20 September 2020

Seventeen Dorm

Although I was busy with the comeback, rehearsing choreography during the day and filming for the Home Run MV from the early afternoon, I still made time to watch TRAP on TikTok. I knew that Junghyunnie was beating herself up for the middling to low ratings of the series. Minutes passed by as I tried to frame my views in a way that would support her.

"When viewers said they wouldn't rewatch it, they stated the reasons why. The entire cast was good at acting but the plot wasn't a proper thriller. We don't know the motive for the stalking and they rushed it. TRAP would have been better classified as a college drama with a stalker, than a thriller because of the stalker." The words rushed out once she answered the video call.

There were the beginnings of tears in her eyes when she turned my way. "I was hoping to launch my acting career again with this series but I wonder if I haven't instead sunk it to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe I should go back to designing perfumes." While Hyeon and Yeon were indeed delectable scents, I knew she would regret it if she never acted again.

"You'll probably get more roles when you graduate. As the concept for Semi;Colon goes, why don't you rest for a bit and pick up where you left off?" I reflected on how the second album of this year would have been the first since we planned Heng;garae second. "Why don't you ask me a question about my past?" I decided to distract her from this sensitive topic.

"There are so many," the student's shoulders, which had been drooping, squared as she steepled her fingers under her chin. "Oh, recently, I overheard two students at my college debating the merits of filming during the day and during the night. The lore says that vampires are weak to sunlight, but the moon reflects the sun, so how are you not a pile of ash, even at night."

"Well, I'm not sure if you saw my ascension in your visions," she shook her head so I continued. "Caishen's palace is closer to the celestial bodies of light than Earth so I developed immunity during my stay. No one knows what will happen if there's a solar flare. Maybe I will become a pile of ash then, the most handsome pile of ash that ever existed."

"You hide your grief with narcissistic comments," Junghyun cocked her head in the direction of the camera.

"It's a coping mechanism, albeit an unhealthy one," I nodded at her completely accurate psychoanalysis.

Questions about each other were volleyed back and forth, like Wilson. "Then, how are vampires in other countries able to walk in light?"

"A deity would often require a sacrifice," I mused. "I lost time that I could have spent with my family, as well as with the women I admired most. Two years after my rebirth, my sperm donor left so my guardian, the God of Wealth, probably figured that I had suffered sufficiently." I saw my mother depressed and I found a husband to bring her comfort in her youth.

"Sing something from the comeback for me," the tarot reader protested my announcement that we both go to bed. I scrolled on my music player until I found the instrumental demo for Light a Flame. I let the sultry jazz and samba of the bossa nova fill the room, setting the mood for something romantic.

"We pretend like we don't know although we know, we're falling for each other. We already know, losing control, ah yeh yeh," my sensitive ears picked up the admiration of the maknaes that I was rehearsing this late into the night. The irony was that the 98 and 99 line worked so hard, they could be mistaken for 4th gen trainees.

"I can see your lids descending," I reminded the student of her promise to get at least 6 hours of sleep per night.

"Okay, Grandpa," she suppressed a yawn and bowed her head goodbye. I would have joked that I was old enough to be her great-grandpa but that unsettled me. No matter how much time passed, the age gap still made me awkward. Although no one knew the truth about me, I wanted to do right by her. Maybe we should limit contact for the time being...

I knew Xiyeon (distancing myself from her, mentally, felt weird) would put her phone away in the chest of drawers beside her bed so I texted the flimsy excuse that I would barely look at my phone now that preparations for the music show stages were in full swing. Her assignments would once again pile like snow so she would forget me soon.