feet into your dorm slippers. You opened the blinds fully so that the room would look less like a dungeon and more like, well, anything else. Turning around, you headed to the door to address the source of the knocking. A boy stood outside with his hands behind his back, his eyes elsewhere until he saw your face.

“Hey,” he said with an awkward smile.

“Hey,” you echoed back.

“You kind of look like shit,” he said with a small chuckle.

“Fuck off, Chan.” He was probably right. You weren’t sure what time you had passed out yesterday, but you most certainly had been asleep for well over twelve hours.

Chan also held a position in the Social Club and 17K; his father not only was a member of the board of trustees at the Academy, but also an alum of the club as well which made Chan a legacy. This set him up well to take over once Seungcheol graduated next year. No one would really be able to dispute the appointment, and besides, Chan was an upstanding student—he was diligent in his studies, usually the one to keep you and Seokmin focused on the chapter at hand. Most people would consider him to be “righteous,” the kind of guy who would sit with you at lunch if he saw you sitting alone. And actually, that’s how the two of you met. Hyeyoon had an emergency meeting for debate team, leaving you to eat your school lunch (which, despite going to a rich private school, was absolute shit) alone. How could you say ‘no’ when he flashed his innocent grin at you, asking if he could sit with you? You and Chan were friends, and he was one of the very few people you bothered to associate with at this school. Even though he was the cream of the crop, one of the most elite students, he was still humble and kind, and that’s why the older members of 17K made him the chair of recruitment. It was a job that came easy to him since people were often, if not always, drawn to his boyish charms.

“What are you doing here?” you interrogated.

“Oh, um… this.” Moving his arms from behind him, he revealed a beige A6 envelope with a shimmery red wax seal on it. You took the envelope from him, inspecting the ‘S.C’ on it, wondering what the Social Club could possibly want with, or from, you.

“What’s this?” you asked.

“Jihoon—I mean, we are holding a memorial. You know, for Hyeyoon.”

Your heart dropped hearing her name and ‘memorial’ in the same sentence. “Oh,” was all you could manage in response.

“I—I mean, we would love it if you came. Maybe you could say a few words? We know how close you were with her.”

Your eyes fell on the envelope again, your thumb running over the grooves and ridges of the wax seal. You didn’t know that even something as simple as paper could feel bougie. “Um, y-yeah. Sure. I can do that, I think.”

“You don’t have to,” Chan retorted quickly, “if you don’t want to.”

“No, I-I should go,” you assured him, a gentle smile gracing your face for extra measure.

“Cool. Do you need anything? Besides a shower?”

You smacked him on the arm which elicited a laugh from him, and shook your head. “I’m okay.”

“Okay, well, let me know, alright?”

“Will do, Mr. Legacy.”

“Stop calling me that,” he replied, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth in a frown. It was because of things like this that you appreciated Chan—his status and social standing in life never made you feel lesser because that wasn’t something he wanted to be defined, or confined, by.

“Never,” you teased. “I’ll be there,” you added, raising the envelope.

“Good.” Chan smiled back at you before turning to leave. You were about to shut the door when he stopped in his tracks and turned back around. You raised your eyebrows at him questioningly. “Do you maybe… wanna help with the memorial?”

The joking smile you had on your face quickly went away as you stared at him, unsure of what he just asked you. “Am I allowed to do that?”

He shrugged. “You were her best friend. I don’t see why not.”

“There’s no way the other members are okay with this. Besides, you have Jihoon, Jun, Wonwoo, everyone knows her. What do you need me for?”

“It’s a memorial, not an exclusive club event. The whole school knew her, but nobody knew her like you did.” He had a point, but the idea of having to spend more time than necessary around people like them didn’t sound too appealing.

“Chan, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

His eyebrows turned downward; he was getting frustrated now. “Why not? She was your best friend, wasn’t she?”

“She still is.”

Reality hit and that’s when Chan realized what the problem was.

“She’s dead,” he replied, his voice cold as ice. “Gone. She’s never coming back.”

Chan was sweet, but he wasn’t perfect. He knew the weight his words carried, but being the realist that he was, he couldn’t stand to see you living in some kind of fantasy world where she was still alive.

“Fuck you.” You stepped back and slammed the door on him, turning your back to lean against it as you slumped to the floor. That dull ache returned to your chest as you fiddled with the little beige envelope in your hands. You had half a mind to rip it to shreds, and in fact, you almost did if it weren’t for the picture of Hyeyoon that appeared when you tore the thick paper halfway. You stopped yourself, instead carefully opening the sides of the envelope and pulling out the thick cardstock. She was beautiful, as she always was, and you traced your finger over her long dark hair, your eyes falling to her signature dimple when she smiled. You missed her. You missed the way her eyes would gleam when she saw you in the hallway, and the way her laughter was maniacal but in a cute and endearing way.

Overlaying her photo was her name written in large, gold cursive lettering. It was all becoming too real. Chan was right. She was gone. It had been a traumatizing couple of weeks for you, as it would be for anyone who had lost their best friend, but this memorial was the icing on the cake. Tears gathered in the corner of your eyes, dropping along your cheek and onto the half-torn invitation.

‘You’re invited to celebrate and honor the life of Lee Hyeyoon. May she live on forever in our hearts.’ You couldn’t help but scoff at the last line. Cheesy pricks. This was the best they could come up with?

Breaking your train of thoughts was the sound of your vibrating phone. It was a text from Chan:

I asked the guys. They said it was cool if u helped out. I think u should. Lmk.

Then, another vibration.

Sry abt earlier. Hope u can forgive me.

A tiny bout of laughter fell upon you, one caused by both amusement and disbelief. Leaning your head against the door, you took a deep breath, your nose now stuffy from crying. Outside your window, the sun was shining, the sky was a brilliant blue, and not a single cloud was in sight—a stark contrast from the weather the past few weeks. Your eyes fell upon the invitation once more; it wasn’t bad, per se, but it also wasn’t great. It seemed like the type of thing that came out of a Hallmark catalog for the dead. Maybe they did need your help after all.

And maybe by doing this, you could come to terms with the guilt that burdened your heart.

Maybe this way, you could say goodbye to her. Properly.

chapter three ↦