She met her amongst neon lights. She was pink and purple and a million shades of blue, but best of all she wasn’t even a shade close to grey. 

Every part of her was drenched with color when she smiled neon pink spilled over her dazzling white teeth. Her eyes scrunched up, and she laughed as she twirled the wires of her cassette player. 

Sooyoung softly gasped, her plush lips parting slightly. She knew that girls like her didn’t exist in Eden. They were the ones the teachers warned her about; in the stories back home, the girls with the pink hair would have the hero drowning in the black eyes. And before they even knew it, they were gone and the story ended. No happy ending, just another cautionary tale. 

She swung her feet nervously as she clamped onto her cup. She had ordered an hour ago and her cup was still full. She turned away from the pretty girl and watched the lights dance in the empty rink, old pop songs rang through the building; her feet tapped to a rhythm she didn’t recognize, her lips moved to lyrics she didn’t know. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a fluffy mess of pink skate across from the register to her. Her fist crushed the cup, bubbly soda spilled over her hand as she tried her best to avoid making eye-contact. 

“Hey,” the pretty girl greeted, her skates coming to a smooth stop. 

“Hi.” Sooyoung dropped the cup and looked up towards the pink-haired girl. Glancing slightly at her nametag. Vivi . She thought it was pretty, a pretty name for a pretty girl. 

“You’ve come here a lot,” Vivi said with a grin, “even though you don’t skate.” She eyed the plate of cheese pizza that remained whole and would be tossed away at the end of the day, and the now crushed soda cup. “Or eat.” 

Sooyoung felt her cheeks burn and she hoped her embarrassment would melt into the flashing red and pink lights. “You’ve noticed?” 

Vivi smiled; she spun in her spot, her hands waving in general directions, her fingers pointing at chairs that never needed to be put in after dark, and arcade machines that were overfilled with plastic toys. “I mean... You’re the only one who ever comes here.” 

“I’m new,” she quickly spat the lie, although it wasn’t far from the truth. Sooyoung knew that, if it had been any other time she would’ve squirmed at the thought of lying. But she’d done a lot worse than lie. “So I don’t really know any other places.” 

Vivi pulled out a small notebook and a pen; she quickly scribbled away in it. Her eyes narrowed while Sooyoung watched her tongue slightly stick out of , she watched her eyelashes bat and small drops of black ink dribble off her fingers. 

She tore the slip and handed it to Sooyoung with a soft grin. “Call me. I was new too, I’ll show you around, there’s not much but there’s a nice cafe next door and a tattoo parlor at the corner of town. My friends own it and we can just chill there.” 

She glanced at the neat list of numbers, they sat orderly atop the line, right under the bold and red “ORDERS” stamp at the top. Sooyoung bit into her lips, she didn’t know what she was trying to hold back, but whatever it was it would’ve destroyed any chance with her. 

“Thanks,” she mumbled after a few seconds of trying to fight the joy bubbling in her chest. She leaned back into the chair, nonchalantly raising the slice of pizza to her lips. She was just doing what she read in the stories back home, girls always wanted someone cool and calm. 

(She'd just have to make do with her soda soaked skirt). 

“What’s your name?” she asked, her eyes catching only the prettiest shades of pink and blue. And Sooyoung’s heart melted in her chest. 

“Yves.” 

Her eyebrow raised softly as she pulled on a cassette player and pressed a button, a quieter song filled the humid silence between them. 

Sooyoung swallowed an awkward laugh, “But Sooyoung’s my real name.” 

Vivi nodded as if she agreed with the deeper part of Sooyoung that knew Yves was dead. She was long gone, still caught in the wreckage of Eden. “Sooyoung’s pretty,” a pair of delicate eyes looked up at her. Sooyoung thought all the good in the world rested in eyes like those. “So what made you come here Sooyoung?”

Sooyoung never considered herself new to Earth, she had always been watching of course. Her feet would dangle off the edge of Eden, only a few feet away from the warped apple tree, as she stared at the revolving planet. She couldn’t see it, but she knew that there had to be something greater there, something more than the pearly clouds and angel songs in Eden. 

(Because why else would Eve bite the apple? Why would that forgotten angel take the fall? Because Eden was heaven distorted, warped and stretched a thousand times over).  

“Fresh start,” she grinned, her eyes forming two crescent moons, and Vivi’s heart melted in her chest. 

She saw Hyejoo at night, she’d peer out of the shadows in the corner of her eyes. A sliver of her bright yellow skirt, or her green- she looked different every time- blowing softly in the wind. 

Sooyoung stopped, she always did, her grip tightening on her bag as she turned to face the growing darkness from forgotten alleys. 

She was the beginning of a rebellion, the spark of true light in Eden’s artificial brightness. She burnt bridges, temples, buildings, and oh so many memories. And yet she was afraid of the quiet girl who always followed after her, a girl careful enough to plant her feet only where Sooyoung’s shadows would cover her. 

Why. Why. Why. Why. 

Hyejoo’s wide eyes scrunched as an innocent smile floated to the surface, “Yves!” 

Sooyoung felt her gritted teeth and tense jaw melt away, the roughness of her voice sanded away till it was kind and gentle- till it was more Yves than Sooyoung. 

She was only a girl, wide-eyed and b with endless curiosity when everything she had ever known turned into dust. Olivia was only a girl. Olivia carried white lilies in her pockets, she never did her school-work because the birds outside the window were so much more entertaining. Olivia was only a girl. Olivia was too afraid to go near the forests. Olivia was only a girl but Hyejoo was something much more broken.

“Olivia,” she whispered breathlessly, her arms wide. Her heart thumped so loud that the sound of the rain and the birds cawing were all drowned out. 

(How long had she waited for this? How many times had she dreamt of this happening again? How many times did she regret not taking Olivia with her? Stars would die and be reborn again before she stopped seeing Olivia in her dreams). 

She ran out of the darkness, her yellow skirt swishing in the wind. Her loud laugh echoed down the empty streets. Sooyoung shut her eyes, a smile tore across her face as she waited to drown in Olivia’s forgotten warmth. 

She heard Olivia jump off the sidewalk, her heart tensed and her arms opened even wider. 

A cold burst of wind slapped her across the face. Her arms wavered for a few seconds before dropping to her sides. The emptiness pressed into her chest, her sternum creaked and her ribs cried out under the weight. 

tightened as she slowly opened her eyes, she stared back at an empty alley, darkness spilled over grey concrete. Her face crumpled as she tried to catch the tears spilling down her face, her hands dug at her skin- clawing, scratching- till she felt more sharp pain than the dull throb of grief. 

She felt stretch, veins ripped, flesh torn apart at the seams. All because she needed to contain the ever-growing list of regrets that she tucked behind her larynx. She thought she could fold her heartache like she did with her clothes: one sleeve and then another, all while ignoring the bloodstains, then one last fold down the middle before being tucked into a drawer she would never open again. But grief stretched where Sooyoung wanted to constrict, it swelled where Sooyoung wanted to shrink. 

She sprinted home that night. Passing by empty stores, she glanced into an empty store, glass tears poured down her reddening face. Her breath hitched in her unraveled, torn-up throat- Olivia’s smiling face looked back; her hand raised in a cheerful wave. 

Her eyes nearly tore open as she tore herself away from the store. Her feet slammed against the road and her heavy breaths trailed behind her. 

Sooyoung sprinted into a dreary apartment complex, her breaths ragged as she tore her door open and fell inside. Her hands shakily slammed the door shut, the sound of crumbling wood echoed through her apartment. 

“Hello?” The sound of some tv show in the background. Sooyoung heard a cheap joke get thrown and an applause of laughter rang through the phone. 

She hesitated, breathing slowly as she slid against the wall, her legs pressed onto the cool tile. 

“Hello?”

Sooyoung swallowed a blood-stained sob, “Vivi?..” 

“Sooyoung?...” she asked softly, “What’s up?” 

“Vivi…” she repeated, her face scrunched up against the wall, and her legs folded up and pressed against her. 

”What’s wrong?” she asked again, but quicker this time, a trace of fear coiled around her words. She grabbed onto the remote and in one swoop all the light and sound in her apartment crumbled. Darkness enveloped her as she clung onto her phone. 

“Vivi, how do you forget?...” Sooyoung asked, whispering into her phone. Her voice hushed yet teary, her voice decaying even before she spoke. 

Vivi’s breathing came to a slow stop. Static filled what her voice couldn’t and it quietly hummed into Sooyoung’s ear. 

“What do you want to forget?” 

Sooyoung’s lips opened slowly; cherry plush lips that contrasted the white tile of her kitchen floor, and the brown wood of her cabinets. How could she explain Eden without it sounding like heaven? How could she explain heaven without it sounding like hell?

Eden was heaven and hell. It was golden halos stretched farther than they should, cracks running down the curves. A golden aura flickering till there was nothing but a grinning face looking back. 

How could she explain what she left behind? Chuu- Jiwoo, who knew what she went by- followed her everywhere, so she assumed she’d be here too. But months passed and no happy giggles were trailing behind her, no surprise hugs when she turned dark corners. No warmth. She thought that’s what she hated most about Earth, how cold it was without Chuu by her side. 

“Do you believe in hell?” she asked after minutes of crinkly static filling her ear. 

“Sometimes,” Vivi whispered into her phone as if God was looking over her shoulder. “To be honest I don’t think about it all that often.” 

“I came from a place like hell.”

“America?” Vivi laughed quietly, and Sooyoung found herself smiling softly in the darkness of her apartment. Vivi’s warm laugh hugged her tight as she began to slide onto the ground. 

“No- But close,” Sooyoung hesitated, Eden had made her ugly, not in the way monsters and beasts were ugly in stories on Earth. But in the terrifying way Eden’s shadows fell on her, the way only her eyes were illuminated by her torch, before everything she knew exploded into flames. 

But Eden was buried behind her ribs: that Yves, those yellow plaid skirts, that crimson red apple that always managed to tempt her. Were all stuffed and covered by soot-covered ribs and torn up muscles. To find Eden would mean her chest had to be torn open. To tell Vivi how she escaped would be throwing her pulsating heart into her hands.

(And trusting she wouldn’t toss it into the flames). 

“It wasn’t a good place,” she said finally, her lips firm. Eden was gone, talking about it wouldn’t bring it back. And it wouldn’t make her decision any cleaner or any more filthy. 

(Her hands were already stained; no amount of repentance or grieving would ever clean them. She knew this ). 

It was a short answer, simple and clean. And Sooyoung knew that clean didn’t always mean true, it usually meant someone went back to clean up the bloodstains. But what good could the truth be to Vivi now? She couldn’t save Eden, Eden was just a place in a book she probably didn’t even believe in, and she couldn’t stop Yves from throwing the first torch. 

She yawned, her eyes fluttered as she sank further into the ground, like the weight of the world was pushing further and further down. 

“It’s been a long day,” Vivi stretched across the couch, her legs barely touching the opposite side. 

“Mhm.” Her cheeks felt drained of all warmth, the coldness of the cheap tiles infecting her, face first, limbs second, then straight to her heart.

Vivi balanced the phone on her ear as she snuggled into the pillow. “Night.” She mumbled while shutting her eyes.

“Goodnight,” Sooyoung sighed. It was time to forget. 

Sooyoung never truly learned how to forget. Except on Eden she never learned how to remember. It was like the old verses she could never memorize in Eden, or the paths she could never tell apart from the ones made only to be avoided. She couldn’t then, and when she rested her head and tried to remember how the paths looked, she still couldn’t. 

But they were faded images now, speckles of older memories were scattered over the two paths; memories of Eden were beginning to seep into each other, the color of nights with Chuu spilled into her memories of early morning walks. Gowon’s quiet laugh weaved into the sound of fire divine paintings and screams of people she couldn’t recognize. 

(Maybe she did know who was screaming because in the silent spaces where she had no one to drown in, she could almost taste the throat-tearing apologies forming on her tongue, but their names turned to ash in . Maybe her brain thought forgetting was a blessing). 

“You’re actually pretty good at this,” Vivi called out with a laugh, watching Sooyoung skate shakily across the rink. 

“Really?” she replied, her legs quivering underneath her as she hesitantly pushed forwards, her entire weight propelled her forwards. And in a split second, the red neon lights chasing after her eyes turned black. 

Vivi cringed as she skated towards the fallen girl. “Ouch. You okay?” 

Sooyoung flopped onto her back, an embarrassing huff flew dropped from her lips. She opened her eyes to see Vivi standing over her, her wide eyes pooling with concern as neon lights danced across her hair and skin. 

An older part of Eden wanted to leap and recite old verses; the ones that called for beauty to be protected, the ones that told stories of lovers dying for each other because a world without each other wasn’t a world worth living. 

She felt her cheeks burn as her ribs shifted uncomfortably in her chest, it felt like her entire chest was collapsing inwards and tightening at the same time. Sooyoung held her breath- she was frozen, her eyes wide like a deer caught at the end of a rifle. “Y-Yeah… I’m okay.” 

“Good,” Vivi smiled wide, her eyes scrunching as she helped pull the taller girl up. “You got me worried there for a sec.” 

“I’ve seen people take some rough falls here,” Vivi explained, and started giggling, “there was this kid, my God she was running everywhere, she fell every other minute but she kept on getting up. She was cute though, small as hell and she had this bright green frog backpack-” She chuckled to herself. 

“Cute.” Sooyoung tried to listen. But she had heard hundreds of stories about cute little kids causing trouble, but this was the first time her eyes had ever seen someone like Vivi. Everything else was blurred, she didn’t feel the beads of sweat trickling down her forehead or the dull pain throbbing in her back. 

Eden was rolling in its urn.  

Sooyoung fought the smile tugging at her lips as she looked back at Vivi. She grabbed onto her hand and began to skate forwards, with more confidence she led the other girl around. A brazen smile as neon lights reflected off her joy and scattered throughout.

(Eden may have been beautiful, but Eden didn’t have Vivi).

“She’s slipping away from me,” Sooyoung admitted with a soft gasp, , and eyes buried in Vivi’s shoulder. Smooth bones with sharp edges, and the tender space between her shoulder and neck covered her face. 

“Who?” 

Sooyoung wrapped her arm around Vivi, tying the girl to her as if the gentlest breeze would blow her away. She opened and bit onto her knuckles, the taste of iron flooding into . 

“Yves.”

Vivi held onto her a little tighter. “Oh.” 

Sooyoung opened the door to Vivi’s apartment; she paused in the doorway, she waited to hear Vivi’s voice greet her, she waited to hear the songs played from Vivi’s record player, even the horrible ones she hated. She waited. 

(Sometimes she wished she never stopped waiting. Sometimes she wished she never left that doorway).

“Hey,” she weakly greeted. The ground felt weak underneath her. Her world was beginning to shatter. She felt like she was walking barefoot across the glass shards of an ending she was supposed to have. 

(Last time it was ash and dust, this time it was shards).

Her body shivered. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, right? 

Every story of every lover sat in her mind, smiles on their faces, their hands locked together. Their happiness flying at her face like cicadas during the summer. She swatted at their glee, the happiness they got but didn’t deserve.

(But she knew it wasn’t their fault they were enjoying something God would never let her taste). 

Happy endings weren’t for murderers, or rioters, or ex-Edeners. Those were for people who stayed, the people who burnt up. 

She could hear their voices, their laughs, their happy endings. 

You thought Earth was better? Well, here’s your Earth. 

The bags dropped from her hands, fresh apples and blood-plums rolled out together. She stared at the crushed apples on the table, their red skin bruised and torn, the juice freely flowing across the counter and dripping onto the ground. 

Her head was swimming in the mix-mashed sounds of tragedy. 

What did grief sound like she thought? Was it the dripping of juice from crushed apples just before it sunk into her floors? Or was it the swaying waves of water in her sink, only seconds before it overfilled and came crashing down. Or was it Vivi’s silence? 

“Vi?” Sooyoung called out, her voice crumbling before it even left her lips. Her eyes burning the same way Eden did all those years ago. The grief was old, scarred over- almost completely healed- there was new skin weaving into battered and bloody skin. And suddenly it was torn up again, aged blood spilling over clean skin. 

“Please?” Her hand shakily twisted at her shoulder, spikes of cold drilling into her fingers. “Vivi?” 

The shorter girl turned without struggle as if Sooyoung’s hand was the final gear she needed to start moving. She felt vibrations hum underneath her hand, the little clicks in her shoulder as she turned. Sooyoung felt a beast crawl up , disgust and fear stitched together with grey thread. 

She felt sick. 

All at once, Sooyoung felt release and sharp restraint. tightened as she choked on a sob and her hand fell flat onto Vivi’s shoulder. She stared at Vivi with bloodshot eyes and ugly tears while Vivi’s eyes drifted off and stared at something Sooyoung couldn’t understand.

Her face was grey, robbed of any color. A glass covering shined over her eyes; a raw pureness poured over them, a pureness that didn’t belong on Earth, or on any human. Any imperfection had been sanded and carved away, the only sign of living was the trickle of blood dribbling over her lips. 

Sooyoung stared back at Eden. Vivi stared at the wall. 

“Vivi,” she croaked and repeated. Praying, even though she hadn’t prayed in years, that she would look, even glance at her. 

The light fell onto Vivi’s dark hair and shattered, her hair was dark now, the pink color drained and it devoured any light that trekked its way. Sooyoung’s head slowly rolled to the side, and a large pack resting on the counter came into focus with a long wire trailing back to a socket. 

Her hand slid off Vivi as she took a shaky step forwards, moving past her, her other hand swatting and looking for the tiny yellow note stuck onto the wire. 

I think she’ll be needing this. 

The handwriting was scratchy and sloppy, the first sign of a lazy student that could never pay attention during class. 

It was more than familiar, she saw that handwriting in her memories, in her dreams, in her nightmares, in her day to day life. Eden didn’t chase after her this hard, but that handwriting always did. 

A crude blood-plum was drawn at the bottom. She didn’t need it to know who destroyed everything. She knew that in every way Olivia was like her, so destruction and hellish warfare was only a defense against grief. 

Hurt and hurt others; it was simple, and yet so devastatingly destructive. 

“I’m so sorry Vi,” she whispered, her heart pulsating in , tugging weakly on the note. She paused, waiting for something, an answer, her voice sweetly calling back to her. All she wanted to hear was her and the way she added a short -ie at the end of Sooyoung. But the bubbling silence ate up her grief till there was nothing but a few quiet clicks.

Her mind sputtered, she was desperately clawing onto any normalcy she could see the apples and plums on the ground, the tightly wrapped beef that was tucked in between a package of noodles and green onions. The light pink hair dye that Vivi was going to use barely poked out of the bag, the soft shade of pink stuck out amongst the grey-red mush of tragedy. 

What were we doing again?  She glanced around the kitchen, her eyes slowly blinking as the details began to fill up . Her breathing quickened, her heart slamming into her ribs. What were we doing before it all went to hell? 

Sooyoung coughed as if her heart was being crushed in . Her entire body crashed onto the ground; water and apple juice seeped into her pants. She gasped violently for more air, her hands clinging onto the collar of her shirt, tearing it away from her heaving chest and explosive heart. 

Vivi still stood in the same position Sooyoung left her in; facing the doorway with her arms rigidly stuck to her side but her knees bent as if she was caught mid-step, mid-escape. 

Sooyoung’s breathing came to an abrupt stop, her breath held in between her chattering teeth. She watched a small blue light flicker from within her dark hair.

She hesitantly peeled off the ground, her body sunk towards the ground, her eyelids flickering and her entire soul crumbling and falling into the space between her fingers. But she still stood, her hands tossing Vivi’s soft hair atop her shoulders. Her finger traced over the light, feeling coldness spread while the sharpness of Vivi’s spine cut into her. The light seemed to be buried deep as if it had been forcefully shoved in. She lowered her hand, tears running down her face as her hand pressed into each ridge of her spine, every point, and depression.

Her head rested on Vivi’s nape, the coldness clashing with the sun-bursting heat dripping off her forehead. Her hands tightened around Vivi’s waist as if her heaven could escape as if her heaven wasn’t gutted and re-stuffed like a hunter’s prized deer. 

A shaky sob drowned in her pale skin and blue light. “I’m so sorry she did this to you. I’m so sorry I hurt her and she hurt you.”

She swallowed her sob; it dug its talons into and ripped its way downwards, turning into a bloody massacre. She tore her face away from Vivi, she tugged weakly on the wire and plugged it into the small opening between her 1st and 2nd vertebrate. 

(Eden followed and hell always came shortly after. She wondered how she could've forgotten).

I never intended on writing a vives fic to be honest, I thought I was gonna stick to lipsoul and 2jin, but after rewatching New’s mv I got into Yves’ story.

I always found the split identity of an idol's name and stage name to be very interesting which is why I wanted to show the split between Yves and Sooyoung, two very conflicting people existing at once. (Not saying that this Sooyoung represents the irl Sooyoung).

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you think, comments and upvotes are always appreciated! :)