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SETTING: The Nethers β ko's funeral parlour. in the present. TAGS: #siwooselfpara #wpc01 SONG(S) INSP.: Thinking Bout You β rei brown/joji & Ghost β Halsey
written for my oc ko si-woo in IVORY CITY. 2022.
for the monthly writing challenge, regarding the song βThinking Bout Youβ by rei brown & joji.
CONTENT WARNINGοΉ hallucinatory episode, sober si-woo (?). disassociation, depression. drug overuse. subtle mentions of gore, deformation, child abuse.
γ € γ €
It's never easy to leave you; And going back and forth, In and out the door.
You can bet that I bleed too. Take me back to shore, Where we were before, Where the waves were warm.
γ € γ € γ € his toes burrow furthermore into the beach; the waters licking his ankles, dampening the folded hems.
siwoo finds himself in an unfamiliar island.
unfamiliar faces made of static noises. a boy and a girl. excited chatters turn into gibberish, into silence. two boys and a girl. the roaring waves take over the words that the figures were trying to make, as they reach out for his hands.
his mouth moves to call them by their names, only to come out empty as his tongue feels like coarse sand. two fingers place on his lips, shushing him; and siwoo narrows his gaze to read the movement of their mouths.
γ it's okay, baby boy. you will remember in time. γ
surprisingly, instead of pushing them away as a rational choice, he finds these small hands holding his very comforting, as he looks down to observe the foam disappearing past his heels instead.
a reflection of a little boy blond stares back at him afterwards. unfamiliar cherubim face, chubby cheeks, a glimmer of light in his dark eyes.
it's been never since he'd seen a glimpse of a younger version of himself; one that he didn't even know exists with hope in its childish features.
siwoo feels like a stranger to this dream.
with smoke and swirls travelling from a mile over, the boy looks up at a town faraway, bursting with life... alit on fire.
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Heavier than metal, You been running for some time. Dreaming in a vessel, Do you ever wanna let go?
Faster than the devil, Sending signals in the sky. Never hearing back in time; Are you there, baby?
γ € γ € γ € γ live in life, die in death... γ
siwoo has been repeating this mantra for days.
but no matter how many times he speaks of eun's last words to himself, the hybrid doesn't get it. he doesn't get why eun would've accepted their fate easily; as if they deserved to be beaten, to be starved, to be tortured, to be shoved into a box and formed into gargoyles for protecting the selfish wishes of others. that, it had been their fault why they were born like this, as imperfect abominations from They Who Fell's last βgracesβ.
for all the times that he did his best to patch up broken bones and torn out wings from his back while keeping himself on the run from the Parish, it all ends up futile when his body cannot keep up any longer, and he's washed up in some back alley in the bowels of The Nethers.
flickering his fingers, remembering the feeling of aether towards his fingertips; crushing everything and everyone all at once in that cursed place. the same flames that they used to rip him apart and put him back together, again and again and again, are now consuming their bones, their building, their crooked beliefs as he crawled maniacally out of hell.
siwoo lies on his back and looks up at the starry skies, wondering if his friend is enjoying the paradise he'd been so proud of.
he remembered how he finished the last of the wing dust he'd pinched from someone in Apocalypse, though he regretted not trying in killing the damn fey for its wings so he could at least have momentary pieces of peace like this.
γ doesn't make sense when i'm already dead before i even βliveβ. γ
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Made me look the other way, No longer summer days. They see it in my face; I know it's just a graze, They got me in a maze, And I hope it's just a phase.
I can't see you gone away, Never mending all the way. I don't want no longer days, I don't want no longer days, I pray...
γ € γ € γ € he thinks he'd find the answers if he's diligent enough to look for them.
in the sad eyes, bad guys, mouth full of white lies.
in the numbers collected in his ledgers, in the bodies sleeping next to him;
eun had been the first. should have been the last,
and jett reed had been the last. should be the last.
how many times did he tell himself this, after how many times he dreamt of their deaths? where most likely, they end up dead in his arms?
γ live in life, die in death... γ
siwoo tells himself, finding his back laid against the dusty rooftop of the abandoned building of where the parlor stands now.
γ follow your heart. do what you can. γ
he laughs, and the smoke consumed from the dissolved wing dust swirls from his mouth, from his nostrils. up to the stars where eun is waving hi. and siwoo waves his hands back, arms flinging, making a dusty version of a snow angel on the concrete.
γ that's some bullshit you fed me real good, huh? γ
he still follows that stupid mantra anyway. who knows, the answer might just turn up itself to a question that siwoo barely remembers.