Chapter Text
ROUND: 3 - SUA
Sua was old news.
Mizi was older news.
Till was lukewarm.
Ivan was hot in the news.
Maybe it was that people had gotten bored of the sob stories and the betting details, but Ivan was off the charts right now. What exactly did that mean for Sua? That means that interviews were directed to Ivan, meaning she wouldn’t have to see him and she could rest without getting a spam folder of news stations and variety shows begging for the Ice Princess of the Stage.
—
Sua was currently looking over possible restaurants near her. She was sitting on her bed, when she just… paused. She stopped moving, not counting the occasional deep breath. Time away from work meant time to think.
And all she could think about was being her girl.
She looked up at her ceiling, hugging her legs. Sua loved her. ALIEN STAGE fans loved her. Why did Sua just have to be so.. Loved. She wanted to be hated for her death to be the one to tear apart Mizi, not this.
Was it selfish to wish that on a dead girl?
Her dead girl?
Something knocked on the door. Sua pushed some her back out of her face. She walked over to the door and opened it, hoping for surprise room service or something. When she opened it, she though if she had gotten room disservice on accident, because that rat Ivan was standing there. She glared up at him.
“What are you doing here?” Sua asked, looking pissed off. Ivan chuckled, “Oh, just visiting! I want to make sure you see me before round 3.” Sua rolled her eyes, she was not photo ready and she was not friendly to people who pestered her, like Ivan and others.
“Your rooms pretty dark, you know that?” Ivan nodded, “Were you sobbing over Mizi’s death? That’s pathetic for you, and we both know it.” Sua remembered her longest and most memorable conversation with Ivan. From when they were in Anakt garden, when Ivan asked her what she was willing to do for Mizi. Sua was ready to die. Ivan thought that was pathetic but likely.
And Sua agreed. She then remembered sitting under the tree in the garden, plastic and sad, and thinking about how pathetic she was for loving. And if others thought that, then was her love with Mizi for naught?
Something from their past that Sua remembered noticing was the way Ivan would sit with Till. Sua knew Till was his weakness. And she had finally snapped and exploited his said weakness.
“You too. You know that Till won't win against you because I know you're a great performer. You’ll win round three, then move on to the next one. Then what? You’ll have to kill Till. Because you love him. And I think that that's more miserable than me. And after that, you’ll have to go against me. And if you win, you’ll have to live a lonely life.” Sua snapped back, but not in a scary, angry way. In a silent way. The feeling of dying in slumber.
Ivan paused. Sua was blunt, yes. But she had a filter. This was new. He slapped her, and through Sua’s silent shock, she closed the door.
—
Under covers, Sua watched the T.V. from her room. She had a bowl of some sort of alien and human mush of cuisine, some sort of room service. She told the ALIEN STAGE managers that she would watch from her room. They begrudgingly said yes to her.
She sat in satin silk clothes, feeling like a lamb watching the recorded proof of her fellow lambs slaughter. The news switched to a live feed of round three.
“질척한 어둠 웅크린 모습
고개를 저어도 늘 같은 자리
닿지 않는 너, 나 홀로 상상을 해
빛이 나는 너, 옆에 선 나”
Sua would have to admit, Ivan was perfection. All A’s , all advanced, had many girls and boys crushing on him. He could’ve been the perfect human, as he had studied remnants of human history that was left behind. He was well versed in catholic choir songs, the art of Italy, the wars of the middle east, back from when those places existed.
“So black, black as it can be
다가가면 갈수록 깊어지는 dark sea
Like a black, black sorrow
A story of such woe
이 이야기의 끝에는 피로 물든
시린 자리와 텅빈 공기뿐”
He was nothing to her though.
“너의 눈길이 닿는 곳에
네 손끝 스칠 곳에
하염없이 너만을 기다리고
검은 어둠 속 붉은 빛
모래시계를 돌려
긴 시간을 너와”
She was Sua, after all. Ice Princess of The Stage.
“So black, black as it can be
다가가면 갈수록 깊어지는 dark sea
Like a black, black sorrow
A story of such woe
이 이야기의 끝에는 피로 물든
시린 자리와 텅빈”
He was just a boy. But in this consideration, Sua realized that she was nothing. She was going to live, then die. Just like Mizi. She knew she would spend the rest of her days painfully yearning.
“Such black, black sorrow
그리고 너
언제나 나에겐 너
Black sorrow
나에겐 너
Black sorrow
나에겐 너
Black sorrow”
The song ended. Rosy liquid spilled onto the stage.
Red went lovely with Ivan's eyes, who were staring down his victory. Sua turned off the T.V.. She couldn’t stand the sight of another life lost on that stage. The only light in her dimmed room moved from being the T.V.’s screen to her phone. No Emails. Good. Maybe Ivan in her hectic fantasy would be able to feel what she felt.
Sua felt greedy for that. But also, why in the world would she have to feel bad? She didn’t sing her heart out, she didn’t mean to kill, really, it was just a means to survive this.
Something in her awakened at that very moment causing her to throw her phone across the room. Her collar went from the usual fake thriving green to a malicious red. She had never seen it red. The deepest it had gone to her knowledge was yellow. For high tech alien gadgets, they sure were easy to fake emotions in. But now she felt raw.
You think too much, she thought. She kept repeating what she would say to her, and imagining the feel of freshly manicured nails, her hands, tucking her hair behind her ears. Many ifs floated through her head, like, if she was here, or maybe, if she was mine, or possibly even, if she won over me.
She could only pout for so long, before chimes of notifications alerted her from her spiraling. The cracked phone screen showed a text. A text from Hyuna. A text from Hyuna that asked Sua to wish her luck.
Sua scooped up her shattered phone, trying not to puncture her fingers while writing, “Break a leg!” As she typed the last word, her pinky was stabbed, bleeding red onto her screen.