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dropsofletters · 1 year

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danced around an impossibility

summary: everyone has heard about the newest episode of joshua hong’s podcast “backstage says”, where he talks about the secrets that celebrities fail to keep hidden.

the story dates back to more than a decade ago, when wonwoo was looking out his ballet academy’s window in hopes of finding an opportunity and instead, he caught a glimpse of a woman spitting comedy into a microphone for no one to hear. no one would expect these two to talk, or even to hit stardom one day.

he liked to believe back then, when 2008 was blaring with music and youth, that she was an impossibility. someone that he’d look at from afar and nothing else would happen.

but every year they got more tangled up with each other, and joshua hong has proof of it.

want to listen to this story? check out the new episode of “backstage says”!

title: dancing around an impossibility pairing: jeon wonwoo x reader genre: ballet dancer!au ; stand-up comedian!au ; strangers to friends to exes (kinda) to lovers!au ; slice of life!au ; celebrity!au ; slowburn word count: 14k words approx. type: fluff ; angst ; humor ; real life shenanigans note: this is a kofi request, if you want to ask anything from me over there, you can obviously do so!

“I like to believe, dear listener,” Joshua’s velvety voice slips through the slits of the microphone, much like the straw in between his rosy lips, when crossing one leg over the other. “That patience is the foundation of plenty of the stories we hear. As a gossiper myself, and to anyone who has listened to this podcast, we know that’s who I am…I know that the step that leads us to what we consider experiences is actually just someone’s tiredness of patience.”

Backstage Says’ listeners must sit at the edge of their seats, while Joshua Hong has never been calmer. He acknowledges this story as if it was his own, licking his lips like mesmerizing words and maiming them to be true. He manipulates; not reality but listeners, into thinking his voice is the utmost reality. It could be, for all we know.

“Wonwoo’s deal, however, was that he was too patient. He almost lost his chance.” He announces, smirking into the process. “This story goes back to July of 2008, when Wonwoo was tiptoeing into the next step.”

July 17th, 2008.

The harmony of ballet is in the dip of the waist. Wonwoo likes to believe that structure is what makes a good dance, how the folds of his white t-shirt disappear into the curves of his toned arms and how his hips contort to the perfect pointé. Though, as he looks himself in the mirror of the dimly lit room that was once filled with Chan’s boisterous voice, he doesn’t feel comfortable. Like himself, really.

Through a crooked window of old rust and wood that would creak under the mere wind of the ocean had it been close to the center of Seoul, he sees a shape. Bent, curved, like there is not a care in this world to aim for the sharpness of an arrow or the success of a star. Someone lives between the shadows and makes themselves shine in colors that aren’t gold or bright yellow. He sees her back hunched, a hand pressed to her waist and a lift of the corner of her mouth.

“My ex is an asshole and I think I’m way more so,” She speaks into the solitude of the salon in front of Wonwoo’s practice room. She digs her fingers into the cable of her mic, moving it with her steps before she scoffs into the microphone. “Because I never really told him we were exes. He went to Spain one night, I knew he was fucking some other girl, and then when he got back it was like Men in Black but of relationships. Quite like he had forgotten me.” She clicks her tongue after, shaking her head before sighing. “It needs more of a hit…”

He had heard better, Wonwoo knows quite well how good her jokes can get. Like how she told the story of the time in which she had sat on the bus back home as a kid and had tried to cover a fart with a cough, but she had missed the timing much like she did with everything else in her life (her words, not his). Or when she spoke about her first kissing experience, when she had actually wanted to throw up so bad that she feigned choking on air. With examples, of course.

He leans into the window, the breeze of the midnight bloom caressing his cheeks. He lets his hands frame his face, distracting himself from the obvious repercussions of his actions. Not practicing when the ballet play he is taking part of will technically make him fall behind; much more so when his partner is none other than the young and talented Chan, but he lets himself be distracted by this woman.

This woman who turns to him, speaking into the microphone while her disheveled hair moves with that wind that lures him into sentimentalism.

Her eyes are so confident that he’s almost speechless. She’s not rid of her braveness because he is looking at her; as if she doesn’t care being the center of attention. Her cheeks raise when she speaks, with her upper lip a little bit crooked into a smile, into the microphone.

“That one sucks, right?” His heart races, for some reason, it does. Ever since he started practicing here, just over two months ago, he has seen her speak into that microphone every Saturday night. As per comedy night, one would think. “Won, Wong? You, I don’t remember your name…the guy who gets drunk every Saturday always mentions it but I’m bad with names. Was that joke good?”

He shakes his head, exclaiming at the top of his lungs. “You’ve done better!”

“So did my mom say when dating my ex.”

His mouth, perched in a non-interpreted frown most of his days, relishes in a cat-like grin before nodding. “That one is better.”

She shakes her head, picking the microphone up and testing it a few times before jotting down her script in that notebook that always looks a little too full. As if she lacks inspiration or she just comes up with things on the go. Wonwoo knows that is the end of their little interaction, but he lets his gaze linger on the cascade of her hair and the way she munches on her pinky’s nail while thinking.

The harmony of her is how unreachable she looks while being also deeply close to him.

August 1st, 2008.

“I hate that I love my friends, is that normal?”

Talking to a stranger on the bus shouldn’t be this comfortable. Though, he knows the lanky man by her side doesn’t give a damn about her life. He sits with his perfectly polished black hair and looks at her through glasses that are so slitted that she almost wonders why she uses them. He presses on the button of his pen, taking the ink in and out to jot down notes about his endeavors in his job. She sees him every Monday, when she tries her hardest not to feel bad at her job that she had once shared with glee with her friends.

Women that she adores. Women that she should be thankful of, because women supporting women is not something as common as one would think. However, each moment that she spends with them is more draining than the last. As if they are united by tragedy, rather than happiness. They live in spirals of gossips and making fun of themselves; basking on lives that aren’t lived to their fullest and—

“Then, they aren’t really your friends.” The stranger completes, youthful and yet so scarily wise. “If someone makes you feel as if your feelings for them shouldn’t exist, then, that’s guilt paired up with something else.”

“Damn, it was a rhetorical question.”

“You wouldn’t ask if you really weren’t curious.” The guy in question quirks an eyebrow. If his personality didn’t belong to an arse, maybe, he could be some kind of handsome. “Why have friends if—”

“You don’t have any friends.”

“I do. Worthy ones of my time that are actually more of an addition to my life than a minus.” He’s sharp, she can tell, and as the pouring rain lures the bus ride into a comfortable place of mind with too much thinking and a little too much seriousness, she also thinks about what he says.

What if he life doesn’t belong to serving drinks in a club but instead being the one performing there? What would happen if for once she stopped caring that men got more opportunity in comedy and actually tried to speak up. Be funny, get laughed at or with, perhaps risk more than hating on people.

She grows more bitter by the minute. Of course, all thoughts of hopefulness fall to the same conclusion. She’ll fail. That’s what everyone expects out of her.

“I don’t even know why I’m talking to you.”

“Must be a perception of how little you trust your friends.” With that, the office worker stands up, holding onto his coffee and serving a curt nod. She crosses her arms over her chest, as if covering herself from the utmost truth, before she sees him farewell. With her chin up-high and her ambition on the low.

August 27th, 2008.

Wonwoo balances his weight on the tip of his toes. It’s an excellent metaphor for who he is—a passing shadow in the midnight sky, ignored in between stars of beaming light. He blends in perfection, missed by the eyes of those who look for the obvious. He works as wood to light fires and ambience to create peace. He leans into another position, dancing to the glee of Mozart, but never quite making the judges think of him.

He has worked closely with Chan. They’re in a play together, but being part of an academy means auditioning—starving off on ambition and living to the desires of the unknown. Now, as the sky blue walls blur into his vision, twisting to a perfect circle only to glimpse at the judges. They never look at him. Ignored. Forgotten.

He is Chan’s friend. Chan’s counterpart. He is but he isn’t. Nothing more than a derivation of what is talent. He’s the roots of a tree that sparkles in golden hues and spring breezes. Watered down, fearful, stopping on his tracks once the music does, while Chan leans into a complete ovation.

Not to say he isn’t happy. Chan has earned what he has at the young age of twenty-one with fist and stone. Though, he hates just how his stomach dips with every breath he takes while Chan is so visibly comfortable. He despises the claps that never go towards him—the tiny finalizations of dreams that come with the bitter reality that we are that.

Humans that complete dreams halfway. We never reach the stars, we just get ladders. We never discover something, we just investigate something that already exists.

The water bottle slips through his mouth, staring at Chan as he organizes his shoes and puts on a thick beige coat. The crackling of the thunder outside the academy doesn’t break the thoughts that grow in his head like a building would. Wonwoo is not deeply scarred; he’ll wake up tomorrow as if nothing happened, working as per usual, but for now he is only this. Angered.

“You know, this is usually something you would say.” Wonwoo leans his elbow into the windowsill, watching the droplets of rain fall one by one and then, the torrent thoughts merge with the upcoming storm. “But I’m feeling dumb enough to empty my feelings into a bottle of whiskey. Not entirely, just a tiny bit. I don’t want to listen to the bookshelf I have of psychology textbooks right now telling me it’s a bad idea.”

“Never a bad idea to drink, if you ask me.” Chan twirls the strands of his damp hair in between his fingers, tossing it back the slightest. “Wonwoo, I’m sure they’ll call you.”

Wonwoo raises a hand in the air, shaking it the slightest. “I don’t like lying to myself. I’m being half-dumb, not entirely idiotic.”

Chan stares at him much like his father does whenever he wants to get information out of him. As if he can’t read Wonwoo; not knowing if he does care or not. Which reminds him—his dad wanted to be told the good news over the telephone once the time came about for Wonwoo to be accepted in that play that he had been wishing so hard to be part of, but now, he’s sure that he won’t be calling anytime soon.

Hey, dad, I’m a disappointment at times and I don’t want to say it out loud for you to actually internalize it? Yes, Wonwoo is not ready to say that.

“It’s raining. You want to drink the day that it’s raining.”

“It heats up the body, I guess.”

“You surprise me, Jeon Wonwoo.”

He scoffs. “Gotta do that sometimes, I guess.”

“Wonwoo—”

Before Chan could deepen an idea that he doesn’t want to develop, he picks up his backpack, not caring of slipping the clothes in properly. Neatly, as he would usually do. Because he cares. He fucking cares about ballet; perhaps more than he does about his tainted heart.

“What’s a place you like drinking in? And that wouldn’t close because of the rain.”

Chan’s grin widens, youthful like his personality. “No bar ever closes up because of the rain. No amount of water can wash down the drunks.” He admits, wrapping an arm around Wonwoo’s shoulder. “The Sentimental Cavern is my favorite. There’s good music and nice stand-up comedy on Saturdays. We could have a few drinks there.”

“I’m surprised you go to places called that.”

Wonwoo chuckles at what Chan says. “I mean ‘Tits and Ass’ was closed, so I had to go somewhere.”

“Asshole.”

“Another favorite bar of mine. Though, unrightfully closed.”

Well, at least Wonwoo knows that it will be an eventful night.

Present

“I think, her will was not precisely of fearless nature.” Joshua admits into the microphone, tapping a finger on his bottom lip. “What broke the patience that was once so set in stone for Wonwoo was that she took decisions out of impatience.”

He looks through his notes, written over the years of his endless study of this relationship that people still cooed about, even when it didn’t have the most beautiful of endings.

“Not impatience with him and his timing. No. Not impatience with life. It was with herself, as if she couldn’t deal with the voices that grew in her mind and were strong enough to make her feel like she had to do something more.” The podcast grows silent for a little bit, the light of cigarette following his statement. “So, when his patience grew, hers became thinner.”

August 28th, 2008.

Joanne has eyes so deep that they hollow into her skull. It’s what lures men into her lap, asking for more drinks and tipping way overboard. She lives happily in a relationship that she denies, tightening her apron on her waist a little too tightly for it to accentuate what everyone can notice that she has. Though, when midnight strikes, Joanne steals drinks behind the counter and cries about her cheating boyfriend. Then, goes off to cheat herself.

It’s quite impressive the stories that develop around us, she believes. How everyone has their own protagonist nature that we fail to establish when living our own lives. Though, Joanne knows she is the main character. Not like her, who doesn’t flirt with the customers and hence, gets less tips. Or she, who doesn’t appear in the latest Christmas picture that the team took, where all the bartenders stood in a perfect line, just because no one called her.

Being the sidekick is lonesome, and sure, she can take the funny side-character, but for how long she’ll deal with it? She’s not sure.

“The secret here is that you have to touch their arm. That makes them think of you, even just a tiny bit.” Joanne is talking, but she’s not listening quite well. Her eyes are set on the microphone in the middle of the stage, just minutes ago taken up by a man who was less than funny.

“I don’t want to deal with men at this moment.” She whispers, though unheard by her friend as she rubs her hands over her face. She has to kick off that idea of getting on stage some way, right? “Jokes have been bad today, haven’t they?”

“To be expected,” Joanne admits. “This place is only made for talking. Not precisely for sharing laughs.”

Call her out on her bullshit, she wants to be the one to change that.

Tugging at her apron around her waist, she moves away from the counter, blending in between the old wooden walls and walking over to the center of the tavern with Joanne right behind her, calling her name like a mantra.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Lighting up this night a little bit, how about that?”

Joanne slips her fingers through her lucious black hair, mouthing. “How precisely are you going to do that?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

She’s tired, perhaps. Tired of the grump that sits next to her on the bus every morning. Tired of working in this bar, of watching the couples kissing on tables and getting out there shitfaced and vomiting. She lays one foot on the stage, the crisp radiation of the lights casting down on her with a glimmer of excitement and an ounce of fear when she finally reaches the middle. No one pays attention to her. Or, no one, but the man in the front row, downing a bottle of whiskey like his life belongs on the bottom of the glass.

Speaking of glasses, he wears a pair of those. They fall on his face romantically, on the bridge of a nose that looks a little slimmer with the shadows that cast on his face, paired with lips pouted like rose petals and strands of black hair that frame the face naturally. She has seen that face, normally from afar and with squinted eyes, where he listens to her stories on a windowsill, practicing with shirts too tight and tiptoes too pointed.

He gives her that push. That man that silently laughs or scoffs at her jokes when she’s practicing for something that won’t happen. Even when his face speaks more of drunken truths than the lying grins he gives her, she finds the stranger to be…homely.

So, she picks up the microphone, clearing her throat and shaking her voice to a hoarser, curter one before sighing. “I grew up with a bunch of men in my house.” She starts, and at first, she doesn’t get much of a reaction, but with every tremble of her body and joints that ache to speak for her, she continues. “And one would think that watching big bellies and sweaty armpits would give me a better hindsight of not trusting men to…uh…disappoint me every once in a while.” With that, she starts walking a bit, sending a wink to the groups of people now looking at her. “See, now I got your attention. That’s typical, both for men and women, tell us that we can’t do something and we go and do it…equally as wrong as how it was when we started.”

That earns a few laughs, but she’s concentrated on how the stranger chuckles. His shoulders shake, hairs falling on his forehead as if they belong there. They probably do, like his entire anatomy is a dance that follows its own steps.

That stranger, without knowing, makes her keep talking.

“For example, with my first kiss, I had the audacity of believing that every hole shall be filled. Yes, blame it on the porn I watched…or maybe blame it on the fact that us, women, we are used to covering up what shall be left seen, so my mind went and I kid you not.” She lifts a hand in the air. “Throat. Tongue. Down. I saved that guy a visit to the odontologist and he paid me with what? What can you think about?”

“Great sex?” A woman in the background shouts and she hisses into the microphone.

“...You know eating in front of the poor is a sin, isn’t it?” She comments in a brief whisper before shaking her head. “No, I got disappointment. But then again, when you live in a house full of men, you’re quite used to it.”

More laughter and she feels on fire. Perhaps, because the man on the front row now had his hands pressed on each side of his face, looking at her with the intent of art. That night, she talks into a microphone, rambling about the in-between of being done with life but also trying to find the good side of it, and while she never gets to speak to the stranger, she knows he has a good luck amulet within him.

December 23rd, 2008.

“Have you ever considered posting dancing videos on YouTube?”

Jun is one very vicious man. Wonwoo can tell from the way he sits; with his hands interlocked in between his thighs to warm them up and his body leaning forwards and backwards in its own axis repeatedly. He is trying to take up on cigarettes, but he leaves them midway and abandons them on top of the wooden counter of his apartment. Dino is seated at the corner, sipping on the same beer bottle he has shared the entire night they were spending together.

Wonwoo’s excuse was to have something to eat with his friends. Tomorrow, he’ll tag along with his family to dinners and pleasantries. For now, he wants the relaxation that comes with a TV night after eating out. Now, Jun is looking at the ceiling as if it’s the sky and he can count every astrological sign that people say there are painted in the stars, twirling the lit-down cigarette in between his fingers.

“YouTube?” Wonwoo questions, not well-aware of technology at all. He knows he has a computer, though he never uses it, covered by a cloth somewhere in his apartment’s deposit. “What exactly is that?”

Chan squints his eyes, “You’re twenty-four years old, how in the world are you so lost in what young people do these days?”

“Because mentally, I’m not very young.” He explains, toying with the edge of the plate he had emptied. He traces the outline repeatedly, lost in thought. “Or because some people have other things to do.”

Jun scoffs at that, soon after masking his laugh with a hand clasped to his mouth when Wonwoo looks at him. Glares, really, but he won’t admit it.

“What’s the laugh for?”

“Wonwoo, you don’t do much apart from your routine.” Chan explains, extending a hand in the air after wiping the droplets of beer off his mouth. “You don’t date, rarely drink, spend most of your time practicing. The most action you get is from looking out the window to see this girl—”

“A girl?” Jun questions, finally stopping his ministrations of endless movement to look between his two friends. “There’s a woman in Wonwoo’s life?”

“The unfunniest comedian you can think of used to tell jokes in the building right across from our academy and Wonwoo was over the moon laughing at her jokes.” Chan tells the story as if it was a tale, standing up and doing big curves with his arms. A dancer, after all. “And once would think Jeon Wonwoo would ask her out, or at least make it obvious that he’s looking at her so she feels someone ogling her ass and finally gives him the time of the day, but the man’s sneaky as he can get.”

“It’s not okay to make women feel uncomfortable by ogling at them.” Wonwoo defends, leaning back on his seat and propping his legs over the counter. “And…she is funny.”

“Eyes of love, I’m telling you, Jun.” Chan contemplates, soon after placing a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder. “But yes, I think it’d be a great idea. Like, two dudes dancing in an academy but they are totally platonic about each other and prove to everyone that ballet can be masculine.”

Wonwoo half-chuckles at his antics, patting his hand on top of his shoulder with his own cold palm. “I’m not against it, actually.” He answers, not knowing the weight of his words. Who does? Every word is just a conglomerate of syllables and the wind that passes to brush them off. “Jun, would you care to record something for us?”

“I was waiting for you to say that!” Jun stands up at that moment, a little bit drunk and hazed when he moves over the living room. “I have my camera with me! We can practice and see what we can come up with. Us being you, because I don’t plan on dancing.”

Christmas lights and endless laughter fill a night that blurs in Wonwoo’s mind, but had been the initiation of something much bigger. Perhaps, even stronger than what he could have ever controlled.

January 1st, 2009.

The east side bleeds perfectly lit streets for her to gawk at, but ambition leaves her in her spot. She stares forward, towards the hotel that she would have been presenting herself in had it not been for the denial letter she got. As of late, it seems as though she is only valuable for getting a few gigs in drunk-filled taverns and bars forgotten by the highest of classes. However, she wants a little bit more.

She sees the fitted dresses and the interlocked hands, and dare she say, she’s a bit jealous. Envious, even. She likes the way those women taut their gems and their beaming grins. Delicacy is something that can’t be found in simplistic matters, much less behind a dirty microphone as she spits out jokes about herself. She runs a hand through her hair when one of the invitees runs over a puddle with their sports car. Her sweater and jeans end up tainted by the mud of the previous rain.

She could care. She could actually do something for her sweater.

She decides to rage, however.

Just as she’s about to turn around on the bottom of her boots and pretend like her life is not a complete misery, or make a joke about it, she hears a commotion, voices that blend with each other before she sees a body stumbling when getting out after being pushed—and whom she expects to see is not the stranger. That Wong guy whom she isn’t sure is called that way.

Handsome, of course, that he has always been. His hair is disheveled, falling on his face, a fitted shirt clinging to his body with a scar of a cup of coffee sprawled on the white material. His hands spread on the sidewalk, looking up with a flush on his cheeks and a sigh that impresses her.

“I wouldn’t have taken you as the kind to get kicked out of places, Wong.” She isn’t even aware of why she calls him such way. She has heard his friend, Chan, who is far more extroverted than him, call him something of the kind, but then again, she can’t recall. His knee is still pressed to the concrete and in any other position, perhaps from another point of view, it could look as though she is rejecting a marriage proposal. “Need any help?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, extending a hand and hoisting him up until she feels his chest flushed to hers. There’s some carving in those muscles, in the dip of his waist and how he stands as upright as possible. His eyelashes flutter softly when looking down at her and she has to swallow thickly.

Okay, those eyes? She can get behind them. She wishes she could, actually, so her vision would be able to foresee what he is seeing as his lips spread in a shy, tight-lipped smile.

“Why ask if you already helped me?”

“Pleasantries.” She responds, letting go of his hand and brushing it on the back of her jeans until she saves it in her wet pocket. That’s a weird sentence, now that she thinks about it, she must be drenched in muddy water if her pocket is wet. “So, getting kicked out of expensive hotels? That’s better than me already. I get kicked out of bars.”

Wong, whoever, laughs at what she just said the way he did when he was drunk back at her first show. Now she has some more in a few bars, but never anything exclusive. “You seem like the type.”

“Love that we are both judgemental.” She chuckles along with him, earning an eyebrow lift that shouldn’t be quite as attractive as it is. As though he is confident in his silence and how that makes people more interested in him.

“Chan’s the one that did it. He’s a friend of mine. Got drunk and started a fight, I ended up pretending like I was the one who started the commotion.” The stranger explains with a hand rubbing at the back of his neck. She watches the veins in his arms stand out in between fine hairs, making her bite her bottom lip.

This man is art, even more from up close.

“Are you sure you weren’t the one throwing hands?”

“I could never. It would mentally drain me.” Wong retorts, raising a finger in the air out of the sudden. “You called me Wong, didn’t you?”

Uh-oh, that wasn’t his name? She has to play pretend now. “Um…Did I? I don’t really remember if I did.”

“You don’t? I heard you perfectly. Where did you get that my name was Wong?”

“I…I didn’t call you Wong, first and foremost. And I may have heard Chan calling you that over the music when I practiced my stand-up in the building next to yours.”

“Wonwoo,” The man corrects, breaking out in sweet laughter before shaking his head. “But I’ll take Wong. I think it sounds scarier than Wonwoo does.”

“Wonwoo.”

“Yes.”

“That’s your name.”

“I guess so. My parents gave me that name.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry.” She scrunches up her nose, placing a hand against her forehead.

His shoulders shake in that silent laughter that shouldn’t interest her quite as much before he shrugs. “I’ll let it slide if you tell me why you stopped going to the building next door.”

“I’ll be honest, I’ve been making so much money off stand-up comedy that I haven’t been able to actually stop by and practice. I just spit things out in a microphone. Like Eminem.”

His eyebrows raise in an innocent manner. As though what is served in front of him is somewhat truthful even when he doesn’t double-check. She wonders if life has been less complicated for him, reason as to why he can believe with more of an open heart.

“Actually, my career is dying. Both as a bartender and as a comedian but…I don’t have a choice, right?” She sighs, the humidity seeping like a cloud of air around her before it dissolves into nothing. “It’s either trying to live my dream or feel my heart failing so…if I make money or not, it shouldn’t matter. Success is a concept, not really a tangible reality.”

At least, that’s what she thinks. What she wants to believe when her cheek squished against her pillow and she feels like her thoughts are more death-threats against her dreams than anything else. Wonwoo stares at her with some kind of puzzlement in his gaze, and he takes that as his cue to nod.

“Something we never reach, that’s what success is. Or when we do, it slips through our fingers just as easily.” She didn’t expect him to sound so somber, but with the shiver of his body that trails up his spine and shakes him to reality, he hums. “But don’t feel down because of that. I like your jokes.”

“You’re the only one who laughs at them, most likely.”

“Some laughs from one person is still more than silence.”

She watches him with precision. Wondering, maybe, how a man like him exists. How there is so much compound profoundness in a body that is constructed to be seen as it is. To be inspected and studied like the anatomy of perfection. Only that he’s nowhere near close that, isn’t he?

“If I ever become successful, Wonwoo, I’ll say your name on stage.” She promises, giving a few steps back and hearing that laughter that she had never been able to catch from up close.

She wouldn’t trade it, now that she hears it.

“Make that a promise.”

“That’s what it is.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“It probably won’t happen, so don’t wait for too long.”

With that, she turns back, munching on her lip and trying her hardest not to smile.

So, maybe, she has someone to play for.

Present.

“Wonwoo’s career skyrocketed before hers, and I think that’s one of the biggest issues.” Joshua is not a plotter, but in this episode of Backstage Says, it feels as though he knows more than most. He leans back on his seat, rubbing at a tired eye. “He loved ballet. I’m not sure if he did it more than he loved her.”

For whoever that had seen Jeon Wonwoo on stage, they were up for a treat. Social media was barely touched upon when he finally got discovered by a group of women, which would then be shown in the video version of the podcast for people to see. Joshua taps a finger against his mouth, sighing.

“Her commentary was very clear. She didn’t want to be anyone’s shadow. She had lived there for a very long while…so I’m not sure what clouded her mind when she started seeing Wonwoo in another light.”

April 8th, 2009.

Wonwoo stands in front of a camera, feeling a little bit ridiculous, and yet, somehow saved from the imminent doom of his thoughts.

Near his house there is this plaza, a place that is rarely visited by anyone but teenage couples that are trying to hide their interlocked hands from their parents and make-out for a little longer, and a few kids that rush into their parents’ arms to get scoops of ice cream. He tugs at the beige sweater that rests on his broad shoulders, easing the knot on his throat with some clearance of it before he looks around.

Enormous trees cascade in elegant flowers at this time of the year, wetting his lips when seeing the gorgeous clouds that settle on the sky of Seoul. Jun had been nice enough to offer himself to record a video for Wonwoo’s and Chan’s channel, but he was nervous. Now that he got an email from a talent company, aware of his existence and wanting to support him monetarily, he’s not sure that he’s very happy about posting a video.

It’s the seventh time he has recorded the same routine, and he feels as though he does it worse every single time.

Wonwoo puts his glasses down, next to his wallet on a bench nearby, resting his hands on his waist and fixing the camera to settle the colors in brighter shades, discerning the clouds like puffiness in the sky to never be grazed by the horrendous hand of humanity. He likes that, the unreachable, but how freaking scared he can be of it is surprising.

He starts the music again, getting on his first position and raising a long leg up with expertise, though, when he curves his hands and gets ready to start with his jumps, he feels a droplet falling on top of his head. Soon after followed by many more, earning the widening of his eyes and a rush to Jun’s camera.

He’d get killed if he dared ruin that camera.

He covers it with his sweater, shielding it while the pouring rain gives him a message. As if telling him that now that he is represented, he won’t be able to sustain the views that he had gotten on his YouTube channel.

Though, just as he’s about to reach for his glasses, he hears music in his head. He listens to the soundtrack to ‘The Nutcracker’ in his head. He remembers the time he danced to it in high school; the mocking he got from other guys, the coos that came with the actual play and how it made him feel alive. He doesn’t realize that he’s getting into position until he renews the feeling from back then, swinging to his heart’s content. As it should have been, like it hasn’t been in a while.

Much to his surprise, however, as every joint in his body unravels into a typical glee, he sees a body from his peripheral. It’s a rushing outline of a woman, watered down like a flower in spring. She stops when seeing him and he notices this, immediately stopping his ministrations. He expects to see the mocking grin that takes over her features whenever he sees her; like she finds the universe funny. However, as she holds onto a now wet paper bag, she blinks at him before letting said bag fall to the floor softly.

“My God.”

His cheeks tint red, clearing his throat and putting his glasses on just so he can’t see her surprised face. He’s still not quite used to the attention; at least, not when he doesn’t have Chan by his side to take up most of it. “It’s raining. You shouldn’t be out like this.”

“It’s not like I planned it, Wonwoo.” The comedian says, taking one step forward before sighing. “How do you do that thing?”

It keeps raining and yet, she doesn’t care. She inspects with an eye that would be otherwise scarily specific when he frowns his thick eyebrows. “What thing?”

“The jumps!” There is a bit of a childish tone to her voice before she expands her arms romantically. “You seem so elegant yet so wide. It’s surprising to see you take up so much space and make it look okay.”

“That just means I’m tall.”

“You get it. I’m the one that should be funny.” She rubs the sleeve of her sweater on his glasses, rising her gaze and connecting her eyes with his own. God, those eyes could kill him at any moment and he wouldn’t feel any pain or resentment. “Show me.”

“Show you?”

“I’ve never been much of a dancer myself.” She admits, fluttering dusk-covered eyelashes at him and sighing deeply. “But I want to liberate myself in a way. It’s raining. I’ve gotten the news that my show’s been canceled. I bought my favorite bread and now it’s drained in rain. Maybe, try to lighten the mood? You always do whenever I see you.”

Not that they see each other often. It’s been months since he has heard her stand-up, but somehow, he’s always rooting for her. Living off a small crush that is clearly one-sided. “Okay.” He breathes out, taking off his glasses and hanging them from the collar of his sweater. “Raise your arms on both sides.”

She does so, but her actions are mechanical. One arm on the left, one arm on the right, and then a crook of her chin. “So, what else?”

“Your arms are not part of you. They are terminations of your being. Like the leaves of a tree or the feathers of a bird.” Wonwoo explains, letting his fingers graze the tip of her fingers. They are soft to the touch, somehow strong when he crooks them to his desire. “Let them curve, with a little bit of elegance, I guess. Lift your pinky and index, as if you are pointing at something but are too drunk to actually know what it is.”

“You’re an elegant drunk. I’m more of the shitfaced kind.”

“Part of ballet is pretending.” Wonwoo finalizes with her hands, sending her a smile before he takes place in front of her. “So, that’s the first position. Then, you launch yourself forward the slightest, letting your foot point behind you.”

“You really think I have the balance to do this?” She scoffs, leaning her body in just one leg and looking into his eyes before quirking the corner of her lips in a smirk. She’s far too close for him not to be bothered by that action alone, but he lets it slide. “Okay, now what?”

“You were the one that asked.”

“I want to feel pretty and elegant for once.”

Wonwoo bites on his lip, because he’s sure that he’d spit out that she’s always beautiful. The kind of gorgeous that has people looking twice, because that smile definitely has to be worked by Gods themselves. He would want nothing more than to spend hours and hours of his day looking at her just speaking, whether it was in her serious form or making fun of everything around her. He sighs deeply.

“Bring the foot you’re holding up to the front, give three quirk steps on pointé and then, jump. Rotate as you do so.”

He gives her a demonstration, passing by her side and keeping his balance even with the rain. Though, when he finally ends up in the last pose, she has already dropped her arms on her side, leaving her mouth ajar the slightest before she starts clapping.

Wonwoo had been blushing before, but this is even worse. He even finds himself smiling a little bit, because hey, what kind of man doesn’t like being looked at like that by a woman like her?

“That got you a lot of pussy back in high school, didn’t it?”

“You’d be surprised.” Wonwoo adds sarcastically, rolling his eyes and then, laughing.

“No way, you were the pussy monster? Like the cookie monster but cooler?”

“Not a lot of women want to be with a ballet dancer. I guess it’s the stigma of thinking that we are more femenine than most.” He confesses, only to have her quirking an eyebrow before crossing her arms over her chest.

“I don’t believe one bit that you weren’t popular in high school.”

Wonwoo, caught in his own lie, licks the inside of his cheek before laughing. “Okay, I may have skipped the fact that I was a ballet dancer so I could go out on more dates. But that’s part of going through high school, the whole experimenting bit.”

There is that mocking grin that he oh-so-deeply likes. She points her finger at him; straight, volatile, quite different to what he is used to because of dancing, before she adds: “I knew so. There is no way in this world that you weren’t some kind of heartbreaker yourself.”

“I never said I was a heartbreaker.” Wonwoo counterparts. “It depends on the story. Sometimes we are the good guy, sometimes we are the bad guy.”

“Sometimes, we are just some guy.” She comments, sighing deeply. “I feel like I’m just that at times.”

Before he could tell her that he sees endless talent in her, she picks up the camera that he had left forgotten at the bench before placing it in his hands. “I think it’s not going to work anymore. Sorry for that.”

She gives a few steps back, raising her arms on each side of her body before jumping two steps backwards. That makes him smile, even though he should be worried about his camera.

“Be my guest, judge me.” She says, only to have him shaking his head.

“Could be better.”

“I’m the bad guy in your story, then.”

Though, as he sees her leave, he’s not sure if she is the good or the bad guy. He only knows he’s more than just somebody.

And that he has to buy Jun a new camera.

February 15th, 2010.

She doesn’t feel the slightest bit like herself. Polyester never looked good on anybody, much less herself.

This green dress ends up a little bit under her knees, a little snug on the chest area and yet, it doesn’t make her look any more attractive or sexier. The Valentine Ball was an event that her manager had invited her to be part of to launch her career; some people had heard her stand-up and they wanted her to be part of the line-up. Through gritted teeth, of course, someone had to cancel for her to get the spot, but she’ll take what she can.

What she didn’t expect was that the dress that she ordered online would look like this. Pressing a hand to her neck, she tries to breathe in deeply. Perhaps, suck in her waist or look a little bit more confident, but as she’s trapped with a bunch of people in a changing room; known talents and those to be found, she feels like she’s out of place.

She should have taken the sexy dress that Joanne offered. She’d feel more confident then, wouldn’t she?

With tingling fingertips and the acids in her stomach lurching and expecting to make her throw up, she starts walking in the hunt for something. Anything? She is not really aware of what she’s looking for, but she’s opening doors, not seeing anything but more people, trapping her in a mindset that tells her she’s not really that talented to be performing in front of five thousand people. To be part of a lineup, even.

Another beer bottle ends up in between her fingers, sipping on it like her life depends on it. Skin heated and perhaps glistening a bit of sweat, she opens the last door she sees before she has to turn towards a hallway that she thinks she has already passed. The doorknob feels heavy in between her fingers, tugging at the door and then pushing it with her shoulder to help it open before she comes face to face with a body that she shouldn’t be ogling at.

A slim waist is hugged by a gorgeous coral-colored shirt, flared at the shoulders, paired with some pants that belong to a dancer. That head of black hair is a bit longer than she remembers when he turns around to look at her, eyes squinted because they are always like so when he is not wearing his glasses. He neatly folds the shirt he must have taken off just a few minutes ago in between his fingers, but she’s licking her lips at the moment.

Totally to taste the beer off her tongue, not because he looks good enough to eat.

Wonwoo is not a common memory, but it’s a good one. She briefly remembers that she had sworn to say his name on a show when she became successful, but that hasn’t happened yet. Sighing deeply, she raises a hand in the air, stumbling a bit because of the alcohol in her system.

God, make it better for the show, that’s all she can think about.

“I totally didn’t mean to interrupt you for like the umpteenth time.” Before he could say if that was the case or not, she closes the door with the back of her cheap heels before chuckling. “But I’m totally scared and overthinking my script, but I’ll take this meeting as a sign that I might be dreaming or that I have lost my mind completely.”

The room is smaller, crapped and heated, warming her up and making her feel a bit stupid. There he is, Wonwoo looking like an absolute dream, slim hips and small waist, with his cheeks pushing up in a smile and all she can think is ‘feromones, calm the fuck up’.

Fuck it, he’s sexy, she’ll admit that. Those girls that thought dating a ballet dancer was stupid must have lost their goddamned minds.

“You’ll do well, I’m certain.” Wonwoo places his shirt inside his bag before leaning on the bedframe of the mattress that comfortably lays in the corner of the room. The angles in his body become more apparent at that moment, but she tries to concentrate on what he is saying. That’s her drunk mind speaking, after all, isn’t it? “I have my own presentation today. I read your name in the list but I wasn’t sure if we were going to meet up. There’s plenty of talent today, after all.”

She chuckles, drinking the last few bits of her beer before placing the bottle down on a table nearby, getting closer to Wonwoo. “Sorry, I’m awfully stupid when it comes to these things. I didn’t check the line-up. I would’ve looked for you if that was the case.”

He widens his eyes momentarily before smiling. “Why so?”

“Because you’re a distraction, and I feel like I’m losing my mind at this moment. I’m drunk, nervous, and let me be honest with you…” She shouldn’t. Her mind is blaring signs that she shouldn’t speak more than necessary. Or at all, really, smart people like Wonwoo shouldn’t have to listen to her blabbering. “You look too fucking good right now and I want nothing more than to kiss you so I can have my mind at peace for a lonesome second. That’s what I need, really.”

Wonwoo should be one of those lovers that are shy and bite back on their words. She had seen him blush and stammer with his words, soft and comfortable, but there’s always a few hidden words in every silent tale. Wonwoo doesn’t move, but he’s a magnetic field that pulls her in by just extending his hand and interlocking their fingers together. He traces the bones on her knuckles, a few lines in his fingers felt by every fiber in her body.

Her anatomy gravitates towards him, by the way he doesn’t move and yet, everything about him seems as though it’s dancing. The golden lights of the room cast down on his now darkened eyes, though there is a bit of flirtation in them. Perhaps, he has his own sneaky ways of getting what he wants. Silently and patiently.

“You really want a kiss to forget? So, if it was anyone else, you’d ask them, too?”

She shakes her head, because she must have lost it. Giving a man this kind of power over her is different from what she does. She’d talk smack about what she is doing right now in a stand-up comedy, but the romance in his eyes is killing her neurons slowly.

“No.” She confesses. “I’d only want to kiss someone this badly if it was you.”

Wonwoo wraps a hand around her waist, though the hold is weighty, he doesn’t tug at her. He moves her closer, making her stand in between his thighs, warming her up when his lips wrap around her upper one. His other palm moves from her hand to her face, cradling her cheek and smacking their mouths together. He’s relaxed, patient as ever, with an elegance in his touch that shows the experience that he likes to deny. The pit of her stomach winces, contracts, pleads for her to get closer to him but her hands only wrap around his shoulders, curving more towards him, breathing in and sighing against his mouth before taking more of him.

His tongue doesn’t graze her lips, and his teeth don’t lurk to bite. Wonwoo is patient to the point she is down to kiss him for the entire night and miss the event if that’s what liquor courage makes her do. He smells like musk and feels like warmth, pulling her in and yet, granting her only what she can have for dreams late at night, never reaching the end-line.

Because he wants her to run there.

He’s an expert in making people look at him and desire him.

Soon after, she’s hearing her name being called from the speakers, calling her to prepare for her stand-up. Wonwoo pulls away, eyes gleaming, looking at her with a desire that weights his eyelids down and makes his lips purse as if disappointed.

God, she’d kiss the disappointment away if she’d have a little bit more time.

“Go. I’ll be looking at you.” His lips are not rosy enough, not kissed enough, and she’s about to lean in for another kiss when he moves away, opening the door to the room and pointing the entrance for her.

“I’m still not successful enough to say your name.”

Wonwoo’s lips quirk up at that. “I’ve heard you say my name in my mind plenty of times, don’t you worry about that.”

July 1st, 2012.

There's radiation within her body, emanating from her back and transcending to her chest. It doesn’t make her feel at ease, but somehow, she completes herself with the nervousness that coaxes her. Dressed in the costume for this week’s program, she tries to concentrate on how different life is. Joanne is somewhere in the bar, forgotten by her, abandoned in a world where gold splashes cameras and makes people coo at the images of celebrities.

She’s nowhere close to that, or so she thinks, feeling like a kid as she stands in front of Dokyeom, her counterpart. He is always ready for the next scene, live and yet, eating whatever script he had written alongside her for every Saturday night. However, her body dissipates into a small butterfly that shakes through the strong wind, trying not to disarrange herself with every bridge she burns to be able to fly.

Now that she’s flying, making people laugh weekly, working on her own stand-up shows, she is afraid of how high she can go before the imminent fall comes.

Whenever she feels nervous, she remembers the smile that she would see in some of the front rows of her shows. She recalls the vibrato of his voice after that lonely kiss they once shared while she was tipsy. It’s the only thought that makes her stay sane when the world moves a little too quickly, like Dokyeom’s lips as he recites the script before the cameras turn on.

“I want to do something.” She says, because her decisions are always taken like that. When she’s scared and there is nothing else to do but hope that throwing herself to the ocean will wash away that emotion. Dokyeom stops speaking, looking at her through thickly brimmed glasses that barely let him see. It’s part of his nerdy character for the show, after all.

“I’m blind enough as of now not to ask you what kind of crazy thing you want to do.” Okay, maybe she had gotten a little bit lost on the midway-through being a celebrity phase, but partying had some kind of taste to it. Like alcohol that buzzes through her body and makes her feel confident. What she rarely is these days, after all.

“I have a friend and whenever we spoke about me making it, I’d promise him that I’d say his name.” She recalls. Of course, Wonwoo is not really her friend. She barely knows a thing or two about him. His passion, the way he holds himself together, his laugh and how deeply he enjoys her jokes. She knows he is majestic, rare in every shape or form but in the best way. “Mind it if I call your character like him? In hopes of…you know, him watching it.”

Dokyeom takes off those enormous glasses before cooing. “Hold up, you’re lying to me here. If you two are friends, how do you not know if he’s going to watch it?”

“We’ve lost touch.” After that kiss, she would like to add, but she’d never hear the end of it if that was the case.

“Or, you actually are not friends with him but are trying to get inside someone’s pants.”

“On fucking stage, yes. Of course.” She adds sarcastically, pushing at Dokyeom’s shoulder before she hears him laugh joyfully. “Nothing funnier than making things awkward for everyone.”

“It’s what you’re saying, mind you.” Dokyeom counterparts, clearing his throat and then, grabbing the script again. His eyelashes flutter when reading the next few sentences, waving a hand in the air to coax her to say more. “Say the name so I don’t lose track when performing.”

Those syllables weight in her tongue. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t regret not trying it out with him. Whenever she goes out on a date or when nights get heavy on her own, she imagines whispering it to him, while wrapping an arm around his waist and trapping his lips in another kiss. One better than the last, if that’s even possible. She wants to unclad his secrets and get to know him more, to touch skin but also soul.

“Wonwoo.” Her voice shouldn’t have been as soft as it was and maybe, Dokyeom notices it. He doesn’t see her, nor does he make a joke. If anything, he stands perfectly in place and plays his character even when she calls him Wonwoo, trying her hardest not to smile but failing at the end of the scene, when she says it with a grin on her face.

Maybe, that’s what she wants. For Wonwoo to see that she has started dancing with life and while it’s nowhere near easy, it’s something. For her to get used to what the world threw at her was out of the question. Now, she releases her own weapons and fights against the odds, letting the rain wash down every insecurity she ever had. Like she did with him.

She auditioned for this weekly comedy show the day after she met up with Wonwoo under the rain, after all, and it took time, but she got called eventually. She wants to believe his braveness is what unleashed the inspiration that got her to be a better version of herself.

Or damn, she’s just overthinking the possibilities. Wonwoo could be just like any other man, a stranger to her, but it’s not like she’ll get to know so. He vanished into a memory of what never happened, only to stay that way. A treacherous yet luring road that was never crossed by her wandering steps.

July 9th, 2012.

Wonwoo doesn’t understand how his students spend most of their time with their noses glued to phone screens.

He should do it more, he thinks. He has his own channel, after all, and while he has launched and bleed through classes through his shared academy with Chan. However, as he extends his joints and prepares to start from the top with the presentation his teenage students were preparing for a high school performance, he hears more giggles coming from the group of girls seated on the wooden floor. They look at him before hiding blushed cheeks behind extended hands.

They have been like that for the last fifteen minutes and he knows that they got over their crush on him over five months ago. He made sure to establish that from the moment they started taking classes. However, there is something different and he has been trying his hardest to ignore the laughing and the stares, but it’s starting to feel uncomfortable.

“Do I have something on my face?” Wonwoo questions, placing both hands around his waist and frowning deeply to earn an answer. He needs to perfect their synchronization and they are not going to get anywhere with the gossiping that happens in the classroom.

“Nope.” Bitna answers quickly, chuckling into her hand. “But I think you’ve got a girlfriend, Instructor Jeon.”

He had one seven months ago. It wasn’t the most glorious of times and it ended quickly. With a few dates and hands that got lost in naked skin, but it didn’t feel like much else. It drained him from his energy whenever they argued, and the memories slipped from his fingers quickly. Not love, not like, just simply spending time together.

Was that even a girlfriend? He’s not sure. He hasn’t asked anyone to be so in years.

He hasn’t felt unique in years, and that’s mostly part of what stops him. To be with somebody, he wants to find someone who makes him feel as though he is one on his own, yet great enough for someone to desire to be with him. The butterflies can be forgotten, but there needs to be a buzz…or something.

“Girls, what are you saying? Stop inventing things.” Though, when he gets closer to them, hearing a chant of ‘no’ when he grabs the phone, he didn’t expect to see what he did. A woman is on the screen, one that he remembers candidly with a lingering kiss that had him wishing for more. Her lips part on one of those live weekly shows that plan on making whole families laugh while making commentary about celebrities and the current society. Though, what takes him off guard is when she continues with her role and dares say…

His name.

It doesn’t take much more for him to smile. Savoring the glory of her finally reaching a position in which she is happy. At the end of the scene, she seems to feel him. As if she knew he’d react this way, with the tips of his fingers tingling to touch her and his heart blossoming within his chest. He starts the video again, just because he can, hearing more coos from his students…but he’s awfully inspired.

Joyful, even.

She said his name. She’s on TV. Now, he knows he has something to watch every single week.

His impossibility, as he’d like to call her.

November 22nd, 2014.

Simpleness, she had always liked. Yet, when a diamond glimmers, a person can’t help but look at that. She wonders, somehow, if she is the villain in the story when she cringes into her own body as the cameras flash in front of the car her boyfriend was driving towards their date. Not that it was going anywhere nicely, the car smells rancidly of weed and they had been arguing from the moment they got out of his home. Lost for the past three days, he had been partying endlessly, and not a single text had been sent her way to make sure he was okay.

People hated them to bits and pieces, too. She was a joke of a comedian for dating a pop star, and Mingyu was too lost in his own vision to even care what people were saying about him. A few paparazzi, those that are now hunting them like an animal’s prey, had been nice enough (or not) to email her to see if she wanted to have a few pictures of Mingyu cheating on her. She asked her team to ignore them, pay them however much was necessary just because…

She loved him? As the cameras grow wider and Mingyu starts cursing under his breath, she looks at his profile. Stardom was always beautiful; god, she had wished to be in this same position, wrapped up in cameras and money just years ago. However, as Mingyu’s jacket transcends the smell of a perfume that isn’t hers and his eyes water in complete stress, she realizes that this is not love.

This is the need to brag. The egocentrism that clads celebrities and hides them in loops of nothingness. She likes appearing in pictures with him, that she has something to talk about in her monologues, that at the end of the day she has someone to kiss on the lips and have get lost in between her legs when she feels lonely. But this? The invasion of privacy? The loneliness? The screaming and arguing that ends up in pretending for a few cameras…?

“I’m done.” She confesses, grabbing her jacket from the backseat before she pats a hand on Mingyu’s shoulder. “Stop the car. I’m getting off.”

“What?” Mingyu questions, eyeing her as if she’s crazy. She must have been, considering that she has been in this relationship for the past four months and she feels as empty as ever. Sold out, like her shows should be, not her heart. “You’re absolutely fucking nuts. They’ll eat you alive.”

She knows that she is somewhere near the center of Seoul, where the restaurants become more apparent and people are not half interested in who she is. Or they weren’t, until she started dating the rap superstar, Kim Mingyu.

“I want to end this. This…fucking car ride, and this relationship.”

He chuckles at that. Of course, he can’t believe what she is saying. “Babe, I’m not joking. Those people could actually hurt you.”

“Stop the car and open the goddamned door.”

“No.”

She opens the door at that moment, watching his eyes widening because Mingyu can pretend to be reckless, but he won’t continue with the car ride if she’s threatening to get off. Her jacket clads her vision when she gets out of the car, bodies tugging at her own, pushing her around as if she’s a sack for them to possess. However, the tears she wants to spill never appear, swallowing thickly and moving forward.

“Slut!”

“Sell-out!”

“How are Mingyu’s other women doing? What do you think about that?”

“Get back here!”

All of this for feeling a little bit less lonely? No thanks.

She starts running at that moment, hearing more shouts behind her, but she covers her face with that jacket. No one could see her shame and sadness if she did so. After all, she’s expected to be all laughs and that’s all she will ever be. Never successful enough, never anything but someone’s shadow. A woman, after all.

More steps are heard behind her and she starts turning on alleys, not knowing precisely where she is going and entering the first secluded restaurant that she finds in an abandoned alley. Cats are by the doorway, the secluded Japanese restaurant perhaps very close to stopping their business, but someone is seated there…

And it’s almost ironic that she doesn’t recognize him at first. His waist is still as taut, glasses humid because of the ramen he’s having. His black hair is shorter, pushed away from his enigmatic features, relaxed as ever until he hears the big sigh that escapes her lips. Her palms spread on her knees, never once letting go of the image in front of her.

Jeon Wonwoo always comes at the best times for her, and yet, somehow, it’s always the wrong moment for them.

She tosses the jacket to the side, hearing the old lady working by the entrance asking her if she’s okay but once glance of Wonwoo at her and she recognizes that he’s aware that she’s nowhere near close to that. Her feet move to their own accord, standing in front of him as if asking him to say something. He doesn’t.

“I think I lost.” She whispers, because she knows that he’ll understand better than anyone else. “I don’t know if it’s myself…or this game that I dare call life.”

Wonwoo stands up at that moment, placing his hands on her shoulders when he stands behind her. The part of her that were dead are lit up by hope when he sits her down on the chair across from her, grabbing a hairband from his wrist and messily tying her hair.

“You can feel pain now.” He reassures her and at that moment, she feels the tears that she had been hiding for the past few years building up. “The more pain you feel, the more it will heal…and then, you’ll see yourself in your reflection again. I promise.”

In the tea Wonwoo had been drinking, she sees tears winding down her cheeks, a few hairs framing her face and a man behind her, who smiles softly, like he is a bit shy about doing it.

She’ll be herself one day.

It’s not today, but she lives within her body and she’ll appear one day.

“...I would really like some ramen.”

“Have mine.”

“You sure?”

He chuckles and the sound alone heals her heart. “The world is a little bit better if we share, isn’t it?”

May 26th, 2017.

“If you had to choose a part of me to stay with, which one would you choose?”

She asks that question as she watches the sunset with Wonwoo, seated in between his legs and sharing a dense, oversized jacket with him. His arms are wrapped around her body, caged and confined by the same fabric, with his perfume lingering in her body and his chin squished to the top of her head. Wonwoo half chuckles at her words.

“That awfully sounds like I’m a serial killer and I will pluck off your nails or something.”

“Don’t be so literal about things, Wonwoo.” She rolls her eyes at him, interlocking their fingers together and still, feeling her heart stop. She likes saying that what makes her relationship work is not letting anyone into their lives. They know what they want them to know, and that power alone has people wondering if the person in her monologues being completely anonymous.

Or kind of, people are well aware that he is a famous ballet dancer and it’s not difficult to add two plus two.

“Your eyes.” He confesses, pressing a kiss to her neck and then, tugging at her body closer. The heat in her skin could come from his body or his words, she’s not certain, and that’s the beautiful thing about being with him. One never knows with Wonwoo. “You’d never look at me when we were in those two buildings.”

“I’d look at you!”

“Not a chance.” Wonwoo adds, laughing at her words. “You’d look at the wall as if people were staring at you and there was so much power in her gaze alone. When you finally asked me what I thought, I was over the moon…You’d look at me without a hint of fear, and I needed that. I wanted to be fearless because you were so.”

“I’m not anywhere near fearless.” She adds, pressing his hand to her thundering heart. “I’m scared of…of how nice you make feel, Wonwoo. How much I love you.”

“Let it be.” Wonwoo says, swinging their bodies from side to side before pressing his lips to her own. She had gotten this; comfort and grief…letting go of the sadness that had once cladded her. “So, yes, I’d stare at your eyes forever if I had to.”

“You have to now after telling me that.”

“I won’t fight it, then.”

Present.

“So,” Joshua Hong finishes his podcast with a small clap. “I wanted to talk about this story because I see people lurking for real love and whenever they answer what real love is, they answer this couple and I am certain they have broken up. Here, in Backstage Says, we have confirmed that Chan and Wonwoo are no longer friends after a dispute about the business and that…”

“You are so full of shit.” Much like her mother, Sangmi places a hand in the corner of the laptop and closes it with a thud. Not only had her little crush on the podcast host deflated, but now she’s licking her lips, twirling in her chair and looking up at the idol poster she has plastered on her ceiling.

Did mom and dad ever break up?

Picking up her backpack, she rushes out of her room with heavy steps and a curiousness that blinds her. When she reaches the kitchen, she sees her mom, hunching on the counter and jotting down a few notes for her next script. Dad, on the other hand, is reading a book that speaks of old literature and art.

Sure, her parents are not open about their relationship…but she exists. How could Joshua Hong say that they are no longer together?

“Did you guys ever break up?”

The young teen gets the attention of Wonwoo first, who raises his eyebrows before exchanging a glance with his wife. Laughter rises from both of them at that moment and Sangmi inflates her cheeks, bundling up her fists.

“I’m being serious!”

“We spent plenty of years lost, I guess.” Wonwoo announces, closing the book softly. “You have to think of it this way, it took us a long time to end up together even though we knew we were meant to have something with each other.”

“Okay, so, nice.” Sangmi adds. “The podcast I was head over heels for had an episode about you two and they say you broke up. Joshua Hong is now off my crush list.”

Her mom is the one to laugh now, writing another sentence before shaking her head. “Get ready, kid. You’ll make lots of mistakes before you find the one.” Though, she eyes her daughter. “Besides, he’s a little too old for you. Get over yourself.”

“Mom!“

That’s not Wonwoo’s attitude, for sure.

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