AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here goes! Hope y'all are okay with:

a.) Wenrene

b.) Glacially-paced stories about nothing

Can't promise daily updates but I'll to keep them as regular as I usually do. Comments/Upvotes appreciated. Enjoy :)

Livewire

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"I've been dependent on the overgrown,

Too many lovers that I'll never know,

Counting my losses as I let them go,

Heavy the water as I sink below."

There were leaves falling outside as she sat and read the email.

When Wendy had finished reading she read it a second time. The steam from the Styrofoam coffeecup rose in little coils and was gone and the leaves were still falling. She did not know where they were falling from just as she did not know what to make of the email. It was four lines long. It told her exactly what it needed to tell her. She would arrive at seven PM on Saturday for a soundcheck and she would bring her guitar with her if needed and she would cover six songs and then if there was time at the end she could perform two of her own, at the discretion of the bar. Drinks are half off for performers.

She read it again. The leaves turned and fell and righted in the warp of the glass and were lost. She did not know what to think at all. There was no elation in the slightest and the reality of this was neither alarming nor really all that surprising. Just a greyness. And what had her life become if not a successive series of darker shades of that same grey? This the latest in a long line. Wendy sat the coffeecup neatly in the centre of the table. So that the steam rose softly against her face and she could smell it as it slowly cooled. It smelled rich and bitter, the café much the same. Sat listening to things that should hold no meaning or value to anyone. The ticking of the clock, cutlery in the sink. Press of the coffee machine. For a while she just sat there watching the leaves, the day. It took her four minutes for the coffee to cool and six for her to pick up her phone and ring Seulgi.

‘Hello?’ Seulgi said.

‘Hey. I just wanted to let you know I got the gig.’

‘Oh my god. Are you serious?’

‘Yeah. I just checked my emails. They said I could do six songs.’

‘And they’re still okay with paying you for it?’

‘Yeah. Well, they didn’t mention it, so I guess so.’

‘Oh my god,’ Seulgi said again. ‘Have you replied yet?’

‘No. I was about to do it. Just figured I’d ring you and let you know.’

‘I knew you’d get it. What did I tell you?’

‘To just believe.’

‘Yeah. See? Sometimes these things work out, Seungwan. Sometimes they just do. I’m so happy for you. Really.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Are we still on for dinner later?’

Wendy thought about it for a moment. The coffee sat black and wretchedlooking in her cup and the day had cooled outside and there were no more leaves falling in the pale shade. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, we are.’

‘Okay, cool. I’ll see you then. I’ve got to get back to work. I had my break an hour ago. Sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

She sat and waited for Seulgi to hang up but she did not. She said, ‘Are you still doing the busking today? You’re still going?’

‘Yeah. I was going after I got off the phone. I was on my way there now, actually.’

‘Okay, sweet. I hope it goes well. Hope you make some good money.’

‘You know it’s not about the money.’

She could practically see Seulgi smile on the other end of the line. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘But still. It’d be better than not making any money, right?’

‘It’s about exposure.’

‘Sure.’

‘And a couple other things.’

‘Including money?’

‘Maybe,’ Wendy said, sloshing the coffee in the bottom of the cup idly. ‘I should go. Let you get back to work.’

‘Alright. I’ll see you tonight.’

‘Yeah. See you.’

It took her thirty minutes to leave. Sitting there in the dappled light watching the leaves. Long since had they stopped falling. Just the fading of the day to keep her a sort of miserable company, no solace to it at all. As she walked, old guitar case in hand, she thought about Seulgi laughing on the end of the phone. Tried to imagine the smile on her best friend’s face. It was a smile of the same design as the many other times she smiled but there was something different in it, something only Wendy could bring out of her. She thought about that. The uniqueness of it. How her talent more than singing or playing the guitar or writing music was making people smile, making them laugh. She was very good at that. Always had been.

Noon Square was busier than she had expected it to be. She arrived just after four in the afternoon. Standing in the middle of the foyer the mall lights were already on and the dim February days of winter had bled away the sun. It made her feel very small. Nobody paid her any attention and what else was new? There was a little water feature just off to the left of the open lobby and three metal benches she used to prop up her guitar and sit and fasten her shoelaces and try and still her rapid heartbeat. Everybody was so busy. They were always busy. Off to her right behind the elevators were three distinctly different jewellery stores and a store for electronics and a restaurant that smelled faintly of burgers. To her left a coffee house with the words COFFEE KING printed in blue and gold English letters high above the entrance and clothes stores and another for jewellery. Behind her the foyer windows, the outside world.

She tried to calm herself down but her hands would not stop trembling. Her heart felt as if it would fail at any moment and the most upsetting truth of all was how common this had become in her life and the reality of this served in some cruel way to only compound the issue. To make it that much worse. She held out her right hand and watched it jitter. Her lips were trembling. She was not crying but maybe she would. She did that often, usually when she was alone and nobody could see her do so, because to them she was their ray of sunshine. Their guiding light. Dividing that back into the truth of her misery would only serve to worry those around her, and what good would that bring? Wendy could not be sad. Seungwan could be, but not Wendy. Not ever.

It was twenty minutes past four when she took up her guitar case and stepped into the bathroom. She had to press her palms down on either side of the sink to balance herself. In the mirror the pale ghost reflected back at her was no more real than something fashioned from a dream. Thinking: Is this me? Is that what I look like? What’s wrong with me? It’s nothing big at all. It’s just some singing. Nobody will even care. So why do I?

Part of her wanted to run and hide and part to ring Seulgi and ask her for advice but what advice was there to give for this that had not already been given? Seulgi was great and Seulgi understood her but Seulgi could not work miracles nor was she a doctor. What help was there remaining that hadn’t already been dispensed time after time, year after year? She stood there hunched over the sink thinking about that, breathing into that claustral space again and again, ragged and uncoordinated. The room felt very small, and if these walls could talk they would no doubt have many words for her. She tried practicing a smile. Slowly it came to her, but there was no rush. When she left the restroom five minutes later with the guitar case in one hand she was still shaking.

She lay it down on the floor in front of one of the benches and opened it out and took out the guitar inside. It was an ashylooking Cordoba nylonstring her mom had bought her for graduation for five hundred dollars. Spruce and mahogany, handmade from Spain. Wendy sat on the bench and crossed her legs one over the other and set the guitar to rest neatly in her lap and slowly she began to count out her breaths. Up to ten and back again. Stilling her quivering lips. Nobody paid her any attention until she began to play.

The covers she sang were soft acoustic melodies. Songs she had learnt years ago, mostly during her time at university, playing alone in her room or to her flatmates or in front of everyone at arts club. Half were in Korean and half in English. By five PM the last of the sun had slipped off and she’d drawn a small crowd of maybe twenty people listening to her sing and strum away. Whenever she sang she did so with closed eyes. As if to hide away the world. Whatever came to her adrift in song was compartmentalised out of sight of what was real and tangible, a life away from a life. Often she would pretend the words of these other artists were her own. That their problems were in some way transposed onto her life as well. Her setlist was never the same save for the final song, which was strange because it held within it no intrinsic emotional value to her. No greater thing. It was a thin and haunting acoustic song played once on a guitar just like hers, one man and one voice and one nylonstring guitar. Maybe he’d started just like this. Busking for change in shoppingmalls. The crowd listened very intently. She sang:

In my room at Laurel and Beverly,

Your mind blossoms, mine is withering

I’m retiring, you’re aspiring

You’re dream-chasing, I’m only escaping

As she strummed the middle reprieve with a delicate and practiced grace the crowd slowly swelled. She was not crying. She never cried when performing. When she sang and when she played the guitar she was Wendy, never Seungwan. She was Seungwan to four people in the world – her parents, her sister, and Seulgi. So there were no tears. She played the song to its close, the English lyrics in a soft and beautiful lilt:

New York, New York, New Haven, Hoboken

The skylines appear, spinning past in fast motion,

The words we share, dissolved as they’re spoken

All worlds away from my love.

When she was finished she moved the palm of her hand to the body of the guitar to signify the end and only when she opened her eyes did they begin to clap, like an audience awaiting cue cards. She never even said thank you. Just sat there smiling and bowing politely to her onlookers. Her right hand was trembling again. The hollowedout flipping of her gut telling her it was a bad idea. It was pointless. And maybe it was. The truth was she didn’t know and she had never known. What truly did have a point to it? What part of her life could be counted as holding within it any meaning at all? She would lie awake at night and ask herself this and there would never be an answer and then after a while she would sleep, no closer to the truth at all, alone with her thoughts.

She was stood with the jet washer cleaning the coffeecups when the girl started playing and still stood there as she finished forty minutes later and packed away her guitar and came and sat three tables down with it propped against her chair and with her hands neatly folded in her lap like a lost child searching for a parent. There was something about her Joohyun couldn’t quite place. Not the fact that she was beautiful, although she was, and very much so. She had a homely sort of face, a small nose and kindlooking eyes framed perfectly by a blonde bob short enough to barely make it to her shoulders. But it was something in the way she sat and moved and looked at nothing. It suggested absence. A distance from all and everything.

‘You wanna try using less water?’

Joohyun looked down at the sink. The little jet nozzle in her hand had been running for far too long. She looked at Yeri next to her and shrugged and said, ‘Sorry. My mind was elsewhere.’

‘Don’t apologise to me. Not my water bill.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Nearly half five. Why?’

‘I was just wondering.’

Yeri looked at her. She had a kind of mischief about her at all times that Joohyun was very much drawn to, a strange and immensely enjoyable view of the world and all the things contained therein that contrasted with Joohyun’s own. ‘What are you thinking about?’ she said.

‘Nothing.’

‘Sure.’

‘That was beautiful,’ Joohyun said. ‘Really beautiful.’

‘What was?’

‘Her singing.’

‘Oh. Yeah. I’m not really a fan of busking or anything. Or, like, the concept of it. But yeah, she had a nice voice.’

‘Really nice. And she was really good at playing guitar.’

‘How would you know? Do you play guitar?’

‘No.’

‘Well then,’ Yeri said. She took up a handful of cups from the drainingboard and set them in the rubber pallet and moved it to the side and away from the spray of the sink. ‘What time do you finish tonight?’

‘Seven,’ Joohyun said. ‘Why?’

‘Just wondering. I’m here till close. Predictably. .’

‘At least you’re getting paid.’

‘Yeah, obviously.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I meant—’

‘Relax. I know what you meant. But, like, you know what I meant too, right? Right?’

She wasn’t listening. The girl with the guitar sat playing with her fingers and breathing hard enough Joohyun could spot it even from the back of Coffee King. The way she was looking around as if someone were watching her. Or would be doing soon enough.

‘Joohyun. Hey, Joohyun.’

‘Yeah. Sorry. I was elsewhere.’

‘No . What are you looking at?’

‘Nothing,’ Joohyun said with a smile. She grabbed the next rack of dirty cups and emptied them into the sink and began washing them one by one.

‘I’ll do that,’ Yeri said.

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah, no biggie. I can’t be bothered taking orders. You go do that. Please.’

Joohyun only said that she would. It wasn’t until she was out at the front counter did she notice the girl with the blonde hair coming over. She had left the guitar propped against the table. All Joohyun could think was: She is gorgeous. Super gorgeous.

She wore a seablue cardigan over a white cotton shirt and when she stood by the front counter and pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes Joohyun had to stop herself from smiling at nothing at all. At the mere act of it, shy or not. And when she smiled at Joohyun it was stranger still. It was a smile that said a great many things about this complete stranger. A smile to set the world at ease. ‘Hi,’ Joohyun said. ‘What can I get you?’

‘A medium black coffee, please.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Is that to sit in? Or to take out?’

‘To take out, please.’

She pressed the coffeebeans and set the water to boil and grabbed a medium Styrofoam cup and a black marker from the little pot on the desk and pulled off the lid with her teeth. ‘Can I get your name?’ she said. ‘For the cup.’

A long pause. Then the girl said, in a strangely foreign accent, ‘Wendy.’

‘In English? Or Korean?’

‘Whichever. W-E-N-D-Y, if you do it in English.’

Joohyun just looked at her. She wrote it in Korean and then in English a slight smaller underneath. Then she poured the cup three quarters of the way full and clipped on the lid and passed it across the counter. ‘That’s four thousand won, please.’

It wasn’t until the girl had paid did Joohyun say anything, and for no good reason at all. A sort of wicked impulse of hers. She said: ‘That’s a really pretty name. And you have a really pretty voice.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re really good. I mean it. You should come by more often.’

Wendy smiled at her. ‘Maybe I will,’ she said.

‘And you should bring your guitar, too. Not that I’m trying to force you into anything. I just think you have a beautiful face. I mean, voice. I meant voice. You have a beautiful voice.’

‘Thanks,’ Wendy said, and the giggle she had to suppress numbed Joohyun’s embarrassment only a slight. ‘I didn’t know if anyone would like me doing this. I don’t really do busking all that often.’

‘You’re really great. I mean it. Your voice is just entrancing.’

Wendy ran a hand through her hair and grabbed the Styrofoam cup with an awkward half smile. ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Any time. I mean…yeah.’

‘Thanks for noticing me. I don’t get that often.’

‘With a voice like that? Really?’

‘Really. Anyway, I should be going. Nice to meet you—’ she paused, glancing at Joohyun.

‘Oh,’ said Joohyun. She made a show of holding up the little brass badge on her blue uniform that said WELCOME TO COFFEE KING. YOUR SERVER’S NAME IS JOOHYUN.

‘Nice to meet you, Joohyun.’

‘You too, Wendy.’

‘I think maybe I’ll come back. I like it here.’

‘Cool,’ Joohyun said. She watched as Wendy waved with her coffeecup and grabbed her guitar case and slowly walked out of the mall, out of her sight, receding against the thin evening light and then gone entirely.

‘Really?’ Yeri said. And when Joohyun looked at her the smirk on her face was as it always was with Yeri. ‘What?’ she said.

‘You have a very beautiful face. That’s what you said to her.’

‘It was a slip of the tongue.’

‘A Freudian slip, no doubt.’

‘I meant her voice.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘I did.’

‘Sure. I never said anything. For what it’s worth, she really did have a nice voice. And face.’

‘Yeah,’ Joohyun said, smiling a wistful, distant smile. ‘She did.’