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blueprint

on my priv, i spent a lot of time talking about my crush on [redacted]. it was a long one too, spanning for close to three years (jan 2019-jan 2022) before i started forcing myself to move on because she got a boyfriend. i already wrote a 2min fic chronicling the process of the crush and my imagined confession + rejection, but never the aftermath of it and what it would be like to see her again after being distant because of college and her own personal/mental health issues that lessened our phone calls and texts. anyway. just keep this in mind for now.
on 8/8, i met a very dear friend (care) in person, finally(!!!) and we both really enjoy baking, and so i baked them some blueberry coffee cake. i packed it up neatly and everything, and when we ended the day, i was in a rush to get onto the train because it was leaving quickly and in all my stupidity and haste i forgot that i didn't give them the cake and i realized like just after the train started leaving. they then sent me a spotify link to stayc's run2u and said that we could meet again on wednesday, and they'll have baked something for me by then too. so we did meet up, and that all worked out. and then there was the issue of what to do, because i live in such a small fucking town and ??? thankfully the fair was happening so i took them there to just look around and i didn't expect to see anyone i knew and we were just walking and i heard [redacted]'s voice and had a very brief mental breakdown. i'm an awkward person, so i awkwardly introduced care to [redacted] (and the friend they were with) but at the end of the day before i went to bed all i could think about was lingering feelings, what-could-have-beens, etc.
(she texted me the day after and we spent six hours walking around with her parents. it's an interesting experience because she's my best friend but also someone i really like a lot and sometimes i have to remind myself that by having feelings for her, i crossed a line i shouldn't have. that being friends is still good enough.)

commentary

so there's a few things to unpack here. why hyunin? and how did heeseung come into the picture? mae, you're writing skzenha? WHAT.
yeah.

so, hyunin. whenever i write jeongin, i tend to not write him with a ship because he (and seungmin) are my projection characters, and he's just such an interesting person - i feel like i haven't totally figured him out yet and i feel like i can't do justice to him for some reason? even in this specific fic, i feel like it's not enough but it's a "i am you, i see me in you" kind of thing between me and him at least. and when i thought about all the skz members who would harbor strong feelings for someone who means a lot to them but seems faraway at the same time, the only person who fit was jeongin. the reason i put hyunjin is because it couldn't be anyone but him - the image i have of [redacted] has always been minho to me, but for some reason it didn't feel right to make this 2min. the other reason it ended up as hyunin is because care was telling me about their hyunin fic (check it out here!) and then they just filled up my brain.
LEE HEESEUNG. now you may be thinking, "mae, you used to dislike him. why the sudden change?" okay let me explain myself. firstly, i adore heeseung and admire him for his talent; enhypen would never be the same without him and his presence in the group is so fundamental that without him, it would be too empty and too unsettling. the reason i "disliked" him was because the first three times i watched i-land, something about him seemed cocky and standoffish and conceited. of course he had every right to be because he was the #1 be:lift trainee and was a contender for txt debut, and i'm maybe wondering if i saw him like that because they prescribed him the title of "ace" too early and the expectations just made him act a certain way on the show. of course he had to participate and try his best, but it was obvious that he would end up being in the debut group. he had the talent, he had the admiration from the other participants, he had the tenacity and consistency the producers liked, so there's no way he wouldn't have gotten in. so i feel like his smugness? wasn't necessary. even when i started properly following enha (b:c era), something about him just seemed very...off-putting. it's even worse because i couldn't even explain why i just blatantly half-disliked the guy. but then i watched it a fourth time (don't ask me why.) and something about him just felt really really different. this was recent, so my bias line is fixed now (if you're curious, it's sunoo, jungwon, sunghoon, jay) and so i wasn't watching in order to see their journey/process whatever. this was just strictly observing everyone and whatever cockiness and over-competitiveness that i saw in heeseung the first few times had completely disappeared. if anything, he just seemed so small and overwhelmed and i wanted to cry for him. the responsibilities that he was forced to carry must have been so soul-crushing, the blame that he was getting - honestly, it makes me wonder if i was so fucked in the head when i first watched it. what changed it the most, i think was that one instance where he said "i actually thought i was a very strong person. but looking at it these days, i think i'm a very emotional person. there are places where you want to be loved secretly. i'm the youngest at home." and i think that's what finally got me because of course he's pressured. of course he's acting a certain way, and what gave me the right to be disdainful of his persona? how could i ever be so mean to him? he's a different person to everyone in his life, and sometimes their characters as idols (given by companies) overshadow the rest of them by so much. when i look back on it, i think i was being very ridiculous and even this statement as well is just like...why did i even think that? i don't know. of course, since i love enhypen i wouldn't purposefully ignore him in content or anything like that and i certainly didn't discount his talent and voice. i really really really love it and if you ask me, i always look forward to hearing hee(sunwon) in their songs, because the way he sings and his approach to music is so so incredible (his voice is so comforting, i listen to his "off my face" cover to fall asleep constantly and i have a hard time sleeping). and i've always admired his dynamics with the other members; jay, jake, ni-ki (i'm a heejayist, btw) but i don't know. rewatching i-land is eyeopening in the way that i'm comfortable with him now.
the reason why it ended up being skzenha (jeongin/heeseung) is because it didn't feel like jeongin could move on with an skz member. to me, skz are so intertwined and interconnected that jeongin going to college in a different state just to start ~something~ with another member (it probably would have been seungmin) didn't feel right. and now that my opinion of heeseung has changed and he's starting to become someone that exudes comfort, stability, NOVELTY, i felt like he was the perfect person to bring into the picture/jeongin's life. (heeseung is to jeongin as care is to me without all the romance. they're just people that are making my life different. different is good.) they might be ooc because i can write them but i don't know what their dynamics are like - HOWEVER, we know they're friends because of beomgyu saying on vlive that there's a group chat with him, jeongin, heeseung, and lim jimin and that gives me hope that we'll one day see more interactions (and maybe just more skzenha in general. remember when chan called jake an angel?? yeah).
i don't write beautifully or profoundly, as much as i would like to. i'm working on my extended metaphors too. i'll get there. but the one section where i just talk about what hyunjin is to jeongin...that shit was REAL. well - hyunjin and jeongin drawing apples together and failing is part of the fic. the dming part too. and the watercolor paintings. most of the other mushy feelings stuff is real, though. staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars...yeah i did that every night. if i put stars up in my apartment room now, i'd probably still do the same.
"hyunjin is three years of unrequited, unrevealed loving. three years of hoping their exchanged words meant something more. three years of staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, thinking about whether it's okay to think about someone like that. three years of impossible fantasies about being kissed on the forehead, being cocooned in someone's arms."
this is. it's a thing.
"hyunjin is words left unsaid, feelings festering and rotting in the crevices of jeongin's heart. hyunjin is bitterness and unfounded jealousy. hyunjin is lingering feelings when jeongin sees his posts on instagram. hyunjin is a lack of closure, words on the tip of the tongue."
this too.
if i had to sum up my three year's worth of feelings for [redacted] in eight-ish sentences, that would be the gist of it. i've talked about this ad nauseum on twitter but the problem with falling for a friend is there's no going back. i don't know how people break up and just stay as friends and not think about the past or whatever feelings they had. hell, i didn't even break up with her or even date her and every time i see her i think about how much i like(d) her. even now while i was writing it, i of course had to remember everything that i ever thought about her and it was so fucking painful.

music

there's no official playlist for this one because it's very self-indulgent and very impromptu; i didn't even know if i was going to write this as a fic until recently. but the songs i listened to were: ceilings (lizzy mcalpine), over-the-ocean call (lizzy mcalpine), heeseung's cover of off my face , paragraphs (luke chiang), a lot of keshi songs, the entirety of the evermore album, before (niki), high school in jakarta (niki), mixtape oh (skz), tmt (skz), insomnia (skz) and ice.cream (hyunjin’s skz-record)

final thoughts

people close to me know i tend to bottle things up; projection is a hell of a drug and it's easier to be vulnerable when it's someone else. so essentially this was me trying to articulate my thoughts about moving on, accepting things as they are, and trying to find new meanings in the things that brought me comfort. i mentioned the 2min fic earlier, and it's unlikely that it'll ever get published; i wrote that when i had the strongest feelings for her and was going through some of the worst depressive episodes of my entire life (so far). this is a much tamer version, and also just different because i've reached a point of acceptance. all this to say: it gets better. heartbreak doesn't last forever.
i had a lot of title contenders for this fic, all lizzy songs: i never loved you more than when you said goodbye (angelina); i'll say farewell, to what i can't tell (give me a minute); all my ghosts are with me (all my ghosts); and my shoes are now full of water (ceilings) which i ultimately decided on.
anyway thank you so much for reading my fic and if you read through the whole commentary, thank you for that too <3 i'll have something else out soon i hope!

Sticky: there's something to tell you, you want me to share it with you?

my shoes are now full of water - fic commentary