what if i wasn't done loving you?

[agentwilight]

SOHEE BRIEFLY WONDERS WHAT LIFE WOULD LIKE IN THE ABSENCE OF JUNSHIK. He entered her life a little later, but had stayed for so long that it felt like he’s been there since the beginning. He’d become such a familiar figure that Sohee found herself trying to learn how to live without his constant presence.

Perhaps in another life, or in the near future, it would be safe for them to be together again.

 

i.

HE WAS SIXTEEN TO SOHEE’S SEVENTEEN. An annoying dongsaeng at best who wanted to debut as an idol right when Sohee is a fresh face in the industry. She wasn’t so disillusioned with all of it before. She still held that rose-tinted, dazed look whenever she looked at fans who proudly scream her name in a music show venue.

At the time, growing fame was everything Sohee wanted in life. She wanted to hear the fans screaming her name while they sang along to her group’s songs. She wanted the proud looks on their faces as she finished a high note that would have been criminal for anyone else to attempt. She craved the attention, the spotlight, and the people’s love.
 

For some reason, Junshik always seemed to tail after her in the company building. Always greeting her with a ‘good morning, noona’ or a ‘have you eaten yet, noona?’ whenever she exits one of the practice rooms. Sohee is aware that people exist within the same sphere as her, that their lives all revolve around something — but it seems like Junshik’s revolved around her.
 

Junshik pulls her into a hallway at some point, and asks her for vocal techniques. Sohee shakes her head, I’m not yet done practicing. Though it doesn’t seem like a ‘no’ for him. Instead, he smiles at her and tells her that there’s always next time.
 

Next time comes after Sohee finishes recording a song for their second extended play. Her voice is coarse, obviously tired from singing all day without any form of respite. The studio technicians were ruthless; ‘Sohee can you repeat that again?’ ‘Sohee can you go higher?’ ‘Sohee, you need to get the notes changed right.’ Even for someone with a tunnel vision that leads straight into stardom, these days have always been particularly hard. Yet there’s something in the way Junshik asks her with troubled eyes that makes her say yes.
 

He’s never serious. Always joking around as if there’s nothing more important in the world than small moments of laughter. A stark contrast to Sohee’s serious nature. She works as if her life depended on it (and in a way, it did), without any regard for her personal life that exists beyond the company, recording booths, and glammed stages.

“Singing means breathing. If it’s not easy for you, then you need to exercise your vocals more.” Sohee points out after Junshik fails to imitate one of her high notes. (She made sure that she taught him the notes a few keys lower just to cater to his vocal range.)
 

“Not all of us are born singers, noona. Some of us actually have to train to get things the way you do.” He smiles, but his words hit Sohee in all the wrong places that ends up walking away from the practice room, leaving him dazed and confused.
 

After a few years, Sohee will understand what he meant. But Sohee doesn’t understand that now. She thinks it’s unfair that he implies how she doesn’t need to train for anything when the whole time, she’s been trying to make herself seem more likable for the cameras, and trying to cure her two left feet.
 

Junshik doesn’t know that she spends her nights in the dance practice room trying to nail down a particularly complicated choreography that seems so easy for her members. He doesn’t see her practicing in front of the mirror for five minutes every morning, trying to become charismatic enough for the cameras so they would never hate her.

Most of Sohee’s personality, even at a young age, had been extremely manufactured to cater for public consumption that the only thing genuine about her is her voice.
 

Nothing about Junshik’s comment is wrong, but Sohee wishes that he never had to point that out as if she had everything easy.
 

 

ii.

SHE’D AVOIDED HIM LIKE THE PLAGUE UNTIL SHE COULDN’T. Junshik has a way of pushing other people’s buttons, especially Sohee’s. The way he draws her to him is far from being like cosmic magnets that would forever be attracted to one another. Sohee’s repulsion towards him runs so deep in her veins that it’s hard not to get pushed when he pushes.

“Of course Sohee-noona would be able to do that, she was already hitting high notes when she came out of the womb.” He said during a vocal training session where every vocalist is required to be present. Sohee was quick to give him a glare from the side of her eyes, hoping that he would stop because she doesn’t want these compliments. She doesn’t want to exist outside of the stage. Out here, she just wants to be Moon Sohee and not Sohee from Korea’s rising girl group.

The added attention in the company only guarantees two things: admiration, or jealousy. Sohee pretends not to notice some of the jealous glances from the girls who entered the company the same time she did, but their eyes bore holes at the back of her skull the way a ray of sunlight would burn a hole into anything it concentrates on. She would pretend that their smiles were friendly instead of being masked with hatred and envy.

She debuted at fourteen whereas everyone who came before her had to wait a few more years before they could have their turn in the limelight. It’s unfair that she had to take the brunt of people’s insecurities when she trained just as hard as everyone did.

Junshik doesn’t seem to know about all these as he continues elevating her to a pedestal whenever they’re in the same room as other people. His admiration only causes trouble for her, yet he doesn’t seem to care that people would throw her more glares, or would roll their eyes after every compliment.

“You seriously need to fuck off, Junshik.” Her sharp tongue rarely comes out, but she’s just so utterly repulsed and annoyed by his behavior that she couldn’t help but to shed the innocent, girl-next-door image she’d cultivated to the point of believing it herself just to spite him.

He looks taken aback. Shocked, even. Usually Sohee would ignore his brushing comments, or his greetings. She’d never talked to him that way before, or anyone else in the company for that matter.

“Jeez, Moon Sohee. What a way to wish me a happy birthday.” He responds looking like a puppy that was kicked off to the side of the road. She notices the way he fidgets with the hem of his sweater, his feet shifting in discomfort.

Sohee doesn’t care that it’s his birthday. What she wants is for him to stop trying to divert all the attention to her in the company’s premises. She couldn’t care less if her sharp words ruin his day — he’d done that for her so many times that she thinks it wouldn’t hurt if she could just get him back for at least one day.

“You need to stop turning everyone’s attention to me every single time. It’s getting annoying.” She doubles down, ignoring the uncomfortable pang of guilt rising from beneath her chest at the way she’s treating him.

“You’re a paradox, Moon Sohee. Do you know that?” He shakes his head. His face is void of the toothy grin he always carries around. “You’ve pushed yourself so hard to the point of fame but you hate it when people off the stage pay you the attention you wanted.”

This time, it’s Junshik who walks away first.

He wins every single time, though, because Sohee buys him a birthday cake with the words ‘I’m sorry’ on the card. No person should ever feel shitty on their birthday.
 

 

iii.

“ISN’T IT OBVIOUS SOHEE? HE LIKES YOU.” Jiyeon-unnie tells her when they pass by Junshik who eagerly waved to Sohee with the same boyish grin and disheveled look (but not in the gross, disgusting, teenage boy kind of way).

“You’re kidding, unnie. There’s no way. Can’t you see that he lives to annoy me?” Sohee rolls her eyes, but the glint in Jiyeon’s eyes makes it obvious that she doesn’t believe Sohee.

When Sohee mistakenly enters the practice room where he’s in with four other boys, she finds herself blinking. Junshik looks different… almost like he’s a different person by now. She watches him for a while, thankful that they couldn’t see the door through the mirror. He glides on the floor so gracefully like he’s been doing this thing for a long time. He’s not just singing and dancing… he’s performing.

Sohee had to force herself to walk away before the music stopped in fear of him catching her.
 

 

iv.

SHE STARTS NOTICING HIM AFTER THAT. Not just notice in a ‘I-know-you-exist’ kind of way, but in a ‘I’m-fully-aware-of-your-existence’ way. She notices how his clothes are always put together, but his hair sticks up in different places and never seems to be properly combed. She notices how he dances with an intense passion that could rival some of his seniors who already debuted way before him. She notices how he seems to have taken her advice, that he sings with ease now instead of being so troubled with his voice before.

While Sohee would never tell anyone this, she’s self-aware enough to admit it to herself: Junshik is quite an attractive person

Of course he’s still annoying, but it doesn’t mean that he’s not good looking at all.

Perhaps it’s this newfound way of Sohee looking at him that makes her say yes when he asks her if they could eat tteokbokki together.

They don’t even eat it outside like normal people do. Instead, they’re hidden in an old practice room that people hardly use because of the broken floorboards and the dirty mirrors. Their bowls are on the ground, laying on top of plastic bags that caught all of the sauce dripping out from their food.

“I would have gone out with you like normal people do… but you’re famous and you can’t be seen dating.” It feels like a punch to the gut. Sohee likes to think that she’s a normal person outside of her career as a girl-group member, but Junshik just pointed out that she isn’t. She has reached a point in her life beyond the possibility of looking back.

It finally sinks in that Sohee is a public image now. Suddenly, wearing a cap and a mask to go out seems more suffocating to her than before. She’d given herself up for public consumption, and there’s a part of her that seems to be uncomfortable with all of it. While she loves singing in front of the crowd, she hates the idea of the public ‘owning’ her. She doesn’t want to become a girl that people feel entitled to. She wants to still be Moon Sohee without people feeling the need to know everything that goes on in her life.

“I’m still a normal person, though.” Sohee answers quietly. Maybe denying things out loud would make it real, but she knows that it’s dire.

“Your last show had a crowd of twenty thousand people screaming your name. You’re far from normal.” Junshik has a habit of reinforcing things that Sohee sometimes forgets. She couldn’t tell if this is something she likes about him, or something she wishes he would never do.

“But you interact with me more than they will ever get to. You know that behind all of that, I’m just a normal girl.” She holds this thought close to her heart like a wounded bird. Her tunnel vision still makes her seek fame and recognition, but she also wants people like Junshik to know that she’s not just her public image. She wants them to know that she’s real. Alive and breathing like everyone else.

“After you cussed me out on my birthday? Of course I’d know you’re a normal girl.” He laughs. Sohee annoyedly wipes tteokbokki sauce on his nose.
 

 

v.

“YOU CAN’T BE SEEN, SOHEE. PLEASE.” Jiyeon’s warning feels heavy on her chest after she confirms to the rest of the group that she is, in fact, seeing Junshik.
 

It took them two years to circle around each other, being there but pulling away just enough for people to withdraw their curious gazes. When they finally choose to take the leap of faith, they were never met with congratulatory messages. They only received warnings about needing to be careful.
 

“I know, unnie. We’re being careful, I promise.” Sohee reassures the older girl, though she couldn’t help but to overthink things. Are they being careful enough? Junshik had just debuted, fresh out of the training rooms and finally receiving a portion of the limelight Sohee has.
 

If they were caught, it would ruin Junshik’s career more than it would ruin Sohee’s.
 

“If you’re not going to do it for you, at least do it for him. It would be a huge blow to his career if he’s already too far away for his fans to reach when he just debuted.” Jiyeon finishes, walking out of Sohee’s room with an apologetic look on her face.
 

 

vi.

SOHEE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. They almost got caught by a curious delivery boy who peeked into the tint of Sohee’s car window. It’s their second anniversary, and probably one of the very few days where they’re not bothered by something in any way.

“We could have been caught, Junshik.” Sohee breathes out as she holds the plastic bag with chicken and beer with shaking hands.

“But we weren’t, Sohee. Why are you so afraid of being out?” He retorts.

This conversation isn’t new by any means. Sohee is always the careful one, while Junshik likes to live life on the edge — even if it means putting her on edge too.

“You don’t understand how hard it is for me, Junshik. One dating scandal and I’m out. The world’s going to hate me. And you know what’s going to make them hate me more? The fact that it’s you I’m dating.”
 

She’s seen it happen to Choyeon who had to leave their group because of the backlash of dating another idol out in the open. While Choyeon’s boyfriend is able to salvage his career, it was a different case for Choyeon who had to endure the people’s hatred on different social networking sites.
 

Sohee had sacrificed so much of her youth that it’s never an option to go out the way Choyeon did. She wants to succeed, to make it to the very top without a smudge of scandal in her record books.
 

“I don’t care, Sohee. If you’d let me tell the world just how much I love you, I would.” Junshik’s heart is in the right place, but his mind seems to exist on a different planet altogether that he couldn’t seem to grasp the graveness of Sohee’s situation if they were to date out in the open.
 

“Let’s not go there, Junshik. You know full well we can’t.” She reiterates. She couldn’t even say the consequences out loud because they were just too much for her to fathom.
 

“God, Sohee. It’s like you’re only ever my girlfriend behind closed doors.” There’s frustration in his voice, and Sohee hates that. She tries to be a good girlfriend. Tries to avoid confrontation and fights, but they always circle back to this conversation every single time.
 

“Behind closed doors is all we could ever have while we’re still idols.”
 

 

vii.

THE GROUP DISBANDED AFTER TEN YEARS OF BEING TOGETHER. It’s not the company’s decision, which would have been more understandable. Sohee being the youngest member meant that she’s the one who’s life extends farther than everyone else. At twenty five, she could still explore other options beyond what her group could offer. Sadly, it’s not the same case for everyone else.

Jiyeon is turning thirty five this year and wants to settle down and get married. How she kept her non-showbiz boyfriend hidden all these years from everyone’s knowledge is beyond Sohee. She only showed up in the meeting room on the day of their contract discussion with a ring on her finger, saying that she doesn’t want to do this anymore. She wants to settle down and start a family.

Lena just turned twenty eight, but it’s so obvious how the years have worn her out. There are dark bags underneath her eyes that even a concealer and color corrector couldn’t fix. She wants out. There’s no way she could handle the strain of fame and the spotlight. It took her ten years and more to realize that this isn’t what she wanted, that her life as an idol has run its course.

Sona is thirty, and admitted that being an idol is something she did to keep her family afloat. Now that she’s finally able to afford a good house for her parents and has sent the last of her younger siblings to college, she could finally rest. She wants to start a business, move to the countryside, and leave the idol life as a good memory she shared with friends.

Choyeon isn’t even in the group anymore, but they’re all aware that Choyeon just gave birth to her second child.

Everyone seems to want to leave the life of being an idol completely. It baffles Sohee how they don’t want to move further as a girl group. They’ve sold out multiple arenas and went to so many international tours that it’s hard to think they would want to give all of that up for something so… mundane.

When the rest of the girls finally decide that they don’t want to renew their contracts anymore, Sohee is left in the dust.

She comes over to Junshik’s place two hours later with eyes swollen from tears.

“They left me alone.” Those are the only words she could say.


Junshik pulls her in a tight hug, putting enough pressure that Sohee feels the loneliness ease a bit. “I’m never going to do that to you, Sohee.”
 

 

viii.

THEY BREAK UP FOR A TOTAL OF FOUR TIMES BEFORE SOHEE REALIZES THAT THEY WILL ONLY EVER GO IN CIRCLES. Junshik wants the same thing every time; to finally go public with their relationship. Each time he asks for it, Sohee would decline. Her reason unchanging every single time: It would only be detrimental to their careers.

“You’re a grown woman, Sohee. You’re already twenty eight yet you still think that you can’t date me out in the open? You’ve already proven enough to the world! You’re the most famous soloist in Korea! What else are you trying to do?” His words cut deeper than a knife.

“I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m doing this for you! You could go higher, Junshik. You still have more opportunities to explore! There’s no fucking way you’re going to trade all of that for the world’s hatred when they realize that you’re with me.” Sohee’s voice rises through her sobs.

At some point in her career, people have branded her as a diva. A problematic idol who’s rude to fans. What they don’t understand is that she’s finally become disillusioned from everything. She’d given so much of herself for public consumption that she only feels empty and alone deep inside.

Her voice, while it seems to be the only genuine thing she has, also has become a curse in a way that she couldn’t sing without it feeling like a chore. It’s not as though she wants to completely move away from that life the way her former members did. Sohee loves to perform, but she does want a breather.

She hates the need to produce one album after the next, to be followed by a domestic tour, and then an international one. The jetlag, the suitcases that are always packed with clothes, and the stress doesn’t seem to make up for the proud cheers of her fans anymore.

“I couldn’t care less if they hate me just because of you, Sohee. You’re the most important person in the world to me, yet you’re pushing me away because of the public.” Junshik runs his fingers through his hair, making it stick up the way it used to back when they were teenagers. “You told me before that I’ll always know you’re a normal person, and here I am trying to reinforce that — but you seem to not want it.”

“It’s not that I don’t want it, Junshik. I just don’t want to ruin things for you.” Sohee says with a resigned sigh.

Three hours later, she walks out of his apartment without any thoughts of returning.
 

 

ix.

A POSITIVE PREGNANCY TEST MAKES SURE THAT SOHEE DOESN’T RETURN TO JUNSHIK’S LIFE. She tells the company that she’s going on a hiatus, only ever disclosing her pregnancy to her manager and her parents before packing her bags and heading straight for a small town in the Philippines where Junshik could never find her.

When she sees Junshik’s group perform in the Blue House for the first time in her sixth month of pregnancy, she tells herself that this sacrifice is worth it.
 

 

x.

ESCAPING JUNSHIK STILL PROVES TO BE HARD EVEN WHEN SHE’S AWAY FROM HIS GRASP. She sees him in Sohyun’s toothy grin and the crinkle in her eyes when she smiles. Sohee likes to pretend that she doesn’t miss him, but his absence left a permanent void in her chest that she couldn’t seem to fill no matter how hard she tries.

How could she not miss him when he is everywhere? His face is on the billboards. His songs are on every social networking site. His smile is on every fucking YouTube ad.

Even until now, she could never seem to win. It’s always Junshik who gets the better of her.