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There's a certain circularity to life, Irene thinks, draped over the cushions of the sofa, the sunlight drawing pale claws through the blinds, not quite reaching her face. The purple emperor perches on the dead fish, purple wings iridescent in the light.
The crowds cheer as she waves, teeth bared in a smile, sweat trickling down the back of her neck as she holds herself upright, posture loose and graceful, a perfect deception. There's something wrong her stomach, or maybe it's her chest.
It doesn't matter.
"You're so beautiful," a fan calls from the masses of people lining the road, her voice almost despairing in her adoration. Irene simply inclines her head, traces her fingers outwards into the air, fluttering fingertips like wings.
I am the fish, she thinks, but doesn't say.
"It's nice to meet you," the girl says. Her face is fresh, eyes clear, only the faintest of pink lip glosses tinting her lips. Irene doesn't rise from the chaise lounge. Her mouth is thick with lipstick, her face heavy with foundation.
"This is Yeri," the agent says; Irene's already forgotten her name.
"Yerim," Yeri corrects, smiling. Her expression is lovely, her posture on the armchair innocently displaying the curve of her neck, hair silky as it falls down her back.
"You can me Irene," Irene says. The smile of her face gives away nothing, her reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece is calm. Yeri doesn't say anything, just pulls a lollipop out of her bag and carefully removes the plastic.
Irene watches her, and thinks about the taste of sugar, melting on her tongue.
"Do you want one?" Yeri asks, lifting an eyebrow. There's a pause, the air hanging, butterfly wings sighing as they hover above the carnage.
"I just had lunch," Irene lies. She can't remember when she last ate something that crunched between her teeth.
"You have an appointment for another procedure," Sooyoung says, eyes flickering across the screen of her phone, neko atsume theme song playing in the background. Irene grits her teeth.
"Thank you, Joy," she says, although she knows that her assistant doesn't like to be called by her former stage name. Predictably, her fingers hover over the screen, face back-lit. The secret is that Sooyoung is still lovely. The secret is that Irene wants to stick the prongs of a fork through her eyes.
Sooyoung turns away, tapping again at the screen. Irene wonders, idly, what she's feeding her digital cats. Dead fish?
There's an ache beneath her ribs, but Irene ignores it. Rising from the couch of stand at the window, she looks over the city, eyes snagging on a billboard with her face on it. The small smile on her face is short-lived; further along, a building's facade is covered with Yeri's face.
"You've seen so much," the interviewer says, was his name Hansol? She can't remember. "The upward spiral of your fame is phenomenal. Everyone wants to get a piece of you; no one seems to be able to have you enough." He pauses, distracted by the way she shifts on the chair, her long legs emerging creamy from the red folds of her skirt. "How do you manage to cope with that level of fame?"
She doesn't say, I am just the carcass and they feed on me like flesh-eating butterflies, drawn to my decay. Irene licks her lips, tastes the sweetness of her skin, overlying the harsh chemicals hovering beneath.
"I embrace it," she says, and lets her hand fall, palm up, over the chair rest. Hansol traces the veins of her wrist with his gaze, and she crooks the barest motion of a fingertip. He's barely a man, unused to the veterans of the catwalk, the flesh behind the cameras, the blood beneath the glossy magazine paper.
When she sinks onto him, head flung back, she thinks about the fluttering purple wings of the purple emperor. Skin against skin, heat and fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. Irene doesn't let herself fall apart until the man has come completely undone. Only then can she take a breath.
"Irene," the physician says, or maybe it's just a quack doctor. The way they prod and tear at her with tiny razors, eating of her flesh, drinking of her blood, it's all the same.
"Just make me beautiful," she tells the person in the teal mask. There's no artistry in blood staining the fabric of these scrubs. Nothing is white anymore. Irene lies on the operating table like a platter, waiting for the butterflies to come and feast.
"Your kidneys are damaged," the voice says. Irene closes her eyes.
"Do whatever it takes," the agent says. It's not that she's forgotten her name, it's that she's wiped it from her memory, flesh torn from bone.
"Don't worry, Joohyun," the agent says, in her sweet voice, belying the hardness of her face if Irene would open her eyes.
"That's not my name," Irene says, as the needle parts the surface of her skin. Comfort is false. She wonders when Yeri will also take to the table, sacrifice herself to the blade.
Stay away from her, Irene would say, but the agent holds all the strings.
There might be some pleasure in watching Yeri rot.
"Where do you see yourself in five years?" the interviewer asks Yeri on the screen. Yeri laughs, the sound of her voice lovely even over the television. Irene reminds herself that she has the best of speakers.
The reassurance is hollow.
"Fame is fleeting," Yeri says, and shrugs, her smile nuanced. The interviewer is entranced. "I know it won't last but I'll enjoy it while it does."
In the stillness of her apartment living room, Irene grits her teeth and changes the channel. The new anchor's face is grim, voice blank.
"And in other news, yet another model has been found dead in her apartment. Investigators have not yet ruled out foul play, but Son Seungwan, popularly known by her stage name Wendy, had been behaving erratically in the past few months—"
Irene changes the channel. She didn't know Wendy well, but they'd brushed shoulders at photoshoots, and later in the lobby of the clinic.
"No further leads have been made on the troubling resurgence of an organ-smuggling ring, although police have ruled out Chinese involvement."
The silence, when Irene hits the power button, is deafening.
The chair is too hard, the fabric too rough, and her skin feels like it's being flayed with a dull knife. Irene grits her teeth, bears it.
There's a sharp intake of breath as the stylist brushes aside the strap of her dress, notices the soft spots on her skin, dark like the bruised flesh of an overripe peach.
"What's this?" the woman asks. Irene ignores her, and Sooyoung shrugs, the sound of bubble gum cracking in her mouth.
"I can't work with this," the stylist says. Her eyes meet Irene's in the mirror and she looks revolted, like Irene is a dead carcass, not something beautiful. She's holding her hands pulled into her chest.
"Then leave," Irene says, and waves her hand regally. The draft as the woman leaves the room, door swinging open, is cold across her skin.
"Smart move," Sooyoung says, "sending away your stylist."
"I can do it myself," Irene says, and she does.
"Have you ever had plastic surgery?" the interview asks. It's a taboo question, one that everyone knows the answer to but no one asks. Irene just laughs, a delicate sound, practiced over and over, the pealing of sweet bells. The rims of the bells, cold metal, are sharp.
There are comment forums devoted to defending her, and attacking her, in regards to this issue. No one believes a vacuum; it's impossible to prove innocence, only guilt.
"I love Yeri's natural looks," an anonymous commenter says.
"She's as fake as the rest of them," another commenter replies.
Irene knows it's just a matter of time. Look at what happened to Kang Seulgi, after all.
"What's important is the inside," she says. "You have to let your beauty speak for itself." Her words are a contradiction. The interviewer laps them up like wine.
When she steps out into the hallway, Sooyoung isn't there, and Irene takes the car back to her apartment alone. Her skin feels like stretched rubber over her bones, flaking off where she can't see.
"You have an appointment at the clinic tomorrow," Sooyoung says, voice gritty over voicemail. Irene remembers Joy, remembers soft skin and the faintest touch of fingertips trailing over the swell of her breasts.
She shakes her head to clear it, winces as the motion jars her neck. The soft spots on her shoulder sink beneath her fingers, like rotten fruit.
"What are you waiting for?" she asks the butterfly, shining purple on the windowsill. The carcass of the dead fish is stripped, only white bones remain.
Irene answers the doorbell, not because she cares to but because the sound is aggravating. The man waiting in the hallway is oddly familiar, and it only takes a moment before the name comes to her lips.
"Sungjae," she says, "Joy isn't here right now."
"Joy?" he asks, looking confused as he glances down, probably at his phone, though Irene can't see it in the small display.
"Your girlfriend," Irene says. It's not the label that sends a feeling of revulsion down into the pit of her stomach, but the fact that only she seems to remember Joy.
"What are you most afraid of?" the interviewer asked.
"Being forgotten," Irene had replied.
"Sooyoung?" Sungjae says now, brow furrowed. His expression is open, unmarred by malice or double dealings, and Irene just wants to drag him in by the collar, reduce him to a moaning wreck before she stomps all over his balls.
"She's not here right now," Irene says, and then presses the button to open the lock on the front door. "But you can wait inside if you like." Her voice is sweet, the rime covering the clotted wound.
"She's a lying mess and a fake and more plastic than real." Sooyoung's voice on the television is cold, like she's swallowed all her rage and funnelled it into sharp projectiles spilling from her tongue.
"Those are serious allegations," the interviewer says, but his eyes are drooling, mouth hanging slack in anticipation.
"I was her personal assistant," Sooyoung says, and her smile is like ice. "I have more than just receipts."
"You used to be part of the model circuit," the interviewer adds, as an afterthought. "You went by, what was it? Judy?"
Irene's fingers curl into fists, her fingernails digging into the meat of her palms. "Joy," she says, her voice wet, meat slapping the counter.
On the screen, Sooyoung shrugs. "Whatever," she says, "that's the past."
"Now onto your mention of the clinic," the interviewer continues, but Irene's fingers reach out, slamming into the power button so hard that it feels like her fingertip will bruise.
Standing in front of the mirror, Irene lifts the brush, carefully shading the foundation over her cheeks. There's a rotten spot just before her ear, the brush moving awkwardly over the skin, but the colour covers it anyway. Red flowers over her lips, blooming from the lipstick. Her eyes are wide, fringed with dark clumps of lashes. Everything is quiet, the only sound the dripping of the faucet over the bath, water covered with a layer of rose petals. They've been floating for a while, the delicate textures sodden and bruised. The smell of sweetness is cloying.
Irene lifts the hairbrush, strokes the bristles through the smooth expanse of her hair, perfectly black. One, two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen.
Strands fall like soft rain, wrapping around the brush, pooling on the cold tiles beneath her bare feet, dripping. Irene keeps lifting the brush, stroking it through the darkness.
The bathtub starts to overflow, thin trickles of water over the porcelain side carrying the sodden petals, flooding the floor.