Moon Seojoon, 25 — medical student and a physics nerd. He gambles his time away doing his rounds at the health center, studying, or lying under the deep night sky somewhere on a concealed ravine, looking at constellations from far and wide. 

Seojoon can frequently be seen doing his rounds at the health center or studying in the café at irregular intervals. Whether or not resultant from a caffeine rush, he also can be found driving around the city and lying down on the wide pasture of grass just outside the university to watch the stars and collect himself. 

ask him (he likes it rough and loud). not many people know, nor does he care to express it, but seojoon expels the stress from his body by fulfilling his needs.. more than likely. keep it a secret between you two, okay?

“I wonder how far the smoke rises up to,” starts Wonyoung, voice faltering and eyes gleaming, words ringing hollow in Yujin’s ears. The smoke has begun to thin out before Yujin can even muster a reply, and truthfully, she doesn’t even know if she wants to. 

The sky has taken on an unusual gray, the clouds seemingly tufted from the dregs of ashfall. Each drag of Yujin’s breath feels like she’s inhaling fire, with Wonyoung’s face reflecting off the last of its embers. 

Wonyoung and Yujin are both sixteen, milk teeth knocked over, and the freshness of pubescence already fluttering from their limbs that when Wonyoung flashes a smile, there’s an unfamiliar ache in Yujin’s chest. 

Yujin’s leaving soon, and it’s taking everything in her to stand her ground. 

“Hm?” Wonyoung pushes, an expectant stare boring holes into the other girl’s false resolution. Yujin begins to pull away, sighing, “There’s nothing— maybe the sky will come back to, in a few days.”

“Maybe,” Wonyoung reaffirms, letting the threadbare of their conversation fall and fly away much like the smoke that has dissipated into the atmosphere. Gone, and invisible — the distance already starting to form between them, bubbling and sinking the final embers of that January ashfall. 

The man’s fingertips are swiftly leafing through the money she has brought him, the sound of paper on skin ringing in the deluge of raindrops, rippling like distant ocean waves. His eyes shift to hers, brows knotting more and more each second.

“This is all you got?” The drug dealer’s accent is thick with disbelief and suspicion. He has finished counting, and the amount totaled by the money Hyeju has given him has lessened even more than the past few weeks.

Hyeju only shrugs, fishing her hands in her pockets and eyes darting downwards. “Slow day, huh?” An inflection of dry humor in her voice, her stance as nonchalant as she can pretend to be. She’s been doing this for a few weeks; it should be easy to feign nonchalance by now. 

“You fucking—!” Bryl suddenly starts, hands moving as if to grab her and face splotched with the redness of anger, unforeseen, surprising even Hyeju. 

The desk between them posed as a momentary barrier, and the girl is able to sidestep, reflexes agile through the years hardened by deception, scamming, and pickpocketing. 

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Her own voice roaring atop the sound of downpour outside, fingers taking hold of the obsidian daggers hidden in the waistband of her jeans. The lightweight shift of the blade brushes against her thighs, bringing her immense comfort. 

The man looks at her, dead in the eye, veins visibly bulging under the horrible whorls of tattoo marring his skin from the neck up to down. “Have you been wasting my supply away, you stupid girl?”

Hyeju is quick to deny, defiance soliloquized into the contours of her face. “No! It’s been a busy day, man! Cut me some slack; it isn’t my fault your stock’s been stale!” 

Bryl belts out a deep, low laugh, growing in volume as his body resigns into the chair behind him that Hyeju cannot even begin to separate the rumble of his laugh from the rumble of the rain outside. 

“You stupid, stupid girl,” the man smiles at her, not quite reaching the eyes glazed with an opulent anger. The glow overhead catches onto his features, smile widening even more, baring his teeth and casting the shadows on his face an eerie type of calm predisposed to a barely holding dam. 

“I’m gonna do you a favor by counting 1 to 10. By the time I count to 10, and I still see you anywhere near this street, I’ll shoot you. Fairly easy right?” Bryl settles into the back of his chair, self-satisfied with a glum expression on his face, eyes gleaming with a murderous glee and portly hands reaching under his desk. It’s unmistakable to Hyeju to misplace the sound of his shotgun cocking. 

Bryl is not bluffing this time: he actually intends to kill her. 

“1,” the dealer starts, a smile clinging to his voice as his fingers toy with the shotgun trigger.

The girl does not have to be told twice, her initial reflexes kicking in for the second time, feet planting into the ground and making for a run as Bryl continues his countdown, voice growing distant, “2”.

Her footsteps, feather-light, are quick to be drowned by the sound of the rainfall outside, doors pushed back by the sheer force of adrenaline in her body, yellow fluorescence spilling onto the sidewalk, and raindrops dancing across, making it a point to dance with the shadows of her fleeing body. 

Hyeju is long gone before Bryl can even count to the fourth number. 

kitae song 

bitna 

hyewon 

ahri