#me: i hate having pending verifications to do so i do it asap

[404fmdminjung]

lyrical and composition verification for holo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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