#(forgive typos please it's sunday and i am tired from feeling)

[cere-mon-ials]

I heard a great many things about My Mister before I went into it: a masterpiece, a truthful portrait of everydayness, a vehicle towards catharsis for the parts of the self weathered by everydayness, a moving story that is strongly anti-patriarchy, an ode to parental love and a child’s love and a sibling’s love and a friend’s love and other love that comes uninvited—all true. But I was not prepared for this story to be packaged in an affair and internal corporate espionage.

Here’s the premise: Do Jun-young, the young and haughty CEO of a successful building & engineering company, is in a power war with other senior members for the attention of their ailing, but still sharp, Chairman. Caught in between is a general manager, Park Dong-hoon, a decent, generous-to-a-fault man. Dong-hoon is the darling of the other faction in the office, and the task at hand for Jun-young is firing Dong-hoon. To Jun-young, who used to be his junior at university, Dong-hoon’s rise would amount to Jun-young's fall. Jun-young has little by way of a brain, few spineless right-hand men by way of brawn, and lots of money. For Lee Ji-an, the cold 20-year-old temporary worker with fortitude that comes with abject poverty and mounting debt and being a social reject, this is jackpot. She promises Jun-young that she could get Dong-hoon fired in exchange for money. In the process, Ji-an finds out that Dong-hoon’s wife has been cheating on him with Jun-young.

Here’s the heart: Dong-hoon and Ji-an embark on a relationship where they see in each other a reflection of themselves and then some. They are empty, broken people who constantly wonder why life happens to them, with neither the strength to ask what matters nor the inclination to face the music of the answer. They protect each other, from themselves and others.

Age has caught up to both of them—Dong-hoon, literally, he’s pretty much lived the same way for four decades; Ji-an, metaphorically, because at 20, she has already lived through the trauma of being an abandoned child, the disillusionment of a teen shunned by faux meritocracy, and the role of a care-giver without money or support. She is a child who had to grow up too soon in the worst way possible—taking the life of an abusive elder, who should have taken care of her, in self-defence. She is 30,000 years old, she thinks. He is 40, and that’s old enough, he thinks.

Ji-an’s survival instincts jerks Dong-hoon to a life that feels more urgent. Dong-hoon’s rule-abiding spirit shows Ji-an how to secure a life that could afford her space to breathe. It is Ji-an who protects Dong-hoon from being fired. It is Dong-hoon who tells the clueless Ji-an how to move in the world of adults, above ground.

Every other relationship in this show has a name. Sibling, friend, neighbour, parent, spouse, office senior, officer junior. But this one, of Dong-hoon and Ji-an, with their 20-year age-gap, has none. ("Platonic" does come close but I am still wrestling with that one.) They go out for dinner, witness each other at their worst and saddest, and tell each other what the other needs to hear the most. 

The choice of this age-gap inevitably gives rise to the question of another affair, and this is where writer-nim Park Hae-young has me by the collar. My Mister feeds off the casual, crude, often-infantalising narrative of why young women are attracted to older men. That stereotype is bait, for those so easily bought into too many stories of the kind, to interrogate what about relationships outside the norm in civil society—relationships that do not have a name—terrifies them. The characters in the show who accuse Dong-hoon and Ji-an of having an affair are those assigned as antagonists.

PHY believes and says “Every relationship is fascinating and precious,” so why do we say no to making more of them as we age? The norms in civil society is a good reason, but maybe a superficial one. She maintains it's the simple act of being vulnerable that leads to building and treasuring relationships; one of those things we tend to lose as we "age". The facade to maintain as a successful person is at odds with being vulnerable so we have to fragment the contours of our love and maintain boundaries. It’s why the relationship between Dong-hoon and Ji-an is—and has to be—cemented on wiretapping and surveillance and the ugliness of baring your soul, against your will even. 

At their workplace, Ji-an is only privy to Dong-hoon, the structural engineer working a desk job without many promotions under his belt for a man several years his junior. It is because Ji-an snoops around that she learns of the affair that sets the story in motion. It’s how she finds out that he is a husband who goes back to an empty house often. He is the middle child, bearing the weight of providing in the absence of a financially-independent elder brother and a younger one trapped in his own insecurities and failures.

But it’s also how she learnt of the love and grace he enjoys otherwise. He plays soccer with friends he has grown up with, he drinks with his siblings whom he has loved all his life, he is the favourite son to his mother. This kind man is the beating heart of his neighbourhood. There will be at least two dozen people who will chase around the streets of Seoul seeking vengeance should he have a scratch on his body. If he is in pain, his brothers will give up other responsibilities to be with him all night until blue hour. These scenes, and the ones in Jeong-hui’s bar, are brimmed with warmth, of love freely taken and given. It’s how Ji-an begins to fantasise having people to go back to, and to call your own. Her love for Dong-hoon is also a love to the world he brings to her, a world of community that sticks together. 

When I watched My Liberation Notes, I sensed that PHY does not give a hoot about green flags and healthy relationships. She might look at those tweets and posts, laugh with her whole chest and mumble: cute but no. This is so very stark in Gi-hoon (Dong-hoon’s younger sibling) and Yu-ra’s relationship, one that is marked by the intimate act of cleaning up vomit. Love comes from unfiltered, almost disgusting, honesty, picking at things the other would never think of sharing to another being. Love is a muscle you have to use everyday. You have to be talking all the time; and somebody should be listening. 

The scene that is tattooed in my heart is Dong-hoon whispering “Call me,” into the phone he knows she is listening to. This is after he learns the truth of everything, of her initial plans to betray him, of her surveillance. But as he tells her later: “Once you know someone, there comes a point where you don’t really care what they do. and I know you.” He knows her and now, he knows everything. That's all that matters. 

In the final act of the show, loving truly as knowing fully is reinforced on a very unlikely character: Gwang-il, Ji-an’s abusive cousin, son of the man she killed for abusing her and their grandmother—and also the loan shark Ji-an owes to. It is through those surveilled tapes that we find out that before he was the son of a father who was murdered by a cousin he loved, he was kind. Ji-an was speaking to Dong-hoon, who knows this before us, the audience. That submission, those words she could never say to Gwang-il’s face, pushes the plot which began with a discreet affair to its conclusion.

When My Mister ends, things are slightly better for the characters than when we see them but it’s left ambiguous. The last 15 minutes of the show goes like this: four minutes of Dong-hoon, in his empty apartment after his wife has left for the US to join their son, engaged in chores and a snotty breakdown; Gi-hoon and Yu-ra’s fracturing relationship leading to a break-up; Dong-hoon's new company; Ji-an in her new job and friends she has started making there; Gi-hoon picking up a pencil to write a screenplay; and a final reunion between Dong-hoon and Ji-an one year after their last goodbye. I think PHY needs her characters to be people who find peace and who love and look out for one another, even if they remain broken.

That love doesn’t need to be forever. Ji-an stops listening to Dong-hoon’s phone after he finds out that she does. When she is about to uninstall the app from her phone, she registers the way his shoes hit the asphalt on the road, that dignified stride despite the hunched shoulders, and his steady breathing one more time. The footsteps recede; she isn’t listening anymore. Then they come back; love can also be a powerful memory, a fuel to someplace else to love more and be someone else. PHY’s thesis is so devastatingly haunting because she dares to tell you, with a jerk first and then gently like a goodnight kiss, that loving is both the very least and the most you can do while you’re here.

#my mister #my ahjussi #kdrama #lee sun kyun #lee ji eun #iu #one of 57 thoughts that has plagued me #i can't think of another writer who is so fearless in answering hard questions as much as in asking them #phy is very good at knitting nuance through the broadest range of characters and that's why you can't take away a single one of them #watch this show for dong-hoon and ji-an #but also watch it for all the others who will live with you long after it's over #(forgive typos please it's sunday and i am tired from feeling) #notes

[prodchoi]

Delirium [part two]

part one

part three

A ghost can be a lot of things. A memory, a daydream, a secret. Grief, anger, guilt. But, in my experience, most times they're just what we want to see.

[1,349+ words, no pairing (gender neutral s/o), horror, blood mention, body horror]

(Forgive any typos, I didn’t have much time to read over it :~) )

//

[7:42pm] December 20th. Seoul, South Korea

Chan fell back in a yell “What are you?! What do you want?!” He felt his heart race a hundred miles an hour, beating against every part of his skin at the terrifying.. thing. In front of him.

It inched closer, a sickening creak coming from its twisted limbs

Oh chan, don’t you want to be with us?

The disembodied voice reverberated against his ears, coaxing yet distorted. Coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Don’t you love us? We’re the ones you love.

He shook his head, jaw clenched and body frozen “Please go away, I don’t know what this is.. please stop. Please!”

He shut his eyes, praying that when he opened them it would just be a bad dream. He’d be back home in bed

‘It's all a bad dream, wake up chan. Wake up wake up wake up, please for the love of god, WAKE UP’

A sudden eerie, empty silence took over him. He opened his eyes slowly, the tears he hadn’t noticed falling making his vision blurry.

Nothing.

He looked around

Absolutely nothing

Just the houses

He took notice of the old man standing in his front yard, Over watering his plants while he looked at the younger boy with a shocked look. ‘What’s happening to me?’ His head whipping left to right looking for the.. thing. Or where it could’ve gone.

‘I’m fucking losing it, aren’t I?’

He gathered himself with shaky hands and unsteady breaths, opting to grab his phone to make a quick call to the person on their way to him. It rung twice before they picked up

Channie? Are you okay? I’m just a minute away.

“I’m.. I’m okay.”

A breathy chuckle from the other end of the line eases his nerves a little

You don’t sound okay, though. you sound scared. “Is It that obvious” he sighed, a serious look washing over his features “I am scared” His voice was low and brittle. “I’m so.. so scared” He can’t bring himself to cry, his tired body couldn’t handle anymore sobs.

I see you, I’m pulling up now. The phone hung up suddenly, the sounds of tires crunching gravel approach. He straightens his back, attempting to look less beaten down as the person approaches him. Eyes weary at the familiar face, he puts his best smile he could pull in his current state. Warm hands rest on his cheeks, one pushing his silver-blue curls out of his tired eyes. Golden brown orbs still radiant even with the heavy purple under them.

“What happened?”

A simple statement has his eyes burning all over again, a shaky breathe leaving him. “I couldn’t explain even if I wanted to”. He leans into their palm, seeking any comfort after what’s happened. “You can tell me anything, you know that” he nods, wiping his eyes “I know.. thank you for coming”. A gentle smile from them eases his anxiety. “Let’s get you home. You look like shit y’know” His chest vibrates with laughter “Thanks. I personally think I look hot”

//

[9:02pm]. December 20th. Seoul, South Korea

After what felt like a lifetime, though only an hour, they arrived back to the small cozy apartment in the buzzing nightlife of Seoul. Chan shuffled off his shoes and stripped his damp hoodie and collapsed onto the couch, he felt like melting into the the fabric of the old furnishing. “I’ve never missed this prehistoric piece of shit more in my life” he sighed, face squished into a throw pillow he was hugging to his chest.

“Go take a shower, Chan. It’ll make you feel better”

“Can’t I just sleep? I’ll take one in the morning” voice muffled from the pillow. The chuckling person standing next to him takes the pillow from his arms, only to smack him with it moments later. “Go you stinky brute!” He heaved himself off the comfortable cushions and drudged to the bathroom, opening the door and then looking back with a rotten look on his face. He mumbled under his breath, “I just wanted to sleep”. A flying couch cushion hit him square in the face, “I heard that, you brat!”

//

[3:15am]

Chan was laying on his side, facing the softly snoring lump in the blankets next to him. He still had the events from today running through his mind. “I don’t understand” he whispered to himself. Movement from the opposite side of the bed removes him from his thoughts, the sleepy individual rolls on their side to meet his fatigued eyes, “Have you slept any?” Their voice small and thick with sleep,

“No” he breathes “go back to sleep, I’ll fall asleep soon enough” he sits up, his arm supporting him as leans to kiss their forehead. “I can stay up with you” They say through a yawn. He’s laughs at their barely open eyes, “A bold offer from someone who’s barely conscious” A sleepy smirk appears on their face as they wrap their arms around his sides, head resting just under his chin, “Hush and go to sleep, idiot” He chuckles, the sound vibrating against their cheek, Feigning a hurt voice, “You’re so mean to me”

//

[2:32pm]. December 23rd. Seoul Subway Station.

Nothing has happened since Friday’s episode, Chan had blamed it all on exhaustion.

‘I’ve been working too much, that’s all’

His foot tapping on the concrete floor of the station waiting for it, headphones blasting The Weeknd, even though he isn’t listening. The familiar ringtone of his friend ringing in his ears replacing ‘high for this’ with ‘holla back girl’. the contact name ‘tiny idiot’ flashing on his screen, along with a less than flattering candid of his smaller counterpart. he huffed before hitting answer

“Hi bin”

Hey! Are you coming to the studio today? We almost have everything set up for the release.

“Ah, probably not. I’m still not feeling well”

Legends don’t rest, chanstopher.

“Tell that to the grouchy goblin that lives with me. They said I need to take a few days off. From everything”

They’ll get over you coming to the studio for just a little bit, also, have you heard from the boss? I hear your run didn’t go to well.. What happened man?

Changbins worry passes through the phone.

“No, but I’ll explain in a few days, bin. Don’t worry”

Chan rubs his face with a free hand, his fingers running through his silvery curls. Exasperated.

If you need anything just let me, or at least Jisung know. Okay?

“Alright alright, I gotta go”

See you.

Chan stands in the close to empty station still

‘Why is it taking so damn long’

He looks at the time displayed on the route board

‘5 minutes late?’

He sighed, opting to lean against the concrete pillar to wait. He looks around the building, noticing he’s alone

“It’s Sunday, why is no one here?”

He notices the quiet washing over the large cement room. Not even the shrill noise of the subway. He wonders if there’s construction he doesn’t know about.

Why would they work on it this close to the holidays?

He gives up, walking to the stairs to exit

A sudden shriek coming from the tunnel makes him jump, though there’s no light from the subway car. He stands on the first step waiting to see if the car pulls through.

A minute later

Nothing

He continues his way up the steps. he makes it halfway before he stops, feeling eyes burning into the back of his head. He wished he never turned around.

Bodies

Bodies everywhere

The floor

The steps

So much blood

He recognizes family members, friends, why is this happening.

His lungs feel tight, he wants to scream but nothing comes out.

Hello again, Channie. The voice speaks, coming from every corpse speaking in unison, distorted honey dripped vocals mesh together, the floor shakes under his boots.

Wait for us

The bodies move, flopping and crunching together. Sickening pops and squelches mold the corpses, knitting into each other as he watches in horror, unable to look away.

The blob of skin, limbs, shrieking faces lurches forward,

Wait for us, Chan

He moves to run but he’s paralyzed by fear, his body trembling.

he manages to speak, his voice weak

“please stop”

#delirium #stray kids #stray kids fan fic #stray kids fanfic #stray kids fic #p3r #my writing #kpop fanfic #kpop fan fiction #i cut it back from 2.1k words so i wouelnt rush the plot too much :> #what do you think is happening so far? #next chapter will be how it started happening