Arcus // ATEEZ ✔

21: the unknown goodbye

The pages in her book get used up quickly as the days of her hospital stay increase, with her writing frantically as if she knows that her time is almost up. She weaves in and out of her story as she's trying to build it up from her web of convoluted ideas.

Whenever Serim is visiting her and she's not receiving her drugs, she'll be writing away on her book, the rough drafts piling up as she moves on to the next chapter, to the next and to the next. She doesn't look back to edit them, she simply writes, figuring that she wants to lay out the whole foundation of the story first before going back to read it all over again.

She doesn't care if her story doesn't make sense, or it sounds too cliché to even make someone like reading it, as long as she feels happy while writing it. She finds herself escaping to the world she made her own, trying to make up characters of her own despite them being based off the people that she knows. She toughens herself up, making it as if it's no big deal as she goes to throw up in the bathroom before returning to her bed, pulling the platform towards her as she continues to write.

Seonghwa and Serim are impressed at the new determination they see in her, and they silently agree that this is most likely because of the pink-haired pianist she met. Ever since they left her with Hongjoong that day, there seems to be a fire igniting within her, driving her to continue writing without even a sign of her being affected by her cycle of treatments. Most of the time the couple sit on the couch, watching as she grips her pen, the sound of the tip scratching against paper enough to tell them that she's no reason to stop now.

It's until she reaches the chapter where the princess, Park Narae, will get to know what the Arcus is that she stops, and Seonghwa looks at Jinju as she slumps back against the headboard of the bed.

"I just realized that I still haven't figured out what kind of object the Arcus is supposed to be," she laments as she twirls the pen in her hand. She puts it down, then as if for the first time, she leafs through the previous pages, reading up on all of what she wrote. She doesn't even realize that she has wrote so much, considering how the sentences just flowed out from her easily and she pens them down without much thinking. "Any idea?"

Serim is sleeping on Seonghwa's lap, and Seonghwa is rigidly sitting so as to not make her stir. He whispers, "Maybe you can take a rest, I feel like every time I visit you, you're writing. Sleep on it and maybe have the night to think about it."

"I will, ah, I'm getting tired from holding the pen too long. It's more of an outline rather than a complete story though, just me describing what goes on at certain parts of the story. I'll try to compile and elaborate it later."

"Can I see?" Seonghwa asks. As both of them are not able to move from their spots, Jinju throws the book on the couch, careful so that it doesn't hit her best friend. Seonghwa reaches out for it, and he chuckles even as he reads the prologue. Then he skims through the rest of the story, trying to grasp the idea she's delivering. "You're giving me way too much credit in this, I don't look that good. Plus us fighting because we're of different ranks? This sounds like an idea from Serim."

Jinju rolls her eyes as she dramatically throws up her hands. "Really? Cause I'm pretty sure Serim is always foaming at the mouth whenever she takes a look at you. She says your face is sculpted perfectly or something- her words not mine. Don't be too proud. And yes, it was her idea to include that scene of you and her supposedly 'fighting' because your relationship isn't an approved one."

"She said that?" Seonghwa chuckles as his left hand immediately pats Serim's hair gently. She mumbles something in her sleep before she smiles, but her eyes remain closed. "She's cute." He gives up whispering as he puts away the hair that's covering her eyes.