#(and as i said: adding onto it shortly to satisfy my impossible standards) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kylejsugarman · 3 years

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wow i wasn't expecting so much kind feedback from that post :’) below the cut is the fic, “love will not break your heart”. PLEASE remember this was written five years ago and i wasn't expecting to fall back into moral orel but here tf we are ❤️

i. idolatry

"Who does that cloud look like?"

"Umm…" The brunette tilted her head pensively, tracing the arbitrary peaks and valleys of the cloud in question with a critical eye. Her expression of solemn concentration buckled under a luminescent smile as she finally identified the cloud's likeness. "It's Joshua! See the beard?"

"Oh, wow, you're right!" He pointed to an adjacent puff of condensation on the verge of dissipating under the snowy glare of winter sun. "And there's the city of Jericho!"

She giggled in agreement and rolled onto her side; verdant streaks of earth branded her baptism-white cheek. A strand of sandy hair had escaped her new red headband (he had nervously presented it to her and promptly melted at the sight of her grateful beam) and now unfurled down the length of her pearly face. He brushed it back into place, then blushed.

"Uh, sorry."

"It's okay, Orel," she said with an adoring laugh. His timid eyes--coppery pools into which one's best qualities were inevitably reflected--found her own, then flicked downwards in humility. Though she appreciated his respect for her, the reverence with which he treated her was slightly disquieting. There was something to worship in both of them, something she felt she failed to adequately express. "Orel?"

The eyes, lit dreamily by a refulgent sky. "Yes, Christina?"

She touched a hesitant hand to his face and waited for the momentary tension of his form to abate as he recognized the tenderness of the gesture. There was the inexorable flutter of panic in her gut, as if her father were crouched behind one of Inspiration Peak's many bushes waiting to snatch her and drag her back into the study, but she quashed it readily. Her love for Orel was stronger than her fear of her father and with its pristine power she could have demolished that study with a single fiery glance.

But Christina had always favored creation over destruction, so she leaned over and pressed a soft, pink kiss to Orel's mouth. She tried to whisper "Happy Valentine's Day" to establish her motive, but was immediately silenced as he braced himself up on an elbow and shyly reciprocated the kiss. He tasted like candy heart chalk and mint.

"I love you," he said after he had bashfully withdrawn his head.

The world was shiny and new, the clouds morphing cheerfully behind him into benevolent figures who would shelter the tender bloom of their love. And Christina Posabule reached up to frame Orel's face in her gentle hands and said "I love you too" for the first time.

ii. respect

"Ugh. I never did understand the appeal of French toast."

Dottie scrutinized the buffet offerings, her angelically-proportioned visage contorted into a rictus of disgust. Her plate was sparsely garnished with a serving of greens and a mimosa, which she had already taken a drag from. As she eyed the decadent bricks of syrup-drenched toast, Florence calmly forked an omelet onto her own plate and waited for Dottie to make a decision. The Valentine's Day brunch was rarely an extravagant affair, but there were certainly enough dishes to satisfy even Dottie's impossibly high culinary standards.

"I think French toast is wonderful," Florence said. She expected this remark to be met with a haughty sniff or snide comment, but Dottie abstained. She even summoned a mordant grin.

"Well. I suppose the French are the superior culture for a reason." The blonde delicately pronged a lone slice of French toast onto her plate, taking care to select the most lightly-sugared piece on display. "Alright, I'm done. Quick, before I change my mind."

Florence led Dottie back to their booth, which had been denoted by the placement of their respective pocketbooks on the table (Florence's sturdy handbag looking markedly haggard next to Dottie's designer clutch). The two women supped here together after church, a tradition that had been inaugurated shortly after the Reverend's Easter sermon. Dottie had apologized to Florence in a rare fit of humility and promised to stop berating her roommate for her figure; Florence, ever the victim, dutifully accepted her apology. However, Dottie had surprised her by making a noticeable effort to curb her cruel commentary and even started contributing to the community by taking on sewing projects. Her lovely dresses soon filled the closets of every woman in Moralton--including Florence's. The rather flattering candy-pink wrap dress that Florence was wearing now was Dottie's handiwork, a fact the blonde managed to work into every conservation.

"Darling, that dress is absolutely divine on you," Dottie said, lighting a cigarette.

"Yes, thank you." Florence smoothed down the collar and smiled at the sight of her freckled hands. A modest diamonded band adorned her ring finger.

Dottie noticed her admiring of the piece of jewelry; she pursed her polished lips expectantly. "I really think you should've sprung for something bigger."

"Oh, I think this is just lovely the way it is," Florence insisted. She elevated her hand in order to demonstrate the diamond's iridescence. A slant of noon light caught the mineral and fissured apart into chromatic prisms; diamonded specks twinkled across the laminated tabletop. It was a rather appropriate expression of Florence's own appearance, something the ring's buyer had obviously taken into consideration. "Aren't you happy with your ring?"

"Me? Why I'd rather die than have this ring taken off my finger." Dottie inspected the arrangement of jewels gracing her own finger, which were independently lustrous and set into an ingot of platinum. The colors matched the sheen of her blonde curls perfectly.

An inexorable smile pressed dimples into either of Florence's cheeks. "You really like it?"

Dottie flicked her cigarette ash into the table's decorative vase with an insouciant tap of her manicured finger. Her expression was characteristically enigmatic ("you can't let them think you're interested," she had lectured Florence as she practiced looking jaded in the mirror), but the favor with which she regarded the ring was unmistakable. Finally, she said "I love it" in an emphatically decisive voice tempered with genuine affection. An affection that Florence reciprocated with an echoing of the sentiment before cutting into her omelet and watching Dottie slice willingly into a piece of French toast.

iii. requited

"Um, anything else, Steph?"

The tattooed, pierced, and freshly dyed vision of beauty glanced up from her book, eyes lightly glazed from an hour of reading. She had salvaged a rather intriguing volume of essays about evolution from a seedy bookshop in Sinville and was determined to complete the tome before it could be snatched and tossed on the literary pyre. Forghetty's wasn't exactly the ideal location for intellectual pursuits, but Stephanie had abandoned the shop at the mere notion of Karl and Kim Latchkey requesting some disgustingly romantic apparel for the holiday and decided that she deserved some discounted Valentine's vodka for soldiering through the week unscathed.

"Another vodka would be great."

Dolly smiled warmly. "Coming right up."

As the blonde scooped ice into a tumbler, Stephanie became suddenly and acutely aware of the candy-pink heart branding the small of Dolly's neck. Despite having stitched ink into countless arms and sides, she was shocked by the heart's symmetry. It was absolutely flawless.

"One vodka," Dolly said, sliding the glass across the condensation-varnished bar. Her fingers were impossibly long, slender--piano fingers. Stephanie could not fathom why these trivial details fascinated her so, but she was suddenly pressed to learn more about the daisy-pretty bartender who had dutifully refreshed her tumbler for the past hour. Starting with that immaculate tattoo.

"Thanks. Uh, Dolly? Where'd you get that ink on your neck?"

"Ink on my--?" She palpated her neck in befuddlement before remembering the previous night and giggling wanly. "Oh, it-it's just pen. My friends thought it would be funny if I actually got a tattoo, so they had the guy draw it on, but I… I chickened out, I guess."

"Oh."

"It's not that I don't want a tattoo," Dolly quickly amended, tipping Stephanie's colorful arms an appreciative nod. "I'm just kinda chicken about needles."

Stephanie quirked an amused eyebrow. "So you would get a tattoo?"

"Well." She sheepishly wrung a damp cloth out over the bar top and made a concentrated effort to appear occupied by the menial task. "Maybe."

"That heart's pretty cute. I think it would look nice back there."

Roses bloomed in Dolly's porcelain cheeks. Though her friends had never abstained from making passively nasty comments about Stephanie's unusual appearance and proud deviance from Moralton's constrictive status quo, Dolly had always fostered a secret respect for her. There was something alluring about Stephanie, something that begged back story: Dolly longed to read the text that accompanied the illustrations trellising her arms like ivy. "You think so?"

"Definitely. And if you're scared of needles, I've got an assistant who could probably distract you," Stephanie added with a playful smirk. Orel had curbed several customers' needle anxiety with breathless sermons about the incredibleness of Jesus and anecdotes about his occasionally distressing adventures ("and then I died! Three times! It was neat!")

"Would you really give me a tattoo?" Dolly asked, equally hopeful and horrified.

"If you're up for it."

Dolly twisted the cloth in her hands for a moment. The yearning to know Stephanie--to know every corner, every fold--was blossoming urgently in her chest. She wanted more than a tattoo. She wanted to familiarize herself with the inky mysticism enshrouding Stephanie Putty and if that meant romance, if that meant public scorn and disappointment and disgusted looks, so be it. She wanted Stephanie. She wanted all of her.

"Doll?"

"Y-Yes," Dolly sputtered, visibly flustered. Then she grinned cautiously and set down her hands on the bar top, allowing Stephanie to admire their delicate whorls and pearly nails at a closer proximity. "I'd love that."

iv. infatuation

"I know you think I'm stupid, Marionetta."

They had cloistered themselves away in a small clearing that provided some margin of protection from their schoolmates' scorn. A mild sky opened above them, achingly empty, painfully wide. As he stared into its doleful depths--oppressing himself not to betray the shame making dewy his eyes--he recalled the passages he had studied about the atmosphere. His old teachers had refused to teach the subject, citing the lack of a Heaven in the textbook's diagram of the Earth's atmosphere. He imagined it was sandwiched between the mesosphere and thermosphere, an impossible realm illuminated by auroras and burning space debris. But in the absence of substantial evidence that such a place existed, he was content to call the clearing Heaven, as long as Marionetta was there.

The girl smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of her dotted skirt. Even

#syd squeaks #moral orel #me putting dolly and stephanie and florence and dottie together my MIND!!!#thank y'all for all the sweet messages though

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inspired-by-the-music · 4 years

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Chapter 2: An Arrangement

Ae-Young’s POV

Before I ever left for college, even before my brother, Heechul, enrolled in law school, Dad insisted upon having a weekly family dinner. Ever since Mom left— which happened almost before I could remember— Dad craved some kind of intimacy with us that he could barely fit into his busy work schedule. So it didn’t matter that I was physically, emotionally, spiritually exhausted from the journey home— I couldn’t skip dinner in favor of a nap.

Heechul said unsympathetically, “You should have taken me up on my offer to drive you home after the graduation ceremony.”

I don’t know what prompted him to speak to me. One minute, I had been drifting to sleep upright in my chair and likely drooling onto the white lace placemat; the next, I had to react to my brother’s bug-eyed stare.

“As if I’d even consider getting into a car with you after that drunken speech you gave at dinner.” I stretched as I talked.

“Yah!” He kicked me under the table. “Don’t call my heartfelt congratulations drunken!” When I didn’t apologize, he added, “Besides, that night was the first time I drank in my whole life.”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t bite back laughter as he chugged a dark red wine he yanked out of Dad’s cooler shortly after arriving. “I see. So now you can’t imagine life without—”

He interrupted to complain. “Don’t you think Dad could be bothered to show up on time? He schedules these dinners, and he’s always the last one here.”

Yes— as fatigue washed over me, I wished Dad would hurry so I could faceplant into bed ASAP— but I didn’t like to complain about him. Heechul wouldn’t want to hear me explain what he already knew (that Dad likely got caught up in something important at the firm and was now probably stuck in downtown traffic) — so I decided to shrug and scroll through Instagram.

Just as Heechul opened his mouth to tease me for being a Daddy’s Girl, Dad came through the front door. As he took his hat and coat off and walked them and his briefcase to his study, he called, “Sorry I’m late— I’ve told you two countless times the stresses of running the most successful Korean law firm— Don’t worry, I’ll just come to eat in my work clothes— Don’t want to keep you waiting any longer— Ae-Young—”

As he stepped into the dining room, I rose, assuming that he intended to greet me even though I saw him just a week ago for the graduation. He swiftly concluded, “Put your phone away— No electronics at the table.”

Ignoring Heechul’s giggles, which were drowned by another gulp of stolen wine, I tucked my phone into my pocket and promised, “I’m sorry, Dad.”

Heechul’s amusement at my scolding quickly lost to his all-consuming craving for attention. As Dad settled into the seat at the head of the mahogany table too large for three, Heechul said, “Don’t be too hard on our little graduate. She was just gonna perform a little welfare check on you— you know, to make sure you didn’t fall in the office like old folks sometimes do. We would’ve come to help if you couldn’t get up.”

Dad replied, eyes narrowing in either annoyance, fondness, or a combination of the two, “You joke about my age, Son, without realizing that as I mature, you do too. Or at least your body does.”

While I howled at dad’s implication that Heechul was man-child, while Heechul struggled to retort for the first time in his life, the chef Dad hired soon after Mom left wordlessly dropped off some kind of seafood. After piling some onto my plate, I picked at it curiously. I wasn’t picky; I was just the opposite, actually. I couldn’t recognize even my favorite dish to save my life, and I knew better than to ask the chef. He would mistake my innocent question for criticism. Whatever was on my plate, I decided, was delicious as soon as it touched my tongue.

“Ae-Young,” Dad called. I looked at him and chewed my mouthful as fast as I could. “Why did you take so long to get home?”

I reddened at the reminder that I had graduated a week ago. I hadn’t been ready to abandon my independence. The day after the ceremony, I rejected separate offers from Dad and Heechul to be driven home and focused instead on promoting myself around town in the hope of scoring a job so I could afford an apartment in the city. Jobs for a recently graduated photography student were slimmer than I allowed myself to dream.

It wasn’t the embarrassment of unemployment that struck me silent. Dad would be proud to hear how I tried, regardless of the results. He would never admit it, but learning that I didn’t want to come home would hurt his feelings. He was a strong man— tall and broad with a strong jaw and permanently arched eyebrows. I always imagined that the criminals he prosecuted trembled at his stern appearance before he ever got to use his sharpened wit against them. So why did I treat him so delicately, as if he would break from something I said?

I had to say something, though. He was blinking at me expectantly. “I was busy, um, tying up loose ends.”

Kindly, as if merely interested in how I chose to spend my week, Dad asked, “What loose ends?”

Before I could answer that I had been helping my best friend, Key, move into a new apartment— which was a half-truth— Heechul answered, “Don’t you know, Dad? That’s a part of how young people talk today. It’s code.”

“Code?” Dad pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. Swallowing some of the fish, he looked and Heechul and questioned, “Code for what?”

I knew Heechul was just running his mouth and that it wouldn’t lead anywhere that interesting, but I cut my eyes at him and repeated, “Yeah. Code for what?”

“Obviously, Dad,” Heechul pointed at me as he accused, “Ae-Young was breaking off some university fling, but not after a few nights of passionate—”

I cut him off by flicking some of my fish— shrimp, maybe— at him and hissing, “Shut up! You’re so gross!”

Dad started with a tired, “Kids, please,” and he ended with an only slightly playful, “You better have broken up with your little fling, Ae-Young.”

Those days, I was too sensitive about my complete lack of romantic life. Defensively, I argued, “There was no fling, Heechul is just stupid. And if there was a fling, why should we have to break up just because I graduated?”

“Yeesh.” Heechul stabbed at his food, grumbling, “What a drama queen.”

Perhaps sensing that my temper was flaring, Dad said calmly, “Heechul— it’s about that time in the evening where I ask you to drink quietly while I discuss serious matters with your sister.”

I knew Heechul thought Dad liked me better. Even now that we were both adults— I was 22 and Heechul was 36— Dad couldn’t decide whether to treat us like the children he knew or adults we were. The inconsistency didn’t bother me so much because I loved Dad as the only parent I had ever really known. When Dad would dismiss Heechul’s silly comments, he would whisper something like, ‘Mom would never.’

He didn’t do that anymore. He took a long sip of his wine and avoided my gaze.

“I’ve been thinking—” Dad said to me as I flinched out of my memories. “It’s about time you get married.”

Heechul spat out his wine in a spray across the table and spoke when I was speechless. “Well, that’s sudden. Don’t you think she’s too young for that? I mean, I’m not even married yet!”

“We can’t expect Ae-Young to wait until miracles happen to get on with her life,” Dad responded, and Heechul shrank.

Heechul’s outburst empowered me to say, “Look, Dad, I’ll be on the prowl for a husband if it’s so important to you, but I’m a little more invested in finding a job—”

“You already have a job,” Dad replied simply. “Now that you’re home and Mrs. Choi retired, you can be my secretary.”

Before I could filter my response, I said, “No— I mean a real job.” Thankfully, he wasn’t offended; his brow furrowed in confusion, though, so I said, “I want a job as a photographer. I majored in photography, remember?”

“Yes, I remember.” He shifted slightly in his seat and straightened his tie. “I don’t know much about that field; the law firm has been in the family for generations, and nobody strayed until—” He subconsciously looked at Heechul, whose gaze hardened, but he clarified, “I don’t blame either of you for pursuing your dreams. Your happiness will always be my primary concern— and that goes for both of you.”

He wasn’t satisfied to continue his speech until Heechul and I swore that we knew that. Then, he told me, “I know everything you dream of will come true. If it doesn’t, it won’t be for a lack of effort, and you’ll still have a family who will take care of you. But I won’t always be around to—”

I shook my head. It was impossible to imagine a world without Dad. Just the thought sickened me, so I begged, “Don’t talk like that.”

He strictly maintained, “It’s the truth, Ae-Young. As your brother reminds me weekly, I’m not getting any younger—”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Heechul interjected, but Dad didn’t acknowledge him.

“— And what will happen to you two? You can’t inherit the firm since you’re not lawyers. Then what about your children? What will their futures be?” He reached for my hand, but he was too far away as he swore, “I’m not just trying to marry you off to any person in search of a wife. And if my selection is too terrible, I’ll call the whole thing off.”

Simultaneously, Heechul and I shrieked, “You already chose someone?” and destroyed the diplomatic environment our father tried to create.

“Typical,” Heechul seethed and slammed his glass down. “If you were gonna set one of us up, why couldn’t it be me? I’m the firstborn, I haven’t had a girlfriend in, like, six months, my standards are a hell of a lot lower than Miss Graduate’s—”

“You went to undergraduate school too, you moron! We’ve received the same amount of education—”

“Children, please!” Dad never rose his voice, so Heechul and I instantly hushed. “If I knew anybody you liked, Heechul, you naturally would have been my choice for the arranged marriage. You are older and therefore may feel entitled to own the firm—”

Smirking, Heechul disagreed. “No, I just want a hot lawyer wife.”

Dad and I had learned a necessary skill: knowing when to go deaf to Heechul. He continued, “And I worried that at your age, you wouldn’t appreciate your father telling you what to do about something so. . . intimate.”

Heechul didn’t especially appreciate parental guidance at any age, so Dad was right to worry about that. How long has he been thinking about this? I frowned. And why is he only bringing up now?

“So you chose a husband for Ae-Young just because she’s more obedient?”

Dad wouldn’t release me from his stare as he said, “I don’t take this lightly— asking you to abandon your freedom so I can breathe easy knowing that you will be taken care of when I’m gone. You’ve always been a free spirit. I could see you dancing barefoot in the garden from my study when you were just a little girl. Do you remember that?”

I remembered dancing in the garden, but I never knew he watched me. I nodded quietly.

He said, “I’m not being completely selfish. I never would have brought his up if I didn’t know the perfect person to protect you—”

Heechul impatiently demanded, “Who is it?”

Dad answered, “Kyuhyun.”

I didn’t get to prepare myself— I didn’t even fully wrap my mind around Dad’s speech— I didn’t know what to say other than “Kyuhyun?”

Heechul relaxed in his seat as if he had been truly worried and the name of that family friend dispelled those worries. “That’s not so bad, Ae-Young. You’ve always liked him.”

My heart was beating me to death. I couldn’t hear as I countered, “I can’t marry Kyuhyun. I haven’t seen him in the last four years— and now our first conversation has to be about this? I can’t believe you asked him to marry me!”

“Now, isn’t four years a bit of a dramatization?” Dad shook his head, disbelieving. “You must have seen him at the Christmas parties!” “For some reason, Dad,” Heechul winked, “I think we should trust Ae-Young. She would remember the last time she saw Kyuhyun.”

My heart thundered at Heechul’s teasing. “Why would you ever ask him to marry me?” I asked again; I stood as if that would make the question impossible to ignore.

I expected another speech about how Kyuhyun was the best lawyer at the firm, how he was unfailingly honest and morally upright in every sense, how he had always been a great young man, how he had the advantage of being the son of Dad’s lifelong best friend—

I expected to hear him sing Kyuhyun’s praises as he had done my entire life. Instead, he answered softly, “I know you loved him.”

My affection for Kyuhyun existed since the moment we met— which, I’ve been told, occurred a few days after I was first born— and it resided in the innermost part of my heart, in a place I hadn’t visited in years. To be taken there so forcibly and with no warning was overwhelming. Humiliating. I felt naked, exposed, and embarrassed that I was overreacting.

Because my feet were frozen numb, I slid back into my chair and stared blankly at my half-cleared plate.

Dad’s shoulders fell, and Heechul didn’t say anything.

“I thought you would be happy with him. Did I misunderstand the time you cried to me after the New Years’ party?”

Dad was referring to something that happened when I was a teenager. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but I have never forgotten the red-hot scalding shock when I found Kyuhyun’s longtime girlfriend kissing some stranger on the balcony. I never wanted to tell anyone what I had seen, but the words tumbled out of my mouth.

“Well, that’s how these things go sometimes, I’m afraid,” he tried to teach me. He ran a thumb along his empty ring ringer the way he always did when he thought of Mom. “Passion drives people to do hurtful things. Even passionate love can leave scars.”

I refused to accept it. “Nobody should hurt him like that. He deserves everything good in the world. And what do I do now? Do I have to tell him? Do I have to break his heart when that’s the last thing I want to do?”

“These things always come out in the end,” Dad claimed as he pulled me into his side. “The truth always comes to light, whether good or bad.”

I never told Heechul, and he seemed to know better than to ask. “No,” I admitted, “You didn’t misunderstand. But that was so long ago, Dad. Who knows what has changed?”

“Who knows?” Dad shrugged. Sagely, the thought aloud, “I think if you loved somebody once— and I mean true admiration, not childish infatuations— you will love them always.”

Then Heechul, who had been quiet for too long, asserted his presence once more. “Wait a minute. Isn’t Kyuhyun, like, way older than Ae-Young?”

Without thinking, I answered, “He’s 10 years my senior.”

“I don’t think that matters,” Dad said. Glancing at me, he added, “I understand that like most young women, you want a romance that makes you swoon, but there are many kinds of forever loves in this world. I want that happiness for you— none of the temporary pleasures and scars.”

Dad took advantage of mine and Heechul’s silence as we considered his wisdom to say, “I hope you both adjust to this idea by next Friday evening because Kyuhyun will be joining us for dinner.”

I decided immediately that I would have to reunite with Kyuhyun before then. Seeing him for the first time four years— as my fiancé— with Heechul and Dad as an audience sounded like a nightmare.

The only way I knew to contact him was to call his office on Monday morning. Of course, I was struck by the complete lack of professionalism on my part, but I didn’t actually regret dialing the number until his assistant answered.

I forget his greeting. All I remember is the terror that seized my body when he asked, “May I receive your name and reason for calling Cho Kyuhyun’s office?”

I stuttered, “I— um— my name is Kim Ae-Young.” I knew he wouldn’t recognize me as the firm owner’s daughter. Even if he did, that wouldn’t explain why I was calling Kyuhyun’s office. There was no option except to breathe deeply and adapt to the situation. “I’m Kyuhyun’s fiancé, and I’m calling to discuss an, uh, urgent personal matter.”

There was a three-minute pause before he said, “Okay. I’ll connect you.”

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