undertow

[soobun]

first of all i’d like to dedicate this fic to everyone who talked fuma character study with me<3 i think there’s a lot of bits and pieces of other people’s scholarship in here, though i think/hope that i’ve crafted my own version of his character, which i had to push to its logical extreme (in this fic’s case, in a sort-of negative sense) to fit the narrative i tried to craft. it’s a complicated situation and he’s a complicated guy. i tried my best.

i wrote the following character descriptions maybe two-thirds through the fic when i was starting to confuse myself with how i wanted things to end up, and then tweaked/added (to fuma’s section only, actually) just now with the clarity of the finished product. i do think the fic might work better without knowing explicit authorial intent, but, whatever. it’s here if you’re curious!

character motivations/romantic inclinations in order of complexity:

-harua: mostly out of the scope of this fic, but whatever's going on with him & nico, he's happy w/ it (i don’t want to say exactly what even though i have an idea. my bad)

-nico: he's been in love with ej forever, ej's hurt him too many times with his fear/distance/inconsistency/etc., he has - sort of - moved on (but obviously its more complicated than that) & is happy with what he and harua give each other (a less complicated affection, among other things)

-euijoo: see above, and i think its sort of already In The Text but he's too scared to do anything w/ nico bc of the sheer depth of feeling he has for him (and the fear of it getting irreparably fucked up, which he projects onto hrls). but now he feels like he's messed it up anyway, without ever even having gotten what he wanted, in the end. and re: fuma, he doesn't have the same sort of Overwhelming Romantic Feelings (but there’s some! he’s not the type to do something like this out of nowhere), so it feels safer, and he likes/admires/trusts fuma enough that he's not as worried about their relationship going to hell (which. well) but he's attracted to him and kind of in a bad enough place mentally to just - let it happen.

-fuma: if euijoo is Guy With Avoidant Attachment, in this fic, fuma is the Avoidant Attachment Final Boss. i tried to make his pov relatively objective & sort of distant in regards to his own feelings (but obviously i can't lean TOO hard into it, otherwise the emotional arc is way too subtle) but, basically, he's been in a similar situation to euijoo(w/nico, as he notes) with kei, but with more sex and more outright fighting. fuma couldn't properly articulate what he wanted ie a proper relationship (couldn't ask for it - hence what he says to ej at the end, hence "such a fucking hypocrite") and eventually they break off the whole thing. this was a while ago and fuma still aches over it, but he's also caught some really big awful feelings for euijoo in the meantime which he tries to tamp down on and recontextualize into a sort of responsible, caretaker instinct instead. hence his constant assertions that he's doing this For Euijoo, it's What Euijoo Needs, (plus his focus on nico throughout the actual sex) because if it's not about what fuma wants then he (1) doesn’t have to feel as guilty about it and (2) isn’t opening himself up to getting hurt again. or at least thats how he’s trying to rationalize it. by the end, you can probably see the (relative lack of) success he has with it.

i intentionally cut this fic off quite abruptly & wanted to make sure it was only just one scene (though somehow it still ended up almost doubling my estimated length, classic) because while i wanted there to be an Arc, sort of, i didn’t want there to be any sense of resolution - just a snapshot into this tangled-up dynamic (fuma says it himself in the fic: “these messy codependent entanglements, relationships that are too huge and strange to even be properly defined half the time”) wherein most of the people involved are not really getting what they want (fuma again: “which is sometimes the best you’ll ever get”).

i really don’t want this to get too long so i’ll just mention a few other things i had in my notes:

- constant theme of clenching and relaxing, of wanting something and not wanting it, of hoping for two different things at the same time. i think a lot of it has to do with repression (yeah yeah) because when you’ve spent so long holding yourself apart from your own desires then of course you’re not going to have a good understanding of what it is you even want. in this fic, both ej and fuma are dealing with this in their own similar but separate ways. mirrors!

- euijoo is shadowed in both the first (“There’s a figure, bathed in shadow, standing in front of Fuma’s hotel room door.”) and almost-last line (“The streetlights from the window cut strange, angular shadows into Euijoo’s face.”). i use light as a theme WAY too often, but this was, i think, a first, in that we don’t end up illuminated by the end - the shadow is merely transmuted. and i wanted “cut” as a nod to the sort-of-cruelty of the whole thing, of fuma’s taking euijoo apart. (this is not to say that euijoo didn’t want it. i don’t consider this fic dubcon in the slightest and i hope it doesn’t read that way either. trust me, he wanted it.)

- the ending, also, reflecting what fuma’s been working through this whole time: his inability to give things a name (see earlier: “There’s a power in it, in giving something a name. A violence, too.”) because we know it happened in the past with kei, and now he won’t even let himself consider it with euijoo (which is maybe fair considering the nico thing, but still). i have an idea for the expression euijoo is making at the very end, but i’m going to claim death of the author on that point. i think it’s better if the reader has to decide for themselves - both the expression, and whether fuma does actually know what it is. but i will remind you of this bit of fuma pov: “It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he clings to it, that mental distance. But it helps him, keeps him safe.”

i could go on for a long time but that seems like enough. maybe i’ll add more later if i’m feeling particularly self-indulgent or if anyone is curious LOL…

lastly there were like a billion songs that inspired me for this fic, and somehow half of them are off one perfume genius album. let me just paste some choice lyrics:

- on the floor

How long 'til this washes away? / How long 'til my body is safe?
How long 'til I walk in the light? / How long 'til this heart isn’t mine?

The rise and fall of his chest on me / I'm trying, but still, it's all I see
The violent current of energy / I hide it away and underneath

- nothing at all

You can say what you want but I already know / Our body is breaking down to a single beat
The sadness you carry, it hangs like a ghost / And I'll just tear it down and I'll wear it like a ribbon
[...]
I got what you want, babe / I got what you need, son
Nothing / Nothing at all

…………yep. the title itself is from the song ‘borrowed light’ which is also really, really devastating. if i was more pretentious (don’t say anything.) i would have titled this fic ‘après toi, le déluge’ - if you’ve read these violent delights then You Already Know. but i think undertow works well, and they’re similar thematically regardless.

ANYWAY. i still want to write normal non-fucked up humjju one day, but unfortunately i think this is a lot more interesting. and if you somehow read this whole thing... thank you.