Until I Bleed Out

After Hours

 

 

"'I wanna cut you outta my dreams,

I wanna cut you outta my mind."


 

No more questions.

Seulgi resolves herself to following this through. What outcome could there be for answers on the far end? There exists no easy exegesis of the situation and perhaps it’s better than way because the alternative as Seulgi sees is could be so unbearable it might be unrecoverable. Could she lose Irene now? So far along? As she sits there listening to Seungwan and Irene talk a thought bring her close to tears:

It could be a day. But it could be much worse. It could be ten years. She would be thirty-six and they would have settled down and things would be much better and she would have forgotten about this entirely and it would be good that way and they would be normal and maybe they’d even have a couple children together and then one day she would go to sleep and wake up and Irene would not be there. Irene would have never been there at all. What follows that? Heartbreak does not prosper in a vacuum – there are consequences outside of it. Seulgi understands this, even if she does not understand anything else. She sits for a long time listening to them talk. They converse like old friends – like associates who know each through Seulgi. Seungwan her oldest and closest friend, Irene the light of her life. It’s been two and a half years. Seulgi knows this even when she should not, because it feels simultaneously like much longer and like no time at all. The urge to interrupt grows. To come out and ask them – individually or together – to try and parse the truth from the wretchedness of this. But another thought makes her stop. It tells her:

You won’t always get the answers you want.

She sits a lonely god in her eight-by-twelve domain. Or is she not at all, but something else instead. Perhaps Irene is the god – this is a new thought, uninviting, working its way to the surface amid the rest, plaguelike in its potency. It suggests to Seulgi that maybe she isn’t real – maybe only Irene is. Irene likes yellow more than purple because she simply does. Seulgi has no control over her. Never has done. It would explain the yet-unexplainable, like the milkshake machine working only once called on, when willed to work. Seulgi had ignored it, pretended it had never happened – the truth rearing its head to tell her it had begun working because of her desire for it to work. There in her dreamworld the power had been hers, the arrogance of a god without limits. She had sequestered that away. Told herself it was no dream at all but this other timeline of the past. Coincidences are extraordinary in what they can and cannot explain – the milkshake machine, the incorrect numberplates, the too-bright lights. But perhaps it was no series of coincidences at all. Perhaps it was Irene’s universe, willed into happening by her, not Seulgi.

What would this entail? Seulgi then, as she perceives it, would be a passenger – a robot of sorts, and from where would her sentience derive? From Irene’s conscience? That surely cannot be possible. Seulgi’s free will is born of no thing but her own self. She tells herself this as reassurance, a final line of defence against the incomprehensible. Standing with her face once more to the void the darkness grows and grows. It swallows everything. And if she is not careful she understands fully it may swallow her as well.

There are more questions than she can ever ask. Irene makes herself another coffee. She stands leaning against the kitchen countertop while Seungwan sits on the end of the couch and they talk almost as if Seulgi were not there at all, going back and forth on topics, casual and otherwise. Slowly it moves to the more mundane again. They seem like good friends. Seulgi observes them like creatures intent for some experiment into human consciousness. Do these conversations stem from Seulgi’s will? Do they speak only because Seulgi wants them to? Or because Irene does? But this world is no false world at all. It cannot be. Everything feels too real for that.

She asks herself again: How deep does the deception go?

The clock tick, tick, ticks. Irene’s coffee slowly goes cold in her hands.

Another question: Do I want to know? Do I?

The light outside fades. Seungwan talks on, oblivious.

One more series of questions: Could I ask them? Ask Irene? Would she know? Would she admit it? Is she conscious of this also? That she might be living out her life again from the past.

A distant murmur of cars. The kettle rumbling as Irene sets it to boil a second time.

One more: Could I live knowing the truth?

To which she reminds herself again:

You won’t always get the answers you want.

‘Babe, are you okay?’ Irene asks. Seulgi glances at her and smiles. This time it’s a genuine smile, one she can’t help in Irene’s presence. There’s such a domestic tenderness to the way she is around Seulgi – the way she addresses her, the way she leaves her belongings around, how she knows Seulgi’s apartment so intimately, the way they've managed to settle into the sort of routine that only comes about with someone you know as well as you know yourself – that feels too close and too beautiful to ever be a dream. One thing Seulgi has never been able to replicate in her dreams before Irene came along was the beauty of simplicity. Dreams must always be grandiose, far-reaching, absurd – both in the positive and the negative. The axis of normality is stretched to its absolute limits, the definitions blurred, the narrative expanded beyond all comprehension. Villains are given extreme powers and strange motives, heroes are archetypal and triumphant, past recollections are too vivid and too detailed. No dream ever quite captures the simple pleasure of life – of just living. How could it? There is no world of fiction that could ever hope to surpass the skewed reality it is modelled on. It is life, after all, that engenders dreams. And it could never be any other way than that.

The question hangs in the air. Seulgi’s smile never fades. She says, ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, just spaced out a bit while you were talking.’

‘You want another coffee?’

‘No, I’m good.’

It isn’t the truth, but what is?

She thinks about things that should not be thought about. The paradox her life has become has taken on a warped shape of its own. The questions mount again. Does she work at SBI Insurance because she walked past it two years ago – in her otherworld, her world with Irene – and was convinced to do so? But then, how? Surely she would have only known about it due to the present, in this timeline – where she already works there. The logic of circular reasoning is now newly lost on Seulgi. Or the illogic of it. She listens vaguely to the two of them talking again. After a while she says, ‘I’ll take that coffee, please.’

Irene nods at her without responding and goes back to listening to Seungwan. She’s telling a story about something that happened with a friend of hers – something to do with drama. Seulgi isn’t quite listening. One question lingers more than others. It queries: Why?

Why then? Why there? Why Irene? This is a life she has not lived before – she knows that, before this, she had never met Irene. What significance does it – or she – hold? Perhaps there isn’t any. It is this that Seulgi cannot and will not reconcile with. That there remains the possibility – likely or otherwise – there is no greater thing. The reason is there is no reason. Fate is a false prophet. Blind chance subverts it at every turn. The universe has no machinations to its own mad and disordered schemes and Seulgi is no more special than anyone else, just luckier. Or not even that. And does Irene know it? Could she? If Seulgi wields the power to alter reality around her to her will then surely Irene must have the same, or some variation of it. The alternative is Seulgi’s nightmare – the burden of the lonely god. Solitary in her dominion, isolated in the knowledge that nobody else could ever relate.

They talk on. By the time they’ve exhausted all possible avenues of fresh conversation it’s almost ten PM. Seungwan draws them to this by saying, ‘Is that the time already? Jesus. I should probably get going.’

‘No, you can stay,’ Irene offers.

‘No, it’s okay. I should go. Not that I’ve got anything on tomorrow or anything, but yeah.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Was nice seeing you again. Really nice.’

‘Yeah. Too.’

Seungwan turns to Seulgi, still sat there on the couch, stewing in indecision. ‘Good to see you’re okay,’ she says with a smile.

‘I’m fine,’ Seulgi mutters. ‘I was fine.’

‘Oh, sure.’

‘I was.’

‘Get some rest.’

‘What are you, my mother?’

‘I mean it,’ Seungwan says, and as if to prove this she turns to Irene and says quietly, ‘Look after her.’

‘She’s not my mother either.’

‘I will,’ Irene says with a giggle. She sees her out, says her goodbyes, closes the door. They’re alone again. Seulgi dwelling in the yet-to-come, Irene entirely unaware. Or so hyperaware that she’s compensating by hiding it. Seulgi can’t tell. The issue at hand is that even as well as she knows Irene – years of history or not – she can’t quite fathom this. As if there exists something blocking her from understanding it. Irene sits beside her and leans on her hand and waits. It’s an action that encourages Seulgi to speak whether she wants to or not. She tilts her head again. The smile on her face is one of profound adoration, a sort of thankfulness merely for Seulgi’s company. She says, in a soft voice, ‘Are you sure you’re okay? I don’t mean the hangover.’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘I dunno. You’ve just been a little off recently. A little spaced out. All over the place, you know?’

‘I know,’ Seulgi says, and it’s closer to the truth than Irene realises. Irene just studies her. The smile on her face never falters, not even for a second. She scoots closer to Seulgi and brushes her hair out of her face and Seulgi smiles back and leans into her hand and closes her eyes. Thinking: This is good, right? I don’t need anything else. I don’t need answers.

 

 

When she wakes in the morning it’s almost eleven AM and cold beside her and the blue bedsheets are thrown back and she doesn’t remember doing it. It smells faintly of cooked oats and almonds. Seulgi’s head still throbs. She rolls over and glances at her phone and it’s 10:57 and she rolls back and begins to panic. It isn’t until she hears footsteps that she stops and listens. A moment later Irene appears in the bedroom doorway, dressed only a thin black shirt and a pair of shorts and her bananacoloured slippers. She leans against the doorframe, bowl of almond oatmeal in one hand, chewing and smiling.

‘Morning,’ she says.

Seulgi tries to think of something that won’t scare her away. Or worse – divide her back into the fragments of her other reality, or a dream, or whatever it may be. The resulting location need not matter, only the action of it, the consequence – Irene being away from her. Seulgi in her loneliness again. All she can think to say, as it comes to her too suddenly to stop, is, ‘Why are you out of bed?’

‘I’ve got drama practice. I told you that.’

‘Yeah. Sorry.’

‘I’ve gotta be there by twelve or so. Figured I’d let you sleep, since you’re not doing anything. Are you?’

‘No,’ Seulgi says.

‘Well then. There you go.’

‘What are you eating?’

‘Just oatmeal,’ Irene says. ‘I think we should go for a meal tonight. It’s been a while.’

‘Okay,’ says Seulgi. She thinks: How long has it been? The answer comes just as soon after, two parts of the same whole fighting back and forth. It says: A month ago, for Irene’s twenty-ninth birthday. We went to an upscale restaurant and I booked the table and got them to bring out a bottle of champagne in a bucket and it tasted terrible. Why would I ever forget that? How could I?

Irene stands in the doorway for far too long. There’s a look of anxiety on her face Seulgi can’t quite place, here and there, unable to be properly tied down to anything. Seulgi pushes herself up against the headboard and rubs her eyes and says, ‘What’s up? You look like you want to say something.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Irene mumbles, and dips her head to look at her oatmeal.

‘Irene. What is it?’

‘Nothing. Well, it is. But…y’know.’

‘What?’

A long pause. Seulgi feels the world pause around her – the breathing elements that encompass this morning all simultaneously cease. Her life has begun to feel like a series of instruments composing some greater narrative thing. Events happen in an order that feels all too convenient and this is no different. Irene shifts from one foot to the other. Eventually she says, ‘It’s too early to talk about this sort of thing. Too casual.’

‘What sort of thing?’

Another pause. The clock might well have stopped but Seulgi can’t see it there in the kitchen. Irene’s oatmeal goes cold. She says softly, after a lifetime of waiting, ‘Do you remember what I asked you a while back about ever wanting to get married? Like, just in general?’

‘Yeah. Of course. Why?’

‘I dunno. I’ve just been thinking about it a lot recently. I think it’s because I’m at that age where society wants me to be married, you know? It dictates that I either settle down with someone or I seclude myself away or I start having kids or whatever. Things are expected of me.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You feel like you need to get married?’

‘No,’ Irene says, and has to smile. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I dunno what I meant.’

‘Well.’

Irene is silent. She seems to be thinking of something to say that won’t sound too outlandish. Soon she settles on, ‘Seulgi.’

‘What?’

‘Do you want to get married?’

‘Like, to you?’

‘Yeah. To me.’

‘To you.’

‘Do you want to get married to me?’

‘Are you asking me to marry you?’

‘Uh, in a roundabout sort of way, I suppose. I don’t mean, like, right now. But, uh…I guess. Do you want to marry me?’

‘Well,’ Seulgi says. ‘I suppose.’

‘You suppose?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You suppose.’

‘What do you want me to say? This came out left field a bit, no? It’s, like, eleven AM on a Saturday morning.’

‘Sunday morning.’

‘On a Sunday morning. I thought maybe I’d wake up to breakfast or something. Not a marriage proposal.’

‘I wasn’t proposing.’

‘No?’

Irene shrugs. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I dunno. Proposals are supposed to be this big thing, right? Like maybe I should rent out a whole restaurant for a day and have them cart out a big diamond ring on a trolley. Or get down on one knee while we’re, like, scaling a mountain or something. That’s another thing I feel like society has totally skewed about weddings, really, while we're on the subject. Enough of the bull.’

‘Is that why you wanted to go for a meal tonight?’

‘No. I just fancied a nice meal that wasn’t homecooked.’

‘Well.’

The quiet is almost awkward. It feels oddly and yet reassuringly domicile to Seulgi. She’s smiling and she doesn’t even realise it. She says, ‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah what?’

‘I think I would like to marry you.’

‘Maybe not now.’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t mean now. I mean, maybe now. But maybe not now.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘But at some point.’

‘Some point,’ Seulgi says.

‘Between this afternoon and, like…the age of eighty. When we’re old and grey.’

‘Some point between then, yes.’

‘Okay,’ Irene says.

‘Okay.’

‘Cool.’

‘Very cool.’

Irene scoops up a spoonful of oatmeal and glances at it and lets it slide off into the bowl again. ‘I should probably go and get dressed,’ she says.

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you getting up at all today?’

‘Probably. But not yet.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you tonight.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Love you.’

‘Love you too,’ Seulgi says, with a smile wider than any before it has ever been.

 

 

She stands there in the centre of the room, a stranger among familiar things.

There are pictures everywhere. Pictures and trinkets and belongings that bring back memories of things that both have and have not happened. A cavalcade of minor impossibilities. Seulgi listens to the silence. As if it might bring for her an answer. Any answer. Irene’s copy of The Lathe of Heaven still sits on the coffeetable and something compels her to pick it up and read it. To see what it's about. She holds it up in the thin windowlight and runs a hand over the front cover and goes to turn it over and then she stops short and puts it back down and refuses to pick it up again.

The world feels very small. All of it and all of Seulgi encased in this glassglobe universe. Where is the exit? The exit is right there, 2 millimetres of white MDF and a small doorknob and a single narrow keyhole. That isn’t what Seulgi is asking.

She stands and she waits. Two becomes three, becomes half past three. She goes and dresses and puts on her makeup and tells herself to be ready for her meal with Irene because Irene might just get down on one knee and propose to her even though she said she wouldn't and there's certainly the possibility of that because that would be just like Irene to do something like that and maybe she might actually do it this time and Seulgi’s going to say Yes Yes yes I will I will marry you I do I love you I love you Irene yes and maybe Irene already has a ring and Seulgi grins and grins and then she sits on the floor in front of the couch and curls her legs to her chest and for the first time in as long as she can remember she begins to cry.

Help me, she calls out to the emptiness. Please help me.

The pendulum swings. Seulgi says: I’m happier than I’ve ever been before. I love her so much. I can’t let her go.

It swings back. She says: I can’t live like this any longer. It’s going to kill me.

The day passes. Outside the first of spring’s new leaves begin to bronze over. Flowers bloom, blossoms turn and fall. Seulgi’s answers come in the form of self-determination. She wipes her eyes and she says, to nothing: I will defy you. You want me to find the truth. To find answers. I refuse.

I refuse, she says again.

Ignorance is not a curse but a tool, to be used as all tools are, for the assistance of something. Seulgi’s ignorance is a building block to whatever remains of her happiness, tattered and fraying at the ragged seams. The world asks for answers and she replies: I’m happy. That’s all I need to be.

The clock ticks on. The day outside grows darker. She realises she hasn’t left her room since drinking on Thursday night and perhaps there’s something to that, just as there is surely something to everything else. She glances down at her hands. Cold and raw and real. A thousand thoughts run through her again. They say:

I should forget it all.

I should try and sleep and wake up somewhere else.

I should take a diary of everything I do. Maybe I’m forgetting things.

I should visit a psychiatrist.

I should visit an expert on dreams.

I should kill myself. Will I wake up with Irene? Or in the real world? Or will I just die?

I have stolen another life for myself.

I am a thief of happiness.

I am selfish and selfish alone. But I love her. That’s all that matters.

Here she stands, on the verge of losing it all. One way or another the end has come. A soft click behind her and the front door unlocks and Seulgi, in all her absent anguish, never even glanced at the time. It’s almost eight. Irene steps in a slight out of breath and closes it behind her. She sees Seulgi standing in the centre of the room like an intruder and her face contorts into a curiously amused sort of smile as she says, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing. Was just standing.’

‘Uh, right. You ready to go?’

‘What?’ Seulgi says. ‘Aren’t you going to sit down first? Or just relax.’

‘We’ve been relaxing for, like, the past two hours. Honestly, we were just around chatting for most of the afternoon. And I’m starving. I wanna go eat.’

‘Okay. We can go.’

‘Cool,’ Irene says. She grabs a coat from the row of hangers on the wall above the shoerack. It’s one of her coats, another indication of their domestic happiness. Seulgi is smiling. Her mind was made up for her long before she even knew it. It is the most simple thing in the world. She could just ask Irene – either way it would produce an outcome. Either Irene’s utter confusion rings this world true and its properties along with it, or in Seulgi’s search for the truth the illusion finally crumbles forever and the dream ceases to be – whether it be Irene’s dream or Seulgi’s – and it all goes back to the way it could have been, the way it was before things changed. Without Irene.

I could end it, she says. I could cut it all out forever.

The answers are right there.

Seulgi says: I don’t want them.

 

 

‘I’ll be a minute,’ she tells Irene. ‘Just going to get my phone charger.’

‘Okay.’

The smile grows wider. If phantom happiness feels this real, what use is the classification? Seulgi doesn’t get the luxury of filtering between the two. A smile is a smile. She goes into the bedroom and opens the top drawer beside her bed and grabs her charger and goes to close it and stops.

They’re there, right where she left them – two ruby-red dice. It seems impossible to her that she ever forgot them in the first place. Like something from a particularly hazy nightmare.

‘C’mon,’ Irene calls from the hallway. ‘We should’ve booked a table in advance or something. I don’t wanna get there and be waiting an hour.’

Seulgi doesn’t respond. The pendulum swings. All of it has come to this and she understands it with such clarity she’s almost crying again. Thinking: Do I really have that power? To cut her out of my dreams and pull her into my life like this. Was there ever even a dream to begin with? Was it all real?

The answer lies right there.

Seulgi looks at them for only a moment. Then she closes the drawer and goes back out into the hallway with a smile on her face and pulls Irene close to her and kisses her.

‘Yes,’ she mumbles.

‘What?’

‘Yes I will marry you, Bae Irene. I will.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘I know.’

Irene breaks into laughter. ‘You’re so cute sometimes, you know that?’

‘You’ve said.’

‘Well I’m saying again,’ Irene mutters. She kisses Seulgi again and turns around and opens the apartment door to the world beyond. Seulgi understands that this exists as the last possible moment of recovery, the last point of turnaround. Her apartment is the lodestone between realities, dreams, worlds, lifetimes. All timelines converge here. Irene puts one foot out the door. She turns to Seulgi and smiles and she’s so beautiful and Seulgi is almost weeping with love and Irene asks, ‘Are you coming or what?’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi replies with a smile. ‘I’ve already got all the answers I need.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Come on. Let’s go.’

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Finally done! First of all: Thank you all so much for reading!! Now to something else:

I know a lot of people probably wanted answers/clarity from the ending, or some sort of proper closure, and for that I do apologise, but I had an ending in mind right from the beginning of the story, and I thought any sort of other ending wouldn't really fit with the story; things neatly wrapping up would feel a little...undeserved for me? Idk, sorry if that doesn't make sense haha. But I hope you've all enjoyed the journey here, even if you're not entirely satisfied with the ending :) 

Wanna say thank you all for amazing comments, theories, discussions, analysis etc. It's always so great to read and I adore every single comment, thank you all so much again <3 

I expect I'll be back soon but idk with what yet (maybe fluff? idk) but if anyone has any suggestions lemme know :) Until next time <3

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TEZMiSo
One more chapter to go! :)

Comments

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ChouLights
#1
I just started listening to The Weeknd religiously and this whole series makes me so happy thank you
Kaz012_ei #2
Chapter 16: Uhmm... I guess I'm speechless? I really haven't grasped what happened or maybe my mind isn't attuned to understanding this deeper. There's that gap that got me confused but I guess it happens... There are events that would lead to believing a false reality, and we end up trying to reconnect the severed lines. Not sure what went on to trigger that or it's just really deep thinking of existentialism.. Anyway, glad that I finished this. As usual, thank you for sharing this!
JaeKnight
#3
Chapter 8: .... I-uhmmm,,,, I must have skipped a chapter lol.
JaeKnight
#4
Chapter 6: Yikes idk who Wheein is lol. But hmmmmm why do i think Irene is the person Seulgi wants to be? I mean the call, it shows on the chapter that she's a bit timid (on calls). And then Irene works at a call centre. And all those details. Theyre very similar, at least in terms of interests, but Irene is a step ahead than Seulgi. HmmmMmmMm
I'm a fan of subtly so this is very nice
peachyseulgi
#5
Chapter 16: i dont know if i understood it well but what i have grasped so far is that seulgi was looking for answers all this time not knowing that looking for them would only break her. and knowing that ignorance is a choice and a blessing, would support that maybe all seulgi needed was to stop asking questions and live life as it is, may it be between two different time lines or two different universes. she just needed that little push inside her to let her finally feel happiness.

nonetheless, this was a great read. happy that i was kept updated by aff on this fic. thank you for this, author.
jenlisasbiatch
#6
Chapter 15: I'm not smart enough to understand what happened but gods this story is so good. Thank gods I let this story be finished first instead of waiting for the chapters because I would've lost my mind while waiting and asking and pondering what really is the truth and how would the story turn out! Another great read. Thank you
Reveluv4vr
#7
Chapter 12: I'm confused the way Seulgi is now more confused!! When did Irene favorite color change all of a sudden!! ?? And the change in color of those mysterious curtains..
Yultislay89
#8
Finished reading this masterpiece at 2 in the morning :”
Omg I was fascinated by the concept of this story, and the ending!! Ughh I’m happy for Seulrene but I’m still curious about the truth, I’m thinking that maybe Irene is real in the first place, and maybe in the present year they broke up, leaving Seulgi with trauma or wht so she can’t remember Irene in her real life and that’s why she dreamed of Irene, But then when Irene appears in the present year.. I don’t know what to think anymore lol, important thing is I love this story, mind blown! Thankyou for making this storyy aaaa ><
Reveluv4vr
#9
Chapter 2: This story is unique and cool.. lovin' it.. Reminds me of W.
ilovebaejoohyun
#10
Chapter 16: ok so I am really confused and I dont think I'm intelligent enough to really understand the story, but this was a great read