#i am way beyond three hundred now
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Me: I’ll just play Hades until I meet Meg.
Me: I’ll just play Hades until I beat Meg.
Me: I’ll just play Hades until I reach [REDACTED].
Me: I’ll just play Hades until I meet her.
Me: I’ll just play Hades until I make up with Than.
Me: I’ll just play Hades until I reunite Achilles and Patroclus.
Me: I’ll just play Hades until—
#hades#hades game#hades spoilers#hades game spoilers#supergiant hades#hades supergiant#zagreus hades#hades zagreus#hypnos hades#hades hypnos#i am way beyond three hundred now#it’s a problem
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Tommy doesn't quite startle, when Evan reaches out for his hand, halfway down the block on their way to the little park tucked in behind a row of boutiques, but it takes him a moment to accept the touch, Evan's pinky sliding over the back of Tommy's hand as their shoulders bump together, the both of them a little too giddy to blame the coffee alone.
Evan makes an aborted movement like he's second guessing the attempt, and Tommy twitches his hand back just enough to snag his fingers.
At his side, Evan ducks his head, cheeks pinking, lips rubbing together, smile going wide and bright.
He feels overheated in his hoodie, but now their fingers are interlocking, and Evan is shifting his weight to adjust the angle of their arms, and Tommy can just deal with the warmth, actually.
His sister's wedding. They're both insane, Tommy decides, right then and there, and if this continues - if this continues, Tommy's just going to take his cues from Evan.
(I am all in, Tommy thinks, in Scott Patterson's voice, and then drops that thought like a hot fucking potato. He tables it, at least. For later.)
"I - uh - I told Eddie, about - well I told him." Evan grimaces, but he holds up their intertwined hands for a moment, a clear gesture about what, exactly, he'd told Eddie. Tommy wonders exactly how much he'd said. He wants to climb in behind his eyeballs and pick at his brain, which is so beyond the pale of weird and intense. Evan still thinks he's cool, somehow. That won't last. "I hope that was okay? I know you said you're out, but I guess he didn't know, so -."
Tommy squeezes the hand tucked into his. "That's fine, really. He'd have figured it out on his own, eventually. It's not like I hide it."
(Anymore.)
It's - that's a huge fucking leap from "I'm an ally" actually, less than a week out from shifting his eyes around the room and spouting nervous nonsense about picking up chicks. His sister, his best friend - Christ, he's really going for the speed run on accepting his sexuality.
The wedding, Tommy had discovered, down to the dregs of a truly middling cup of coffee he kept sipping at to try to hide his own nerves, was another three weeks away, but a month of lead time between his first kiss with a man and introducing that man to all of his family and friends as a date - yeah. Tommy wouldn't trust it for a minute if he hadn't spent weeks picking Christopher's brain for hints as to exactly what was up with Evan Buckley, if he hadn't already heard from Eddie exactly how quickly they'd jumped into their friendship.
Tommy's whirlwind thoughts stutter to a halt. "Wait. Did you know?"
Evan blushes, again, ripening the apples of his cheeks. "It's - okay so I didn't know, know, obviously, but - I mean - you were flirting pretty hard."
Tommy laughs. "Evan."
"You were!" He sounds a little incensed, like he's actually offended Tommy thinks he can't clock a flirt, and Tommy can't quite resist the urge to squeeze at his hand, again. "You aren't exactly the first guy who's ever flirted with me, Mr. Kinard." He says it prim and proper, chin raised, lips pursing after the pause, and Tommy is - shit, he's smitten. He also has no fucking clue how Evan never pieced together how hard he was flirting back. God, even Mr. Kinard has his stomach fluttering, a little.
"Just the first one who's ever reached out and slapped you in the face with it."
Evan's grin goes blindingly bright, eyes still a little squinted under the sunlight making the shots of red in his hair a little more obvious. "It was a very gentle slap. You could - you could slap a little harder, next time."
Jesus.
He's not even a hundred percent sure what the implication is there, but he can at least roll with the tamer one. He tugs, a bit, on their intertwined hands, just hard enough to knock their shoulders together again. He's a solid weight against Tommy's side, the bulk of him a little mind numbingly hot, in his bright white shirt and the dark wash jeans Tommy'd taken his time checking out when Evan went to toss their coffee cups. "You still owe me a beer, Buckley," he tells him, and Evan tilts his head up to check the angle of the sun, doesn't even bother to point out that Tommy'd barely let the check sit on the table long enough for Evan to pull out his wallet.
"I mean, it's a little early."
"Raincheck, again?"
Neither one of them has anywhere to be for the rest of the day. They'd both made that clear, when the coffee started to get low but the conversation didn't wind down, and Tommy - Christ, Tommy is more than willing to let himself get swept up in this, for the next few hours, for the day maybe, even. The weather is comfortable, and the company is adorable, and in response to Tommy releasing him from the pressure of being out too soon he'd sped off to his sister and his best friend for - for answers, most likely, for advice on how to turn things around. My sister says... he'd started, before Tommy'd had enough of wondering.
"Let's see where the day takes us," Evan says, another squeeze to Tommy's hand, and Tommy takes the weight when Evan checks his shoulder back.
-----
The day takes them twelve blocks up the road, Tommy pressed to his own kitchen counter, lips swollen and flushed when he finally parts for breath, Evan Buckley's dick pressed against his thigh as he whines at the loss. Tommy's hands are bunched up under the fabric of Evan's shirt, the wide expanse of skin beneath them sun-warm and smooth, and when Evan blinks back at him and digs his nose into Tommy's cheek, Tommy has the wild thought that he could do this forever - just this, rocking together in the shifting late afternoon light coming in from the gauzy white curtains over his kitchen sink.
They'd made the journey here under the pretense of grabbing a few waters, maybe making some late lunch, figuring it out from there, but when Tommy had bent over the low shelf in his fridge Evan had cut the distance between them, caged Tommy in and made good on his threat to show Tommy he could slap back, if he wanted.
They've been lazily making out for - long enough that the water bottles he'd scrambled to set aside are now sweating condensation. He'd lost his concept of time somewhere around the point Evan had grabbed for the back of his thigh and rocked against it for the first time.
"We should figure out something for dinner," Tommy announces, lips still close enough to Evan's still parted ones that he's speaking mostly into his mouth.
"Uh-huh."
"Evan," he intones, just a hint of admonishment, and Evan blinks, and gathers himself. He's - he's still got his thigh wedged between Tommy's, can clearly feel exactly how much they'd both gotten themselves worked up. Tommy's a little obsessed with exactly how unperturbed by this Evan is. Thirty some years without realizing he was attracted to men and now he's spent a good few minutes actually nipping at the cleft of Tommy's chin, purposely shifting his face against Tommy's stubble-roughened cheeks while he sucked at Tommy's earlobe.
"Somewhere with beer," Evan provides, decisive, and Tommy can feel exactly how wide his smile goes.
"I'm actually in the mood for wine, tonight," Tommy shoots back, and the moment shifts, mood slowing as Evan pulls back - just a little, just enough for each of them to take stock of exactly how disheveled they both are.
Evan's mouth is pink pink pink, his own stubble not quite enough to hide the beard-burn that had spread down his neck when Tommy found himself momentarily fascinated by the dip of his collarbone, the rush of his pulse when Tommy mouthed at the tendon of his neck. Besides the awkward bunching at the back, his shirt is all out of whack, one side of his collar flipped up, the neck shifted to one side, and Tommy vaguely remembers sliding his hand in there, at one point, swallowing the heavy groan that had elicited. His cheeks are ruddy, eyes bright and still a little wild. Tommy can't be any better.
"There - there is actually a little wine bar around here I've been meaning to try," Evan says, clearly trying to refocus, shifting his weight around in a familiar way that Tommy finds achingly endearing.
Tommy thumbs at Evan's bottom lip just to watch the way he has to fight not to be drawn back in.
"Let me change," Tommy says, hands shifting to Evan's hips to press him back, and away.
"You - you're fine. Like this."
Tommy's smile is soft, and he reaches out to smooth down Evan's collar. Evan's eyes seem to be stuck on the flash of skin behind the open button of his Henley, the knowledge of which he is absolutely going to use to his advantage.
"This isn't exactly date attire," Tommy impresses upon him, and Evan's brow goes adorably crinkly.
"Tommy, we've been on a date the entire day."
Tommy's mouth does something uncontrollable, the smile breaking containment on one side, then the other, and the hand still tucked next to Evan's collar shifts across his chest. Beneath his ribcage, Tommy's heart does something he absolutely refuses to acknowledge until he's had a moment alone to his thoughts.
"I didn't wear this to impress you," he admits, although he gets the feeling Evan absolutely had dressed to impress. "Sorta thought I was getting a very polite let down, this morning."
"So, this is, what, your sulking attire?"
"Certain I was gonna sulk, hmm?"
"I mean, I'd have been a little insulted if you didn't at least mope, a bit. Maybe a little wallowing."
"You caught me. This is my brooding sweatshirt."
It's absolutely stupid, how much it makes his heart race to see the grin blooming across his face. Tommy needs a moment.
He brushes at Evan's shoulder as he passes him, fighting the urge to press his lips to his cheek.
"I'll be right back. Bathroom's down the hall on the left, if you need it."
In his room, with the door shut behind him, Tommy takes a long, long moment to stare at his bed, silently trying to convince himself not to throw his whole body dramatically across it like some regency era heroine. The bathroom is right next to his room, and Tommy can hear Evan drifting down the hall towards it, at a pace that suggests he's taking the time to take in the artwork and picture frames hung on the walls. It makes something ache, in his chest, in his throat, and Tommy shakes his head on the way to his closet, getting tangled in his sweatshirt when he tries to tug both it and the Henley up over his head at the same time.
He's forgotten how clothes work. Maybe. Probably.
In his walk in, once he's figured out how to get everything off without blinding himself or taking out a light, he takes a moment to stare at himself in the mirror hung by the door. His hair is a fucking disaster. His face is - embarrassingly smiley, Jesus Christ.
There's a mouth shaped bruise forming at the bolt of his jaw, and Tommy should absolutely be embarrassed about that - he's a forty year old man who just spent a good hour necking in his kitchen.
Fingers trace the edges of it and he can't muster up anything less mortifying than smugness.
He manages to get his hair in some semblance of order - doesn't bother with product, for absolutely no reason at all (certainly not to tempt Evan into running his fingers through it some more) - and finds a collared shirt in a light, hazy blue that he knows brings out the slashes of green in his eyes.
He leaves the top three buttons undone and calls it good.
Evan's back in the kitchen by the time he makes it out of his room, snooping in Tommy's fridge, and he doesn't even have the grace to look apologetic about it when Tommy taps his fingers against the doorframe.
The fridge closes on its own, Evan's mouth dropped to an intriguing O shape.
"Uh - oh," Evan says, mouth actually snapping shut as he takes Tommy in, eyes dipping up, down, catching on the skin below his collarbone. He swallows. Fuck. "This - uh. Okay. Color me impressed."
"Yeah?"
"You know you look good," Evan whines.
He's done something to fix his own, hair, too. Tommy leans in the doorway, arms crossed, one foot tucked over the other, and actually takes the time to stare back. Tommy's hands had worn through the product - there's a little bit of a curl, in his hair, that Tommy would give a lot of his earthly possessions to see in its natural state. There's still some color in his cheeks, and it's spreading as Tommy checks him out. He's fixed the neck of his shirt, and against the stark white of it, his tattoos are drawing Tommy's eye. He wonders how many other ones he might uncover, one day. "You too," Tommy finally says, when Evan looks like he might vibrate right out of his skin at the attention. Evan beams, and spins the keys in his hand around on one finger.
"You ready?"
Absolutely fucking not, Tommy thinks to himself, but he nods, and lets Evan lead the way back out his front door.
#bucktommy fic#bucktommy#tevan fic#post coffee date#this was just supposed to be a snippet about buck telling tommy he'd told eddie they were on a date#what the hell happened
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『 Their hand slips 』
☼ synopsis: Their hand (almost) slips and puts a strain on your relationship
☼ characters: Toji, Yuuta, Inumaki
☼ wc: 4.3k
☼ cw: dark content! fem!reader, Toji being a good husband and almost snapping, getting pushed by Rika and slapped (accidentally during a playfight with Inumaki), Toge using his technique on you, overall sogginess, hurt to comfort
☼ notes: I am by no means glorifying domestic violence - this fic is not about this topic. If you or a loved one experience abuse in a relationship please reach out to the police or a qualified counselor / hotline for help!
ˑ༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹ Toji:
Being with Toji has always been a rollercoaster of emotions but you never doubted his love for you, despite him being rough around the edges. Yes, he might disappear for days, sometimes weeks after a fight but he never once lifted his hand or indicated that he would physically hurt you. If the fight was over something dumb you would usually end up in the bedroom to get his anger out in a fun way while making up again.
You don't even know what started the fight today, was it the dishes he didn't do? Perhaps he left the laundry in the laundry machine? All you know is that you've been screaming at each other for well over an hour, your throat already sore but you wouldn't stop now. Toji was just beyond annoyed at your little tantrum, at least that's what it was to him. “I said I'll take care of it, didn't I? The day isn't over yet” he tried the calm way at first, his jaw clenching in frustration when you screamed back how tired you are from work.
Things carried on like this for a while, Toji losing his cool after you screamed at him right away and he started to scream back until you were only throwing around profanities. At least until you said something you shouldn't have “No wonder your last two wives left you, you live like a damn pig”. It wasn't too bad but it was a sore topic for him and his hand raised… simply staying up in the air without ever connecting to your face but it was enough for you to flinch away. Toji's jaw tensed up further, his teeth almost cracking from the pure pressure when he realized what he almost did - crossing a boundary that should never be crossed and you looked at him like he's a monster now. Perhaps he was and you were right, make it three wives, it's deserved now that his hand almost struck you.
Ever so slowly he brought his hand down from its spot up in the air, trying not to startle you further when he reached to cup your cheek, the anger in his eyes turning to desperation. Out of reflex you flinched from his touch, your body still in flight mode from almost getting struck by him and Toji recoiled his hand quickly while nodding to himself. The anger flamed up behind his eyes once again upon realizing just how bad he had fucked up. Anger rose up and he couldn't contain himself any longer “FUCK” he roared, making you stumble backwards just to get away from him before he punched a hole into the wall. You barely recognized the man in front of you since he'd never been this violent around you or directed at you. The thought of drawing a single breath of air scared you with him raging around and you simply held your breath, your entire body shaking like a leaf in a heavy storm, but before you found your voice again he stormed out of your shared home, grabbing his coat on the way out of the front door.
Relief was the first thing flooding your mind when you finally felt like you could exhale once again, the air less tense with him out of the room and upon looking around your usually tidy kitchen, you saw the battlefield he'd left behind. The hole in the wall gaping and your favorite candle holder, the one he gifted you simply because you thought the cat warming its paws looked so cute, now on the floor and shattered into hundreds of small pieces. You didn't care much for the cushions laying around or the chairs scattered across the room but you cradled the severed porcelain head of the small cat to your chest as you fell to your knees when the first wave of shock wore off. Toji had left. He's gone now and given how both of you crossed boundaries and he almost hit you, didn't give you much hope for his return. A bitter laugh crossed your sobs when you thought of the small candle holder scattered and how it represented your broken relationship.
After what felt like an eternity on the floor you had the courage to get up once again, slowly putting things back to where they used to stand before picking up each and every piece of Tojis present. You needed to get your mind off of his departure, he sure would return - latest when he had to get his things- you told yourself, trying to calm the mess that was your head. Dedicated you brought he pieces to the living room where his show was running as always, your favorite background noise in your daily life and piece by piece you glued the little candle holder back together until it looked somewhat what it used to and it gave you hope - perhaps you could do the same to your relationship?
Once the distraction wore off you found yourself sitting on the unusually empty couch, sitting on his favorite spot and the silence was deafening, the show stopped playing a while ago, Netflix asking you if you're still watching and the tears started to form in your eyes once again. Perhaps he will be back soon? Your hope wore thinner with every hour that has passed, only hoping that he will come back eventually one day at this point. Sure, you've had worse fights with him but it never got physical, this one felt much more charged and intense than all the others before so perhaps he's sick of the constant fighting, sick of you…
Slowly you sunk your face into the pillow on the couch and brought your knees to your chest as you wept, his show now playing once again to bring you at least a little comfort as you drifted off into a restless slumber, the moment where he almost struck you replaying in your head over and over again.
Toji wandered around the Block at first, contemplating to get drunk out o his mind and simply disappearing out of your life forever since he has nothing to offer to you but his heart and body, but now he wasn't sure if that was enough - if he was enough and he hated these thoughts. He could have any woman he wanted so why is he so damn attached to you? Answers didn't come by as he sat down in the park and gulped down a cheap beer but the longer he sat there the more reasons he found just why he was with you and how you made him feel things no one managed to ignite in so long. It was clear to him that he would need to go back, that he would need to fix things with you, for his own sake because he'd be lost without you once again.
By the time Toji got up from the old bench at the park it was almost morning already, the bird chirping softly in the trees and he took a deep breath in, preparing himself to lose you once and for all since he couldn't force you to forgive him after ever but he would promise to be better, he vowed to be a good partner and later on to be a good husband to you and not once did he make you regret trusting him since he was always nothing but good to you. His posture was slightly slouched when he entered the apartment, ready to find the mess he left behind in the kitchen but it looked as if nothing ever happened here - aside from the hole in the wall that felt like a plow to his guts. That could have been your face, realization setting in once again over what happened and how badly he damaged the trust in this relationship with his cowardly reaction.
Shaking his head at his thought he made his way back to the front door, only to be met by your weak voice somewhere behind him. “Toji?” was all you asked, your voice sounding tired and so fragile from hours of crying and he flinched, dreading your next words. “Don't leave… please,” You continue and sit up now to look at him. “I'm just here to get my thi- you want me to stay?” He sounded rather surprised that you didn't send him out, cussing him and his entire bloodline out as he got his things. Toji was so prepared for rejection he didn't even consider you would want him to stay, but you did, so he dragged himself over to the couch where you sat, waiting to face him. Your bloodshot eyes shocked him, have you been crying all night over him? Over the situation or perhaps the divorce you'd surely want?
“I'm sorry,” was all that he croaked out, his ego crushed and the confidence that usually radiated off of him was entirely gone, he was nothing but a miserable pile in front of you in this moment. It took you a minute or two to fully register his words - his apology and you simply nodded, knowing he wasn't great with words and especially apologies. Silence fell upon both of you once again, unsure how to go on from here, both of you uncomfortable with the situation. You were the first to find your words again, having spent the night thinking about what you wanted and ultimately what you will say to him but right now this was all thrown out of the window when you looked at him and reached out for his hands, trying to show that you're no longer scared.
“Listen to me. If you ever raise a hand to me again, Toji Fushiguru, I will cut out your heart and eat it for breakfast, do you understand me?” You asked with a much more secure voice and it almost scared him because he knew you took that threat seriously, but a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips now. “That's my wife,” he chuckled a little, wondering if he extinguished your flame with fear but you weren't one to crumble, not from him or his foolish actions.
Unasked Toji whisked you up into his strong arms and carried you to the bedroom, refusing to let go of you for even a second as he smothered you between his arms and chest. Things weren't okay and they won't be for a while but at least you knew that he was willing to work on himself and you were willing to stay, so things could be alright again one day.
ˑ༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹ Yuuta:
You were always Yuuta's first priority and he never failed to make it clear that you knew that there's no one and nothing that's more important to him than you. Yet he had to save the world as usually, exorcizing a curse here, helping out there and more often than not you found yourself alone in your shared home, talks limited to texts and phone calls. He tried his hardest to make sure you're always on his mind even if he's not physically with you, especially then but you slowly felt like this wasn't the case. It felt like he was running away from home, from you to be alone, to be with Rika rather than you for the old days sake.
This gut wrenching thought became especially painful when you ran into him in the grocery store when he claimed to be on the other side of the world and not in fact in the same grocery store or even the same city. You didn't want to cause a scene, not there out of all places so you abandoned your shopping cart and walked out, ignoring the hurt puppy look from your boyfriend. Dropping the chocolates he held previously he charged after you “Wait, please. Let me explain!” he called after you and caught up with your rather fast pace but you didn't pay any attention to him, fearing the worst.
And sometimes your own mind can be the worst enemy as you now convinced yourself that Yuuta was leading some sort of double life, a secret life hidden away from you and you didn't want to see his face for a second longer. When the young man held onto your wrist to get you to stop running from him it felt as if your skin was burning, quickly tugging your hand out of his grasp and glaring at him. “Stop causing a damn scene, Okkotsu” you hissed under your breath and Yuuta knew he was in trouble by the way you only used his last name, so much venom behind your words. All he wanted to do was surprise you with your favorite flowers and some sweets since he was home almost an entire week earlier and he didn't understand the tantrum you were throwing at that moment. Yes, he did lie to you and told you he won't be home for at least another 5 days but he was already on his way back to you, his home. Was he wrong that he wanted to surprise you just to have you jump into his arms five days earlier than initially planned?
The walk home was awkward and silent, the air around you two charged with strong emotions and unspoken words - words none of you dared to speak until the front door to your apartment was closed and you whipped around, facing him with an expression full of anger and hurt. “Why did you lie to me? Am I not good enough for you anymore?” You immediately asked, letting your inner fear take over instead of trying to think rationally but Yuuta immediately shook his head. “It's not like that, I promise!” His voice was rather submissive, hating to have fights with you, especially out of the dumbest reasons but you couldn't contain your anger, your presence alone making him take a step back. He knew you would never lay a hand on him but the air around you was so thick he feared to suffocate if he couldn't keep some distance. “Don't come at me with that bullshit, Yuuta. You promised not to lie to me and here you are… avoiding me despite being back. Do you have someone else? Do you miss Rika so much you can't bear to be with me?” You questioned, taking steps towards your boyfriend despite his silent plea to keep distance. It's unfair of you to bring Rika up in this situation, both of you knew this but you didn't care. The way he was always talking about her started to gnaw at your heart, slowly building a deep insecurity that you're just someone he settled for because he couldn't have the one he wanted. Perhaps he found a better replacement? That was your initial thought when you saw him smiling to himself at the grocery store. Little do you know he was thinking about your gleeful smile when he came home early.
Yuuta barely opened his mouth after what felt like an eternity of silence when he reached for your hands, hoping you let him explain, hoping you calm down enough to start thinking rationally. “Please, just listen, okay?” He started, his voice small since he didn't want things to escalate, fearing to lose you as much as you feared the same. You were his anchor, his safety vest out in the ocean that kept him afloat when everything was against him. He made the mistake of touching you, trying to get closer to you when you were so charged and it made you feel crowded, pushing him off of you so he let go of your wrists. He would have let go if only you asked, showing him he made you uncomfortable but before he could stop it, it was already too late.
Rika pushed you away from him, much harsher than he would have ever allowed and he recoiled, backing away from your curled up body after you were sent flying against the wall, several feet behind you.
The sight of your body on the floor and the little noise you let out upon the collision shattered his heart. Sure, Rika just wanted to protect him from harm but you would have never seriously hurt him and he was in shambles, trying to figure out what to do now that one of his biggest fears became reality. It took you a few seconds to realize what had just happened, just sitting up and blinking at Yuuta who looked paler than usual, his body frozen to the spot as he watched you with wide eyes. The way you looked around made him aware of how dizzy you must feel since your head hit the wall - at least there was no blood on your hands when you checked the back of your head reluctantly.
“Yuuta?” You asked him as you teared up, knowing that it was just an accident. The young man snapped out of his trance-like state upon hearing your voice, softly asking him for comfort but he couldn't give that to you, not if he was the one who hurt you in the first place.
His head snapped around, looking for a way out of there, perhaps he could jump out of the window or would it be too high? The sound of his heartbeat picking up was deafening, the only thing he heard in that moment and it only fueled the anxiety further. But it was your utterly desperate voice calling out to him once again that snapped him out of his fight or flight reaction, panicked eyes finally looking at your teary ones and his body reacted on its own. Without a further moment passing he dropped to his knees beside you and cradled your body in his arms, holding you close. You knew he didn't hurt you and it was just a reaction of Rika so you weren't angry, but your body still hurt as you wept into his embrace, body trembling with each sob that wrecked through it. “I'm so sorry my love” kept falling off his lips like a whispered mantra as he gently rocked you back and forth in his arms in hopes that it's enough to calm both of you down - even if it's just a little bit.
Hours later and neither of you had moved. You were still cradled in Yuuta's lap, arms wrapped securely around you and he still looked at you as if he just broke the most valuable thing he ever owned. “I’m sorry that I made you angry,” you eventually broke the silence that just felt heavy to you but he quickly shook his head “don't… it's not your fault I lost control,” he began and kissed your temple, his lips resting against your delicate skin for a moment before you felt them move as he continued to speak. “I should have told you I'm home earlier, the flowers would have been a surprise regardless, I'm sorry I made you doubt my love for you.” He whispered against your temple, earnest regret in his voice. Yuuta knew he was gone too much lately and if the roles were reversed he would have had doubts as well so he couldn't blame you.
Unsure how to answer, you nod softly and your hands clutch onto him just a little tighter. “We will make things better,” you eventually mumble, reassuring the both of you that despite what has happened, things will be okay again and you can work past this accident.
ˑ༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹ Inumaki:
You never felt scared or threatened by Inumaki, he was always more than sweet to you and despite his cursed speech you never feared anything. He fell in love with you the day he found out you learned sign language for him and hasn't left your side ever since. You two were inseparable to the point of his friends automatically speaking of the both of you instead of just an individual and it was you who understood his few words better than anyone.
Laughter echoed through his small apartment when he pinned you to the bed with just one hand, the other traveling down to your sides to tickle you. Your laughter was one of his favorite noises, your smile his favorite sight and he wished he could tell you, scream out how much he loves you but he would never dare to say such things out loud, scared it manipulates you somehow and you're with him against your will. That was his worst nightmare, one that often haunted him at night and he woke up distressed while frantically searching for his phone. It's the same over and over again “You're with me because it's what you want, right?” He texts and awaits your answer as he picks the skin on his fingers anxiously. “I’m with you because my heart chose you” you tell him every time before his phone even unlocks - already knowing what plagues his handsome head.
Your sweet giggle brought him back to the little play fight you two just had and the way you were trying so hard to overpower him despite knowing you would never succeed. This thought never scared you, since you knew he would never use it against you or hold you down when you wouldn't want it. It was all just playful banter until he wanted to catch your wrist after you freed it but miscalculated, sending his hand right against your cheek with such strength the slap echoed off the walls followed by your whimper. You didn't need to push him off of your body, Inumaki got up right away, the tears that started to form in your eyes causing him to panic slowly. He frantically tried to sign “I'm sorry it was an accident” over and over but it felt like his hands knotted up by the speed and you didn't look at him, turning away as the tears started rolling down your cheeks. You weren't mad at him, knowing it was an accident but it still hurt you - the tears only a reaction of your body to the stinging pain that traveled through your face.
But the way you refused to even look towards him frustrated the young man and despite his efforts to get your attention you simply rose from the corner of the bed and left the room. Of course he was chasing after you, tapping you, holding your wrist, whining… he tried so hard to get just a sliver of your attention when you clearly didn't want to give that to him right now and he felt wrongfully punished. “Stop crying and come here” these words slipped past his lips with such desperation, he couldn't even stop himself before saying them out loud and his hands slapped over his mouth the second he realized what he'd done.
No matter how hard you tried to stop yourself, your body acted on its own accord as the tears dried and your feet walked over to him. Your face was one of utter shock and betrayal that he would do this to you, accident or not.
Inumaki pulled your body close and held you in a tight embrace despite every fiber in his body screaming not to do it, it felt so wrong to him but he needed you to forgive him, for accidentally hurting you, for putting you through manipulation. When he pulled back he was met with your face full of hurt and anger, which he deserved. “Please hit me back. We can be even” he signed once, twice… but you looked away, pinching the bridge of your nose as you took a step back to put some space between the white haired man and yourself. You wanted to scream, to explode at him but you collected yourself and looked at him with a cold expression. “Can you just stop?! I don't care that you hit me,” you started but lost your cool quickly and it came out more snappy than intended “we were play fighting, it happens. But you can't just crowd me and demand me to do things… and you surely can't fucking manipulate me!” Your voice rose in volume at the last part since this hurt you more than the accidental hit to your face.
Inumaki looked at you like a kicked puppy, eyes big and his face sinking into the collar of his sweater further so he can hide. He was beyond ashamed for his actions and didn't want to speak, the desperation clouding his mind and forgetting for just a split second that his words have immediate consequences and despite his best effort of not speaking, he can mess up.
With trembling hands he started signing apologies, begging for your forgiveness over and over until his shoulders started trembling and in a last effort he signed words unclear but you knew what he meant “please hold me” You whispered as he signed it and sighed. Realizing that he's more affected by this than you were and that he really had no malicious intentions you pulled your lover close, comforting him and yourself as his arms wrapped around you tightly, hands clutching to the fabric of your shirt. “Love” he mumbled out aloud, knowing this one word won't make you do anything but it was the first time you heard him say that he loves you out aloud. “I love you too” you whispered back, cheek still aching from the way his hand slipped but right now your heart needed healing from the betrayal of getting manipulated. Both, you and Toge were sure that this was a cut in your relationship but the bond you shared will act as a bandaid and you will be okay again, especially since he will be more careful now.
Networks: @pixelcafe-network @interstellar-inn @houseofsolisoccasum
#-ˋˏ ༻luma's musings#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen angst#toji x reader#toji angst#yuuta x reader#yuuta angst#toge x reader#Toge angst#jjk x reader#jjk angst#jujutsu kaisen#inumaki x reader#Inumaki angst#jjk toji#jjk yuuta#jjk toge#jjk inumaki#toji fushiguro#yuuta okkotsu#inumaki toge#💫darker than night💫#tw: dark content
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Momo - 16PRODUCERS Rabbit Chat
Please note that I am not a professional translator and I'm only doing this to share the side materials to those who cannot access them, if you notice any mistakes please let me know nicely. Enjoy!
Yuki: Thanks for your hard work
Yuki: Anyone here?
Okazaki Rinto: You’re early, Yuki-kun!? I’m here!
Yuki: Okarin, you’re online. Yuki here
Okazaki Rinto: Yeah, I know. There’s still time before the interview though...
Yuki: That’s true, but today’s an important interview day and I finished composing, so I thought I’d camp here early.
Okazaki Rinto: How wonderful. Momo-kun will be thrilled when he reads this!
Yuki: Yeah, who’s the star of the show today after all? Are you at the recording booth with him?
Okazaki Rinto: Actually, the recording ran longer than scheduled so Momo-kun should be back to the dressing room right around the interview time!
Yuki: Is that so. So it’s just the two of us for now.
Yuki: So what should we talk about until he’s back. Shall we have a competition to list what we find the cutest about Momo?
Okazaki Rinto: There’s no way I’m winning that. Let’s talk about what we like about you instead!
Yuki: Are you doing a bit
Okazaki Rinto: Momo-kun himself actually suggested it. He said "There’s a chance I’m gonna be late, you two can just talk about how super handsome Yuki is!"
Yuki: We thought the same thing.
Okazaki Rinto: I’ll start with my opinion! You used to say you weren’t good with people, but now you’re so approachable it’s amazing!
Yuki: Thanks. Do I have to say something too?
Yuki: I can write music
Okazaki Rinto: Next! I also think you’re an incredible actor. I feel so proud seeing you soar even beyond the idol world!
Yuki: Thank you. More new rivals keep popping up, so I can’t slack off anymore.
Yuki: Now’s my turn
Yuki: Now I’m out
Okazaki Rinto: That’s it!?
Yuki: That’s it
Momo: You barely scratched the surface!?!?!?
Yuki: Here comes Momo
Momo: Here comes Momo-chan!! Sorry for making you two wait 🥺🥺 I couldn’t stop smiling reading all the rabbichat notifications 🥰
Momo: But really, just three or four points don’t even compare in the sea of Yuki’s charm!?!?!?!? Like, his beauty mark is beyond handsome, the way he looks at me with such intensity makes me fall in love all over again. He’s so beautiful from the tip of his fingers to every strand of his hair?!?!?!?
Momo: And the way he calls me his “precious partner” is just too handsome…!!!
Yuki: You type really fast, Momo.
Momo: Lightning fast!!!!!
Yuki: I appreciate you saying all that, but today is all about you, Momo.
Momo: That’s trueee~
Momo: You’re gonna share,,,, what feelings you poured into producing my project right,,,,,,,,
Momo: aaaaaaaaaghhh can my heart even handle this ‼ Yuki, Okarin, please take it easy on me ‼
Yuki: I’ll be gentle.
Okazaki Rinto: Let’s get started! As requested, we’re aiming for a casual, relaxed vibe for this interview, as if you’re not even working. So we decided to do it over rabbichat!
Okazaki Rinto: First off, Momo-kun! Please tell us how you felt when you found out Yuki-kun’s gonna produce your song!
Momo: Hmm...he usually composes for Re:vale as a whole, but he did it just for me this time. To think that he created not just the song but also the lyrics, costumes, and the whole concept...I feel so lucky it’s almost too much to believe.
Momo: The person I’ve admired for so long brings me so much happiness now. I want to take that a hundred, a thousand times and deliver it back to all my fans.
Momo: Wait a sec is this real? I’m not dreaming, right?
Okazaki Rinto: Don’t pinch your cheeks so hard, Momo-kun!
Yuki: It’s real, Momo.
Momo: It is...
Momo: This is so special to me that it always felt like a dream! I mean, just singing with Yuki already makes me so happy, but I didn’t know there was even a possibility to ascend to another level of happiness.
Yuki: I’m just as grateful for the opportunity to focus on a project entirely for you, Momo.
Momo: Yukiiiiii~
Momo: Wait a sec, how come my darling is the most handsome guy in the world !?!? 😭😭😭
Yuki: I know. So what did you think when you heard the song?
Momo: It was so cool... I thought it’d be more cutesy
Momo: But it was completely different! And it has this super stylish dance number, I could picture us dancing together the moment I listened to the airy melody.
Momo: Even though we sing in a high pitch, the deep bass was so powerful, I love it soooooooo much…
Yuki: I’m happy
Yuki: I wanted to capture all your different sides
Okazaki Rinto: Interesting…! I’d love to hear more about your creative process!
Yuki: You could say it’s about Momo’s “switches”, in a way. A switch for when he’s singing, when he’s performing.
Yuki: A switch for when he’s pressing close to my side, thinking about lyrics to write. Working earnestly and wholeheartedly.
Yuki: They’re all different switches within Momo. It all shifts. The gap between them all is intriguing.
Momo: My “switches” huh... So that’s how you see me.
Momo: You’re right though, I do change depending on the person or situation without even realizing. The gap between the melody and the high pitch reflect that.
Momo: And the electronic sounds are supposed to represent little switches, right? That’s just like you, it’s fascinating!!!!
Yuki: Thank you. It was challenging since I wasn’t allowed to compose the entire thing myself, but it was worth it.
Momo: And the lyrics moved me deeply. I could feel your message of wanting to face the future together, and to keep singing for an eternity and beyond.
Yuki: That’s right. This song is for you, who pulled me forward and shone your light upon me that day.
Momo: That’s because
Momo: Yuki’s music gave me the push I needed back then
Momo: So that’s why I
Yuki: Momo. You always say you’re thankful to me but
Yuki: "Beneath the countless stars, I can reach anywhere as long as I’m with you." Being with you lets me sing anywhere, Momo.
Yuki: Just like that day we sang together on the sandy beach of a deserted island, the place where you and I sing, the place where Re:vale is, will always be the best stage ever. (1)
Okazaki Rinto: Momo-kun’s crying.
Yuki: Don’t shed tears when I can’t be with you to wipe them.
Momo: Wh
Momo: Whoa stop stop stop stop hold up wasn’t that way too smooth?!?! That line was so hot my tears stopped on their own!?
Yuki: Hello, it’s me, the handsome Yuki.
Momo: Kyaaaa!! Please look my wayyy!! 🤩✨
Yuki: Yep. I’m looking straight at my phone.
Momo: lolololol thanks! I totally feel your eyes on me 🤩✨
Okazaki Rinto: Alright, I’m sorry but let’s get back on track. I’d love to hear about the concept behind your outfits and promo shoots!
Momo: I’m so excited to hear about it! I was hyped the moment I walked into the room for the photoshoot! It looked exactly like a gaming room 🎮
Yuki: The song doesn’t fit an outdoor setting. I felt like even indoors would still be too bright, so I went for a moody, neon-lit setup the moment I found out something like that existed.
Yuki: It was perfect for Momo since he loves gaming, but the gentle neon light reflecting in the dark felt especially very Momo-like to me
Momo: I’m so happy!!!! I really do love those kinds of lights toooo~~ I see how it is, hehe~~~~
Okazaki Rinto: Yuki-kun, your idea of what “feels Momo-like” is always very diverse.
Yuki: Is it? I think it’s normal
Momo: And don’t forget the outfits, I loved them so much >u< Yuki doesn’t usually wear clothes in that style so I snapped a ton of photos of him!
Yuki: I thought we might as well embrace the Momo vibe for this shoot too. We even took tons of pictures together.
Momo: Yup! We were dressed like Player 1 and Player 2! 🪄
Yuki: It's been fun trying a style I don’t normally wear
Momo: You looked amazing!! 😍 💚 Why don’t you start wearing clothes like that more often?!
Yuki: Then how about we try some different combinations next time? (2)
Momo: Huh?! W-w-ww-w-ww-we don’t have to go that far!!!!!!!!!???
Yuki: Why not? Matching outfits always have a wide variety
Momo: Huh!!!!!!!!!! Okarin !!!!!!!! What do I do !!!!!!!! Work is one thing, but a private setting is totally different?!?!?!?!?!
Okazaki Rinto: I find it funny that you’re typing what you’re muttering in real life, LOL.
Yuki: How nice. I wanna be there too
Momo: You have work after this right? so Momo-chan will wait for you to finish!!
Yuki: Yeah. Thank you
Okazaki Rinto: The request was to make this a more relaxed conversation, but you might be a bit too relaxed right now, or maybe you’re just acting like you always are….
Yuki: Is that a problem? It’s fine, right, Momo?
Momo: Right, Yuki! 🫶
Okazaki Rinto: That’s right! It’s totally fine! And finally, please share a message for the fans!
Yuki: This new direction may surprise some fans, but from where I stand, Momo is strong, gentle, and full of warmth. Just like a sunrise that blends the dark and light, he’s a mix of many wonderful qualities.
Yuki: That’s why the song plays tricks with a variety of rhythms, melodies and singing tones. They reflect Momo’s ever-changing expressions. I hope you enjoy “Get in the Groove.”
Momo: I always spend every day thinking about how happy I am ever since Yuki and I became Re:vale. Sometimes so much so that I wish time could stop.
Momo: But you know, listening to “Get in the Groove” made me feel even happier! I know this project was born all thanks to our fans’ unwavering support. Thank you so much!!! I feel like the happiest person alive right now!
Momo: And that’s why I want everyone who supports us to feel as happy as I do, always and forever! I hope that you never get your feelings hurt! And if sadness ever comes your way, I hope our songs will be able to heal you!
Momo: Re:vale will always be a warm light, shining on everyone like the sun that rises each morning. Now and forever, with Yuki by my side!
Momo: That’s all I got!
Okazaki Rinto: Thank you both! This was Re:vale in full force!
Momo: Yup! I feel Yuki’s love overflowing more than usual 🥹❤
Yuki: Really? I’m not really good with words
Momo: Well no, you’ve gotten dangerously much better at that recently!!??!!!
Okazaki Rinto: It’s hard to believe you once had to practice saying stuff like this.
Yuki: Yeah, that sure did happen.
Yuki: Momo, promise me you’ll keep smiling by my side now and forever
Momo: Yeah. I promise!!
For those who are confused, the sandy beach of a deserted island refers to a specific plot point in part 5 of the main story.
I. am frankly not entirely sure how to interpret this. Because judging by Momo’s reaction I believe Yuki was Most Definitely Not insinuating an actual change of color combinations but. A Different Kind of “combinations”.
#idolish7#i7#ainana#idolish7 translation#re:vale#orikasa yukito#sunohara momose#yuki re:vale#momo re:vale#okazaki rinto#16 producers#rabbit chat
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There is a scratch mark on the floor of the Council chambers that Mace has never noticed before. Not a deep one, mind, quite shallow. This matters because it’s making the white-hot pulse of agony stabbing through his eyeballs ebb momentarily. Then, he chances a glance upwards at the fidgeting Knight in front of them, and it returns in full force.
Huh, he’s never seen Oppo Rancisis’ face turn that colour before.
“Hmm”, Master Yoda hums, deep and scratchy. His expression is unreadable even to Mace beyond a baseline gremlinness, and the force with which he grips the edges of his seat is making his bones creak. Master of the Order you should become, they said. Follow the calling of the Force, you should. A fulfilling purpose, it will be. Mace is going to hunt the little goblin for sport when this is all over, and he’s going to laugh the whole time.
“Show us the livestream again, could you, Knight Parvo?” Yoda asks. Mace bursts a capillary, he’s pretty sure, and so does poor Knight Parvo, whose orange Mon Cala skin tips all the way into blood red with stress. “Most unusual, this is.”
“Absolutely not!”, Ki Adi intervenes before Mace has to, thank the Force for little mercies. Plo Koon’s tusks tremble slightly with either suppressed laughter or abject horror, maybe both, and Stass Allie has her head in her hands. “The holo stills should be enough”, Ki Adi proceeds to add, and Mace has to reconsider all feelings of grace he just felt towards his fellow Councillor.
He never wants to watch Yoda zoom in on someone’s abs again. Or Depa raise her eyebrows at the curve of thighs bent over the dripping front of a speeder.
“Speeder Wash For Our Troops”, his former padawan reads out loud from a still of what has to be hundreds of the things gathered in the public senate parking lot. “Fund Our Boys And Get A Wet Seeing-To!” The series of images features dozens of Coruscant Guard troopers in various stages of unkitted, gleaming and shining with soap suds and water. The fact that the whole thing is also massive shatterpoint after massive shatterpoint is, quite frankly, insulting.
“Well hello- oh dear”, Obi-Wan’s blue form crackles to life in his chair, followed by several sounds of choking that are definitely not him. Good, Mace thinks acidly. If he has to deal with this, then so does kriffing Skywalker. “I’m sorry, why am I looking at Commander Thorn using a washrag like a lasso on top of a speeder?”
“Oh, the Guard’s little fundraising project”, Bail Organa says, as he steps into the Council chambers. Normally, Mace likes the man well enough. Now, he just smiles and adds on, “I’ve already donated, in mine and Breha’s name. Remotely, of course.”
“The Guard’s fundraising speeder wash?”, Obi-Wan repeats, edges of his holo form flickering with what Mace suspects is Skywalker very unsubtly trying to edge in. Force, but the man really is horrible at any and all stealth, like kissing his secret wife in an open arena in front of his Master. “And they are fundraising for…?”
“GAR budget allocations have to come from somewhere”, Organa shrugs. “And with the tide of public opinion turning, they’ve been tending towards cuts. The Guard feels them more keenly than any other sector - they’ve been reduced from half to quarter rations, and medical supplies have not made more than a token appearance in the last draft. The Chancellor has cancelled three consecutive meetings on the matter, and thus it was agreed that a more hands-on approach was needed. Any surplus will go into the Army fund.”
“Surely it can’t be that dire”, Oppo protests, a slightly less concerning shade of purple now. Senator Organa shrugs again, jostling the smattering of cracks slowly building around his person in a way that makes Mace wince quietly. “It’s all publicly available data, Masters.”
It really can be that dire, as it turns out. And quarter rations is only scratching the surface of how dire, considering the Guard has apparently never had access to bacta in all their posting, and also includes requisitioning forms available to the Senate for reconditionings and decommissionings, two words Mace has only heard Ponds whispers amidst shuddering in the early days of the war before Shaak Ti went off and just about tore some throats out over it.
“Alright”, he concedes, rubbing at his temples. “Fair enough, we have failed to tackle a massive blind spot in the Guard’s well being. There is no Jedi assigned to Coruscant, and that’s an oversight on our behalf. But how in the everloving kriff did this get past the Chancellor and Commander Fox?!”
Who have both signed, black on white. Bail Organa smiles cryptically. “Well, if you scroll a bit past that one image, up to the industrial speeder in the back - Commander Fox is currently having credits stuffed into his codpiece in the back, I believe.”
“HE’S WHAT IN THE WHAT NOW”, Commander Cody screeches through the speaker of Obi-Wan’s holo image, and Mace has to summon every bit of Jedi-serenity he possesses in his body to keep from dropkicking a cackling Yoda through the chamber windows.
#fox forged palpatine’s signature is how it got past him#it’s not like anyone can admit to that considering the backlog of official reports he’s been forced to do it on#‘come for me and we’re both going down bitch’ fox says#triple dog dare#fox himself is in such a constant state of sleep deprivation delirium that a sexy speeder wash sounded fair enough#or not worse than anything else that happens on the daily on coruscant anyways#padmé’s handmaidens make it rain with whoops of joy and take a commemoration selfie with all the commanders#‘wait. where’s kit?’ obi wan asks halfway through the meeting ‘wasn’t he supposed to land on coruscant an hour ago?’#‘oh No’ says the council collectively#‘coruscant daily breaking news: residents are horrified by half-naked nautolan streaking through the city apparently making for thr senate’#‘wait that appears to be JEDI MASTER KIT FISTO-‘#it’s very good advertising it turns out#the vod who suggested it (nuisance) gets promoted against his will#the remaining clone commanders have to be restrained first from dogpiling civilians launching their credits at corries#‘BUT GENERAL THEY’RE OBJECTIFYING FOX’ wolffe cries to plo koon#then from murdering several senators aides and the chancellor when certain records surface#‘this is all public knowledge??’ fox asks very confused and still dripping water under six robes his ori’vode launched at him on sight#‘i don’t understand where this is coming from?’#cody is too busy making slitting throat motions at anyone who looks at his vod’ika too long to bother responding#palpatine chokes on a raisin in shock and dies#‘BREAKING BREAKING NEWS: CHANCELLOR EXPLODES IN A BLACK CLOUD AT SIGHT OF WASHBOARD ABS’#and thus the galaxy is foxed#i’m leaving that typo#commander fox#corrie guard deserves better#coruscant guard#jedi high council#mace windu#oh mace my beloved i am so sorry but it’s so funny putting you in Situations#sw tcw fic ideas
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You Have A Moment.
Mohammed Khalil (@ahmed0khalil) reached out to me pleading to share his story. I listened, and I ask that you listen. I even went to paraphrasing- and no one should have to paraphrase their trauma- for reading convenience.
"My name is Mohammad Khalil, and I live in the Shuja’iya neighborhood, east of Gaza City. I started a fundraising campaign at the request of my younger brother Ahmed after we lost our home and source of livelihood due to the war."
On October 7, 2023, he was sitting with his family when the ground shook from the intensity of the explosions. In just five minutes, more than 15 bombs, each weighing half a ton, fell near his house.
This war has left Mohammed feeling terrified and abandoned. He has already witnessed suffering far beyond his 19 years, having lived through 6 wars. In 2014, he lost his home the first time to war, and here he is again.
They tried fleeing to central Gaza City to no avail. Bombs destroyed the Carmel Tower while he was near, and he injured his foot. He had to lay in the damage until medical teams arrived.
His older brother Fathi is blind, his sister Aya cannot help, his brother Anas and Ahmed are too young, and his brother Abdullah is blind and autistic. None of the children have access to schooling. Fathi suffers from a chronic illness, and could only access help after his father had to run 2.5 kilometers to find help.
"I have stood in line for bread for at least 10 hours to get 30 loaves, and waited three hours to get 25 liters of clean water for my family of eight." Most people get annoyed standing in line for food at restaurants. Imagine 10 hours.
"On our way to Deir al-Balah, I witnessed six massacres, and I was on the verge of suicide out of despair. I couldn’t bear it anymore; this is not just a passing tragedy—this is my life."
"We are now living in one of the overcrowded UN schools, surrounded by diseases, corpses, and garbage. Every message I send could be my last. I don’t know if I will be alive the next time."
He is especially grateful for anyone that takes the time to share his story, a story that he has been desperate for people to hear. A story that he should not have to go through. Please, donate if you can, share if you cannot.
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LOML- loss of my life | Prologue
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!Reader
Plot: You knew him at a time when he didn't, and now he is looking for you...
Warnings: depiction of violence, angst, mentions of (perhaps) death, angst, fluff at the end (maybe), takes place after TFATWS
Bucky didn't like to think back to the years when he was working for Hydra. No matter how many times people named him a victim, an instrument - it didn't change the fact that he was operating for them. Going on those missions- slaughtering hundreds of people. Innocent fucking civilians. He couldn't possibly look past that. His therapist informed him that this kind of mindset is what's keeping him from fully recovering.
Maybe she was right about that.
Perhaps that was the root of his never-ending nightmares. The ones where he can still smell the blood whenever he wakes up in a cold sweat. Where he stares down at his hands, and for a split second he can catch a glimpse of their blood. Or maybe it is his blood. He lost track of that a long time ago.
A couple of months ago he had read a psychology book where someone argued that memories are primarily silent. And he couldn’t have thrown that book any faster against the closest wall. Because fuck whoever wrote that piece of crap. He’d be happy if for once he couldn’t hear the screaming of his victims, their begging and crying…followed by his metal arm making this eerie sound whenever it crushed someone’s spine into little pieces.
Bucky takes a deep breath. God, how he yearned and wished for silence. But then again, God has abandoned him a while ago.
His dreams only consist of flashbacks. Please, I have children waiting for me at home! Stop, stop, that hurts! Your work is fundamental for mankind! Oh my god, please stop! Make this stop, please! My oldest is 7! Please, don’t forget that you’re still human underneath it all. Bucky’s eyes open and when he sits up he can not stop gasping for air. Please, don’t forget you’re still human underneath it all.
He inspects his worn out features in the mirror. When had he started to dream of her? When did she manage to tiptoe her way into this hellfire of memories? What was her name again?
You slightly flinched when Pierce's hand made contact with The Winter Soldier’s cheek. The sound echoed through the empty corridors of the facility. And her gaze quickly drops to her clipboard. Everybody around her was silent, staring at either the long-haired man or the one in the suit. Pierce looked beyond furious before his eyes fell on you and he cleared his throat:” What are you writing down.”
Fuck. You took a deep breath, and quickly improved your posture:” I am just documenting the bruising, Sir.” The older man hummed and furrowed his eyebrows:” Let me see.” Out of nowhere, he snatched the clipboard out of your hands. You slightly groan at the burning sensation the plastic left on your skin. The entire time, you were able to feel The Winter Soldier's eyes on you. How you loathed this job. But you needed to remind yourself that you didn’t have much of a choice, whether or not you wanted to be there. For almost three years, you were one of the top physicians at NYC’s best hospital. Then one evening, while you were walking back to your car, you got kidnapped. You-
“Bucky?”, Sam’s voice brings him back into the present: “Are you still with me?” There is a playfulness to his voice. One that quickly disappears, once Sam notices the look on his friend’s face. And for a few seconds, the two men just look at one another, before Bucky shakes his head:” Yeah no. I’m fine.”
“You’re gone a lot these days.”
Bucky tilts his head and blinks in perplexity:” What’s that supposed to mean? We have been working on this case together since last week, we-.”
“Mentally, Bucky.”, Sam cuts him off and brings his cup of coffee up to his lips. And he can detect an emotion in Bucky’s eyes that tells him he struck a nerve. There is a heavy silence filling the kitchen before Sam speaks up again, his voice gentle and understanding:” Where are you going?”
#bucky barnes angst#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes x reader#bucky#bucky x reader#bucky barnes#the winter solider x reader#the winter soldier#the winter solider imagine#marvel x reader#marvel#sebastian stan
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sacred monsters: part three
pairing: lee heeseung x f reader
genre: academic rivals to lovers, vampire au, slow burn
part three word count: 22.3k
part three warnings: swearing, blood and other vampire-y things — you know the drill, plenty of tension (of both the general and sexual sort), still nothing explicit but we’re getting a little ~sexier~, a kiss 😈
soundtrack: still monster / moonstruck / lucifer - enhypen / everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears / immortal - marina / supermassive black hole - muse / saturn - sleeping at last / everybody’s watching me (uh oh) - the neighbourhood
note: my favorite chapter yet. I hope you love it too. happy reading ♡
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A literature student in your third year of university, you’ve been dreaming of having your writing published for as long as you can remember. With a perfect opportunity dangling at your fingertips, the only obstacle that stands in your way comes in the form of a ridiculously tall, stupidly handsome, and unfortunately, very talented writer by the name of Lee Heeseung. Unwilling to let your dream slip out of reach, you commit to being better than the aforementioned pain in your ass at absolutely everything.
But when a string of vampire attacks strikes close to your city for the first time in nearly two hundred years, publishing is suddenly the last thing on your mind. And, as you soon begin to discover, Heeseung may not quite be the person you thought he was.
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PART THREE
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Biting your lip, you stare at the screen of your phone. The email you’re currently trying to draft has been completely blank for the last eight minutes. Other than the addressee line, that is.
Despite the elapsing time, Professor Kim’s email address is the only field you’ve been able to fill out.
Not without good reason, of course. It’s a delicate balance you’re trying to strike. After all, the last time you saw him, he was covered in blood. Fully deranged. Convinced of whatever motive spurred his actions enough to throw a dart at you. Inject vampire poison directly into your veins.
Fleeing from the scene of his supposed crime with a strange look in his bloodshot eyes.
Beyond that, there are other obstacles to consider. The only contact information you have for your professor is his official university email address. You doubt it’s monitored regularly, but you’d rather not have a paper trail of damning accusations in your wake stored forever on a public server.
Sighing, you let your phone fall to your lap for a moment. You’ve been awake for nearly an hour now, and you haven’t quite worked up the courage to leave the confines of Heeseung’s bedroom.
It could be beneficial, you suppose, to ask him for help. He’s more than proven his discerning eye for matters like this. But that would involve leaving the safety of your current location, even if it is illusory at best. And it’s not like Heeseung has shown any support for your plan to contact your professor.
Besides, if you can’t handle something as simple as a well-crafted email, how are you ever going to manage profiling an unusually cognizant vampire without raising suspicion? No, this is something you need to do on your own. Even if only to reassure yourself that you can.
Bringing your phone back to eye level, you type:
Dear Professor Kim,
It’s cordial. A standard greeting from a student to their professor. Nothing that would raise a red flag, warrant further investigation.
I apologize for not being able to attend our scheduled draft meeting on Wednesday afternoon. There have been quite a few unexpected events in the last few days…
You frown, backspacing through that last sentence.
Something unavoidable came up, and I was not able to provide prior notice.
You don’t love it, but it will have to work.
If possible, I would love to reschedule our meeting. I am still thrilled about the opportunity to discuss my draft with you in person. I took the liberty of previewing several of New Haven’s recently published works, and I believe that my work will make a fitting contribution to the existing canon. For your convenience, I have attached a copy of my current draft for your review.
Regarding the internship, I am still highly interested in pursuing that opportunity as well. I believe that my personal interests are well-suited to New Haven’s core beliefs and values. I would love to find another time to formally tour the New Haven Publishing facilities. I believe that you have a great capacity for mentorship and would be honored to work alongside you in the coming months.
You read over your message once. Twice. Deciding that it will only sound worse the more it lingers in your mind, you add your signature to the end. Then you close your eyes, take a deep, steadying inhale, and press send before you can change your mind.
The small whoosh sound as the message leaves your inbox and slides into his feel almost anticlimactic. You’re dealing with vampires and careful allusions in subtext. Things that seem more suited to a quill and parchment than an email typed on a smartphone.
With the message sent, your mind is suddenly free to wander to other things. Despite the strange, frantic jumble of events that have occurred in the past handful of days, you’re still tethered to your mortality. Now, that manifests as a grumble in your stomach.
Although you’re sure the bag next to the nightstand truly is the result of Jake’s best efforts, the rather lacking grocery run he did hasn’t been doing you many favors nutritionally.
For a fleeting moment, the idea of only needing to feed once a year is almost something that inspires envy. It would certainly make things simpler.
While you’re contemplating the merits of peeling yet another clementine, a knock rings out against the door. Three firm raps that have you nearly jumping out of your skin.
It’s another unfortunate side effect of humanity, your infallible skittishness. Distantly, you wonder when that will start to fade. If it will. Fear these days has a way of feeling etched to your bones, painted against the backs of your eyelids. A shadow that never strays far from your footsteps, no matter how quiet they are.
It’s not unexpected, given the things your mind has been subjected to as of late, but it is starting to wear on you.
Most of all, you miss feeling safe. Not so constantly, painfully aware of your own mortality, your capacity for injury. For death.
For now, you force yourself to breathe. One deep inhale followed by a long exhale. It’s just one of the boys, you’re sure.
But you can’t even linger on that too long. If you do, they stop being boys in your mind and start becoming five-hundred-year-old immortal, blood drinking beings with supernatural powers. It’s a lot to handle, especially at nine in the morning.
Shoving your fear to the side the best that you can, you force your voice into something steady. “Come in.”
It’s Heeseung that enters. Tentatively, on slow footsteps, as if this space doesn't belong to him. It’s strange, you think, how out of place a person can look in their own room. And it’s not that he doesn’t fit in with his surroundings as much as it is that he appears to be brimming with unease. A tension that sits just below his skin and won’t let him relax.
Eyes that can’t decide where to land, that flit around the room as if he’s seeing it for the first time. Hands that war between resting at his sides versus making themselves busy. Pushing at his hair, tugging at his shirt.
If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was nervous.
Finally, after a moment of stilted silence, his gaze lands on you.
And it’s all too much like time you spent in an empty classroom at adjacent desks, reading each other’s words. The moments you stole under moonlight after he insisted on walking you home. It’s not that the discomfort fades. But when he looks at you like that, it has a way of becoming irrelevant. An afterthought.
Eyes meeting across the room, the only thing that exists between the two of you is the gentle fragility of the moment. A blip in time that extends until it’s stretched too thin. Until it snaps, forcing you back to reality.
“I came to check on you,” he finally says. “To see how you’re feeling.”
“I’m fine,” you tell him, averting your eyes. It’s a cop out, yes, but it’s also the truth. You are fine. Even if it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself of it as much as you are him.
Heeseung worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. Smooth, flat, even teeth. You wonder if he has control of it, when his fangs come out. If there are moments when he doesn’t, when control passes from his careful grip to the whims of his fading inhibitions.
But for now, at least, he’s as guarded as ever.
It doesn’t detract from his consideration. “I thought you might want to go to your apartment,” he offers. “Get some of your own clothes. Spend a little time in a familiar place.”
Sensing an opportune moment, your stomach grumbles audibly.
Heeseung suppresses a grin. As if he’s charmed by it, you and your undeniable humanity. “Get some real food in you.”
It’s hard, at first, not to feel like he’s trying to kick you out. And it’s stupid, probably, to be in a vampire’s house feeling insecure about the space you take up, the effects of your presence. The fragile hope that something in him wants you there.
But you’ve gotten better at reading his intentions, even when he does his best to keep them under lock and key. You’ve traded too many secrets to feel shunned. It’s concern that he wraps his offer in, not contempt.
And you really are hungry. “I could go for some food.”
It’s sweet, the way he asks if you have a favorite restaurant. A spot for take-out that you frequent on busy nights when you’re too tired to cook anything.
And it gives you a good excuse to drag him along to your favorite coffee shop. You’re the one that’s stunned into silence, though, when he tells the barista that you’ll take the food to go. And when he hands her a small wad of cash before you can get a protest in edgewise.
You don’t press him on it, but the look you give him is question enough.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he explains as you wait for your food. “We, well, you can eat there.”
It hits you then, in the middle of a cafe you frequent, that you don’t even have to think about it. You’re nodding before his words have time to fully process. For some reason, placing small bits of trust in him feels like second nature.
But now, a handful of minutes later, staring up at a very tall ladder with your takeout bag in hand, you’re having second thoughts.
It’s not that you’re afraid of heights particularly, but…
“I don’t know…” you trail off, gaze still fixated on the top of the ladder. The longer you look, the further away it seems. When Heeseung said he wanted to show you something, you didn’t think the local water tower would be involved in any capacity. “Is this even allowed?”
Next to you, Heeseung just shrugs. “I’ve never gotten in trouble.”
“You know,” you glance at him sideways, “that’s really not all that reassuring.”
“C’mon,” he urges, and he has that glint in his eye. The one that would probably have you following him off a cliff if he asked nicely enough. “The view is worth it. I promise.”
Eyes squinting against the glint of winter sunlight and the prospect of scaling a water tower, you swallow audibly. “It better be,” you grumble.
Heeseung, like you, has gotten better at picking up on the little details. He doesn’t need to hear you say it to know that he’s won.
“You go first.” He nods towards the ladder.
That you are about to argue against when he adds, “I’ll catch you if you fall.”
So with one final exhale and hands that tremble slightly, you walk until you reach the first rung of the ladder.
“Wait,” Heeseung calls from behind. You turn to find him walking towards you, hand outstretched. “I’ll carry the bag.”
Wordlessly, you slide the takeout bag off of your wrist, handing it to him. At this point, you don’t care if it's chivalry or concern for your ability to scale a ladder that motivates his offer. You’re reeling either way. Despite his promise to catch you, you can’t shake the feeling that the odds of you plummeting straight to the ground from some awful height are greater than zero. You’ll minimize all the risks that you can.
So, with a steady breath and a racing heartbeat you’re sure he can hear, you start your shaky ascent.
Only once, during the entire climb, do you glance down.
It’s not like you ever suspected Heeseung of breaking a promise prematurely, but the sight of him a few rungs beneath you is reassuring all the same. Even if the distance between you and the ground as your gaze shifts over his shoulder is decidedly not.
And a few, hard earned minutes later, you have to give it to him. You hate to admit that he was right, but the view is absolutely breathtaking.
The golden glow of late morning winter sunlight cascades over the city that raised you, now just a tangle of lights and roads and tiny buildings in the vast expanse far beneath you. It’s an entirely new perspective on the place where all of your first dreams were realized, where the plans for your future have started coming to fruition.
In the distance, traces of snow dust the tops of the mountains. You’re nearly eye level with them now, those peaks that have always seemed so unreachable. It’s a vantage point that has you tilting your head, wishing you could capture it forever.
Beneath you, the city teems with life. The hustle and bustle you’re usually caught up in suddenly feels far away, removed from you. Signs of life feel like something you observe, admire with curiosity but don’t belong to yourself.
Fleetingly, you wonder if all of Heeseung’s years have passed in a similar fashion. If the sight of a million headlights in the distance makes him feel closer to his humanity or further from it than ever.
You exhale, breath visible in the frigid air.
Next to you, Heeseung remains silent. Lets you take it all in without so much as a word. But his presence is something your attention never strays far from. The sound of his breath, the space he takes up in your periphery and in your mind.
Once you start looking, it’s hard to tear your gaze away. But after another moment, you turn to face him. The winter wind plays with your hair, skims across your cheekbones. The distance between you and him feels almost as much like a ravine as it does nonexistent.
“It’s beautiful,” you tell him. But your eyes are dancing in dangerous territory. The curve of his jaw. The bridge of his nose. The deep hues of his eyes. The sudden memory of what it was like to be inside his mind, to occupy a space so intrinsically him it felt like an invasion of privacy.
For a moment, you don’t think he’ll respond at all. But your predictions have never been solid where he’s concerned.
“I thought you might like it.” Reaching out, he offers you your food again. “Here. I also thought it might be nice to eat with a view. Some fresh air.”
You move to take a seat where you stand, but Heeseung isn’t satisfied yet. He’s braver than you. It may be an unfair assessment, given the nature of his established perpetuity.
Still, your heart seizes a bit in your chest as you watch him inch closer to the edge of the water tower, slide down into a seated position with his legs dangling off of the side.
Deciding that you’ve had enough reminders of your mortality this morning, you slide down where you are. Setting the takeout bag down beside you, you pull your bagel out. Grateful that it’s held onto its warmth, you unwrap it, taking a bite.
It’s almost good enough to have you groaning out loud. Thankfully, you’re able to tamp that urge down before it comes to fruition.
After another handful of equally delicious bites, your eyes land on Heeseung’s back. Frowning, you remember the first essay from that strange book you found in the library nearly two weeks ago.
Sacred Monsters, it was called. The Taste of Blood.
A sudden question pulls at your lips. You’re not sure what the proper etiquette is, of asking vampires about their personal cuisine preferences. Swallowing, you decide far more invasive truths have already passed between the two of you.
He’s still looking out over the city, still a few feet in front of you. But you keep your voice quiet, as if he were seated at your side. You know he’ll hear it all the same.
“Can you eat?” you ask the silhouette of his back. “Human food, I mean.”
Turning to look at you over his shoulder, Heeseung pauses for a moment. He must decide that standing is preferable to responding, because with the grace of a trained dancer, he rises to his full height. Takes a few even steps before he’s right next to you.
Then, he slides back down into a seated position at your side, this time separated from you by only scant inches.
“I don’t know,” he finally answers. “I’ve never tried. But everything about it,” he glances at your bagel, “the smell, the texture, the look, is very… unappetizing.”
You wonder if that’s why he chose to sit away from you, if it’s causing him any grief to be so close now. But he doesn’t seem all that perturbed.
“That’s too bad.” A tone of light teasing playing at the edges of your voice, you nod toward what’s left of your bagel. “I was going to offer you a bite.”
You don’t miss it, the way his eyes fall to the side of your neck, just under your jaw. The place where your wound is still healing. The bite mark he left there. It’s covered by a bangade now. The thought of walking in public with such an obvious injury felt reckless, like an invitation for unwanted attention. But you’re still painfully aware of its presence. As is he, it would seem.
“Hm,” he muses, gaze sliding back to your eyes lazily. “Tempting.”
You know he can hear it, the way your heart skips a beat at the implication. The undeniable hint of something that clouds his words. You’re not sure how to identify it, the emotion that has heat flaring beneath your cheekbones. Thrill, maybe. The kind you get in your stomach just before the roller coaster drops.
But there’s a sensation that pools deeper, tugs at you from just below your naval. Something lost in translation as your struggle to sort the feelings memories of that night inspire.
Whatever it is, your body betrays you all the same. There’s a flush in your heat and a thrum in your chest and something else entirely gathering at the base of your spine. You decide that taking another bite is the best method of defusal. It takes a concentrated effort not to choke on it.
“Did you have one before?” You’re suddenly desperate to shift the direction of the conversation. “A favorite food, I mean.”
For a moment, Heeseung is quiet. You’re suddenly worried that you’ve overstepped, landed on a sore subject.
But then he reaches out his hand, letting it hover right above your wrist. “Can I?”
He’s asking for permission, you realize, to paint more images for you with his mind.
Tamping down on the flicker of surprise that rises, you nod. And then his fingers, gentle as the fleeting kiss of a butterfly’s wings, are once again encircling the curve of your wrist.
You’re more prepared for it this time, the way the city, nestled in the valley of snow-topped mountains, begins to disappear. As it does, a decidedly warmer image takes its place.
You’re in a kitchen, one lost to the centuries. A woman in a long, plain dress and an apron tied around her waist leans over the fire fueled oven, pulls out a tray of delicious looking pastries.
Her careful actions are infused with love as she sprinkles a fresh coat of sugar on top of the baking tray, as she meticulously places a handful of fresh raspberries in the center of each perfect pastry.
In the vision, a boy appears. You feel your heart melt a bit at the sight of him, at this version of Heeseung that can’t be older than twelve. He’s brimming with boyish energy, laughing as he’s admonished for taking a bite before the pastries have properly cooled. Fanning his burnt tongue with a frantic hand.
Grinning ear to ear when he sneaks another as soon as the woman’s back is turned. His emotions are as plain as day, in the way children’s always are. The honesty of his joy is painfully apparent in the way his eyes crinkle in amusement, the way they hold no traces of melancholy, no weight from the world.
And then, just as surely as it came to you, the scene begins to dissolve. As it fades, you turn to Heeseung. His eyes are the same, as that boy from his vision’s, but there’s more depth to them now. The end result of a gaze that bears the brunt force of five hundred years of weight.
“Fresh raspberry cakes,” he tells you, some kind of distant sorrow for a long lost memory outlining his words. “Those were my favorite.”
Hoping to ease some of the heaviness, you offer him a small smile. “You have a good memory. I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast last week.”
But your words don’t have their intended effect. His focus is on the mountains in the distance when he tells you, “We remember everything. In excruciating detail. It’s different from humans, I suppose. Our minds don’t shift to make room for new memories. They just… expand. Hold more.” He sighs, and it’s lost somewhere in the wind. “Things from the past, no matter how distant, never blur. They never fade.”
He can paint hallucinations with his mind. He drinks blood. And still, as you gaze at his profile, you think this might be the most horrifying thing he’s told you yet.
You can’t imagine it, having all of your past stored so fully in your mind. All the ebbs and flows, the pain, joy, sorrow from your life.
And he has five hundred years of it.
It strikes you then, at the top of a water tower, at the precipice of a debilitating revelation, just how insignificant this will all be for him. Your lifetime that will be nothing but a blip on a radar. A moment, never forgotten perhaps, but lost to time all the same.
You’ll grow, age, change. You’ll graduate university and find a way to support yourself into early adulthood. You might move to a new city, learn a new language, pick up a new hobby. All of the ways people find to fill the limited time that they have, to make the most of the finite days they’re blessed with.
You might even fall in love. Start a family. Sit on a porch one day, surrounded by grandchildren. Smiling as they laugh at your inability to understand the ways the world is changing, grinning at their disbelief as you explain how different things were in your childhood.
And then, inevitably, it will end. The community you’ve found, the family you’ve built, will mourn you. Your life, like so many that came before yours, will fade into the background of the cosmos, surviving only in the memory of those that knew you.
And for him, nothing will change. He’ll look the same, sound the same, be the same. Constant. Unwavering. Immune to the whims of time and the insignificance of something as fragile as humanity.
You wonder, for a fleeting moment, how you’ll be committed to his everlasting memory. What shape the imprint of you will take.
When he looks back, five hundred years from now, and can still recall this moment in excruciating detail, what will he think? What will he feel?
Heeseung must sense your sudden melancholy. The temperature hasn’t dropped. In fact, it’s only gotten warmer as the sun continues its steady trek across the late morning sky.
Still, he turns to look at you. “It’s getting cold up here.” Jerking his head back in the direction of the ladder, he adds, “Why don’t we head to your apartment?”
For now, it’s enough to bring you out of your swirling thoughts. Right back to the current moment. Oh right. You may have gotten up here without much of a hitch, but you still have to get yourself down.
Luckily, Heeseung offers to go first. And he only laughs once, a bright, airy sound you wish you heard more of, when you threaten to kill him if he lets you fall.
…..
The lock on your apartment door has always been finicky. It takes a few frustrating tries for you to find the right angle. Finally, you hear the telltale click of the lock giving in. Sighing in relief, you push the door open.
As you step inside and flick on the light, everything looks just as you left it. Mostly organized, save for the throw blanket you forgot to fold and the coffee mug you left next to the sink. But now, overly aware of the presence just over your shoulder, you’re suddenly looking at your space through discerning eyes.
It’s not that you feel some immense need to impress him. It’s just that you’re suddenly very aware of everything, all the little pieces of yourself scattered across your apartment.
You don’t know why, but you realize that it matters to you, what Heeseung thinks of your space.
As you turn to gauge his reaction, you find him still standing just outside your doorway, hands shoved in his coat pockets. A polite gesture maybe, but it feels out of place among the moments that have passed between you. The intimacy garnered over the last few days.
“What are you doing?” You eye him warily. “Are you going to come in?”
“I’d love to,” he says evenly. His feet don’t budge an inch. “But I… I can’t.”
What? Your brow creases in confusion. What does he mean he can’t—
Oh.
Oh.
You figured there was no awkwardness left between the two of you in this regard. After all, you’ve slept in his bedroom, in his bed, for the last handful of nights. You’ve been inside of his mind. But you suppose this is different.
Besides, he’s from another time. Another century Despite the fact that he seems to be quite well adjusted to modern life, maybe he still holds some age-old reservations about entering a woman’s home. About being alone with you behind closed doors without six other people with supernatural hearing lingering nearby.
Tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, you suddenly find it a bit difficult to match his eye.
Where has his mind spun to, exactly, as he grapples with the thought of entering your apartment? After all, immortal or not, he is still a guy. And university aged one, at that. Well, kind of.
“It really is okay,” you tell him once you find your voice again. “I mean, if you think about it, I was in your house for the last few days. I know it’s different, since you have roommates, but it really is fine. And my couch is actually pretty comfortable, so—”
“___.” He interrupts you with the sound of your name, intonation flat. “I’m not worried about how comfortable your couch is.” You do glance at him then, and a patient sort of exasperation is written across his features. “Jay was right. You really do need to brush up on your facts.”
Your eyes pull down in confusion.
Heeseung sighs.
“I — We — can’t enter into places we haven’t been formally invited into.”
“Oh.” The realization settles, and this time brings with it a white hot flash of embarrassment. You find yourself more grateful than ever that he projects thoughts instead of reading them. What a nightmare that would be. “Well, I officially invite you into my apartment.”
“Thanks,” he says dryly, crossing over your doorstep. “I thought you were gonna make me wait out there forever.”
For a moment, it’s all you can do to watch, still basking in mortification, as he enters into your apartment. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t give any indication as to whether he likes it or hates it or doesn’t think much of it at all.
And then he takes a few more steps, settling down on the couch you’d mentioned earlier with an appreciative nod. You weren’t lying about it being comfortable.
You track his movement with evasive eyes. As he gets comfortable, a realization occurs. “Wait.” You freeze, suddenly feeling self-conscious again. “You have to be invited in. So the vampires that have been attacking people…”
Heeseung shakes his head. “They wouldn’t be able to get in here either.”
“Oh.” The single syllable is all you can manage. All you can think about is the fact that you insisted on sleeping an extra night at their house, in Heeseung’s room. Practically speaking, you would have been just as untouchable here.
You sneak another glance at Heeseung.
For some reason, though, you don’t think you would have felt quite as safe.
“There are still risks, though.” Heeseung’s looking at you like he understands where your mind has gone, like he wants to put it at ease. “The second you leave, you’re entirely unprotected.”
Until recently, vampires haven’t made an appearance in your city for nearly two hundred years. Only the overtly superstitious bother with any sort of precautions. Now, they seem like the logical ones, everyone else foolish. “Garlic charms and things like that,” you wonder. “Do those actually work?”
“No.” Heeseung shakes his head. “The only real substance I know of that’s detrimental to vampires is moonflower. The dose has to be quite high, though. And there are certain forms of distilling it that make it more potent. Otherwise, it mostly just has a strong sedative effect.”
You frown, his explanation spurring another question. “Why do you think Professor Kim shot me, then? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to inject you directly?”
Heeseung explains, “Moonflower is most effective on vampires when it’s consumed. Only the really strong stuff, specially distilled like I mentioned earlier, would be effective by injection. I don’t know how Professor Kim prepared the thing he shot you with, but it’s unlikely he knows how to properly distill moonflower to make it potent enough to hurt me directly.”
“So he injected me…” you trail off.
Heeseung fills in the blanks. “It’s likely that he was hoping it would be a strong enough deterrent for me not to bite you altogether,” he meets your eye, “or that it would kill me if I couldn’t find it in myself to resist.”
You’re finding it difficult to look away from him now. “How did you know? That it wouldn’t kill you?”
His silence is answer enough.
Part of you wants to curse him for being so careless, so reckless with his own life. Another part of you is afraid that your pile of growing gratitude towards him will soon be too tall, too heavy to bear.
Another part, small but insistent, wants you to thank him. To get on your knees and beg for forgiveness, for absolution of crimes you never meant to commit.
“It was a calculated risk,” he tells you, as if he can see the gears whirring in your mind. As if he’s just as afraid of them as you are. “Which reminds me, I have something for you.”
You arch an eyebrow, not sure you can take any more of what he offers.
But he stands from the couch anyway, walks towards you on steady feet. “I thought about giving it to you on the water tower, but I didn't want to take any chances.” His eyes sparkle with something that looks almost mischievous. “Just in case you got to the top and decided the view wasn’t worth it.”
That piques your curiosity enough to abate any lingering guilt at the thought of him giving you anything more than he already has. “Don’t tell me it’s distilled moonflower.”
It’s meant to land as a joke, but the look he gives you is entirely serious.
“Close enough.” Reaching into his bag, he pulls out a small, rectangular box. It’s wooden, you think. And it’s beautiful. Ornate in a subtle way, the dark wood is inlaid with hints of a pattern, soft edges that turn and wind and curl in on themselves.
Like many things he’s shown you, it feels like a relic of the past, a gift from another century. Something that belongs in a museum, not the worn but undoubtedly modern expanse of your apartment.
“What is it?” you breathe, the air suddenly fraught with something delicate.
Heeseung reaches for your wrist, opens your palm and places the box in your outstretched hand. “Open it.”
You’re not sure what to expect. The last few days have been anything but predictable, and the box between your fingers is no exception. Despite its solid weight, it suddenly seems fragile in your grip. As breakable as the moment between you.
It’s with a silver of hesitation that you remove the lid, revealing—
“A knife?” The look you give him is incredulous.
Because that’s what it is. At first glance, you can tell that it’s not a weapon built for brute force. It’s small, delicate, even. It feels strange to describe a blade as such, but it’s also undoubtedly beautiful.
You look down at it, each time discovering another detail. A striking silver blade meets a handle even more ornate than the box that houses it. A series of intricate vines wrap around each other, come to full bloom just where the blade kisses the hilt.
“A dagger, actually,” he corrects. Heeseung just watches as you examine his gift. He must decide that an explanation is necessary. And not just for the weapon between your fingers.
“I know I wasn’t exactly… enthusiastic about you wanting to continue working with Professor Kim,” he starts. There’s a hint of strain in his voice. It’s not an apology, but you hear the tinge of regret all the same. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or that I don’t think you’re competent. It’s just that—I mean, he’s a…” Across from you, he can’t quite bring himself to say it.
“A vampire,” you finish the sentiment for him. His expression is unreadable when you match his gaze. But you think there’s something there, something in his eyes that begs for forgiveness you’re in no position to give. Acquittal from crimes you never bore witness to. Difficult decisions lost to the passage of time, their lingering effects reverberating around the two of you now, holding you in their unyielding grip.
“I understand,” you tell him, because you do. Because you know that his reluctance was never commentary on his faith in you. Because even when he told you, on a night that feels lost to some distant past, that your writing was awful, it was only because he knew you were capable of better. Of more. “And I’m not angry with you. So much has happened these past few days.”
Nestled in your grip, the wooden box and the dagger within feel more like an apology than something with any practical use for you. You’re not woefully unathletic, but the only knives you’ve ever held have been in the kitchen.
“It’s beautiful,” you tell him. “Although I do have to say, I’m not sure how much good a dagger will do me. Especially since Professor Kim is, y’know, a vampire.”
“You’d be surprised,” he counters. “A potent dose of moonflower is one way of killing a vampire, but this is far simpler.” He matches your gaze. “You just need to aim for the heart.”
Nodding towards the weapon in your hands, he encourages, “Try it out.”
You arch an eyebrow. “You want me to stab you?”
“Not particularly.” That same glint is back in his eye. The one that spells trouble, but not for any of the reasons you would have predicted when dealing with an immortal creature of the night. “But it’s a calculated risk. And we’ve become rather used to those, have we not?”
He’s taunting you, you realize. Still, your uncertain gaze flickers between him and the object in your hands a few more times. Relenting, you set the box down on the counter behind you, pulling the dagger out with no confidence left to your name.
It’s terrible, but the thing you’re most concerned about now is just how embarrassing this is about to be for you.
Against your fingertips, the cool kiss of metal feels foreign, invasive. Warily, you test its weight within your grip. And then you turn around to face him again.
Heeseung wastes no time, pulls back no punches. “You’re holding it wrong.”
“Sorry,” you retort drily. “I must have slept through the day in class where we learned about proper dagger grips.”
He sighs, but there’s a trace of amusement in his eyes. “Here,” he beckons you closer.
Reluctantly, you close the distance between you. As soon as you stand directly in front of him, you stretch out your arm, offering him the dagger. You expect him to take it from you, to demonstrate a proper grip.
There’s a comment brewing on your lips, one about how if you had five hundred years of life under your belt, you’d probably be an expert in hand-to-hand combat too, when he catches you off guard.
Because he doesn’t take the dagger from your outstretched hand. No, instead you feel the warmth of his fingers as they wrap around your own. Gently maneuvering your grip, arranging it into one he finds acceptable.
Hand still covering yours, he squeezes. It’s light in pressure, but insistent in nature.
“You have to keep a strong grip,” he whispers. You feel his breath dance across your cheekbone. “Or your hand could slip. You’d only injure yourself.”
Close. When did he get so close?
Before you can make sense of it, his hand is sliding from your fingers to the skin of your wrist. It’s instinct, at this point to brace for another vision. Maybe he’ll show you, you think. A memory of him learning, an image of proper technique.
But the mirage never comes. Your apartment stays firmly in view as he catches you by surprise for the thousandth time within the span of days.
With the practiced agility of a supernatural being, he spins you. Flips your wrist in his grip so that the rest of your body is forced to follow.
Suddenly, you’re no longer facing him. Instead, you see the counter where you left the old, wooden box. Your front door just beyond it.
And somehow, at this new angle, the space between you has only grown smaller. Your back, each and every notch of your vertebrae, lies scant inches from the expanse of his chest. You can practically feel the steady rise and fall of his breath.
It makes yours seem all the more frantic in comparison.
Your legs feel like jello beneath you, wobbly to the point you’re afraid they might buckle. You try to regain your sense, to get a solid grip on something, anything that will tether you to reality.
But you’re too aware, so painfully aware of him behind you, wrapped around your wrist, tangled in your thoughts. It’s all too much.
He doesn’t relent. “Your stance is crucial.” His whisper floats like a caress down the shell of your ear, has you suppressing a shiver in his grip. One that starts at the base of your spine and ends somewhere beyond your body, outside this plane of existence.
Your body feels molten, less than solid. Something devoid of bones and marrow and muscled. Composed of nerves and flutters and a submission to sensation in their wake.
The hand that comes to your hip does little to steady you. Again, his pressure is light. But there’s no question that it’s a demand just the same. “Avoid letting your weight sink here.”
Is it? You don’t know. You can’t tell. You can’t think.
All you can do is feel as his open palm traces a steady line from the curve of your hip to the expanse of your stomach, settling in the space just above your navel. “Brace here,” he breathes against your ear.
It dawns on you, after a handful of shallow breaths, that this is an instruction. That he won’t let up until you follow it.
Your stomach tightens in response, just below his hand.
“Good,” he praises, but his touch doesn’t subside. “Better.”
His other hand, the one still wrapped around your wrist, begins to adjust your grip again. Angles it so that the dagger points away from you, towards an unseen target. “And this,” he moves the dagger slightly, “think of it as an extension of your arm.” Drawing a small circle with the tip, your entire body shifts in response. The palm splayed across your stomach moves with you. “Your body is one moving piece. It’s all connected.”
You suddenly find breathing something you need to focus on. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
“When you shift to the left,” he adds lowly. The hand against your stomach guides your movement to mirror his words. “What happens to the dagger?”
You hope his question is rhetorical. Even if you had an answer for him, you doubt your voice would be willing to cooperate.
“It follows,” he answers a moment later, and you’ve never been more grateful. “Just like the rest of your body.”
The hand on your stomach begins to slide towards your hip again. It follows an agonizingly slow path, pauses for a moment, before he removes it completely. The hand around your wrist falls to his side again.
“A good weapon,” he says from behind, heat lingering, burning against your skin in all the places he touched you, “is one you can control. It doesn’t need to be flashy. It doesn’t have to look impressive. It just needs to be yours. Completely under your command.”
This time, it’s him that moves. You’re grateful. You still feel frozen in place.
He walks, circling your immobile figure, until he’s in front of you again. “If worst comes to worst and you do need to defend yourself, don’t lead with the dagger. Lead with your back foot. Let that be what generates momentum through your hip. Brace through your core again, and let your power, your control, come from there. It’s all connected,” he reiterates. “It all moves together.”
He’s not touching you, not anymore, but the sight of him, the memory of it, makes you feel unsteady all over again.
“Root through your feet,” he instructs. You’re not sure how well you obey the instruction. It feels like all of your energy is dedicated to not collapsing to the ground in a puddle, a horribly undignified heap.
“Okay,” he continues, “Adjust your grip again, but this time—”
The sound of an incoming notification rings out from your phone, discarded on the counter along with the box the dagger came in.
You could almost cry with relief at the opportunity to diffuse some of the mounting tension, to have his gaze anywhere but on you, even if just for a moment.
Relaxing your stance, you do your best to hide the tremble in your legs as you walk to retrieve it. Reading the notification once, you turn back to where Heeseung is still rooted to the spot.
You suddenly feel unsteady again, but for a completely different reason this time.
“Professor Kim read my draft.” You hold your phone up, facing the screen towards him even though he’s too far to read the reply you’ve just received. Voice slightly wobbly, you add, “He wants to meet with me.”
…..
The coffee shop you arrive at twenty minutes later is nondescript. Full of office workers on a late lunch, families on a winter outing, and couples enjoying a quiet moment together. It strikes you as odd, almost, how normal it all seems. Despite the way your world has shifted on its axis completely, despite the city’s recent uptick in death toll, people are just… living. Going about their day as usual.
You find your professor waiting for you at a table in the far corner. He hasn’t ordered anything for himself, and for a moment, you wonder how long it’s been for him. How many years he, like Heeseung, has found human food rather repulsive.
Regardless of what you now know, Professor Kim looks every bit the well-organized, put together version of himself you saw during morning lectures this past semester. Gone is the crazed, ravaging, consumed by bloodlust being whose path you crossed three nights ago.
“I appreciate you meeting me here,” you tell him as you slide down into the seat across from him, voice guarded, expression carefully neutral.
“I’m glad you were able to find it,” Professor Kim agrees. You don’t know why you expected him to sound different. More monstrous, somehow. He doesn’t. It’s the same even, slightly gravely tone he’s always had. “You’ll have to forgive me for not inviting you back to the publishing house. I thought a more public location might serve both of our interests better.”
Witnesses, he means. Whether they’re for your comfort or his, you’re not entirely sure.
You didn’t come here to beat around the bush. And Heeseung, four blocks away where you forced him to wait for you, is surely anxious to hear the end result of this conversation. “Did you have the chance to read my draft?”
Professor Kim’s expression betrays nothing. “I did.”
“What did you think?”
He waits for a moment, weighing his words. “I agree with your email. It seems that your interests are… aligned with New Haven’s mission. As you may already know, it’s a rather small publishing house with quite a niche audience. Our tastes are more specific than most.” There’s a hint of distrust when he adds, “It’s rare to find a young person these days who has the experience necessary to publish something that will entice our readers.”
And this is where you have to tread lightly. Make your story believable. Subtle, but foolproof. “I’ll admit,” you start, “my interest in your subject matter has been a fairly recent development.” Slowly, intentionally, you brush hair from the side of your neck. The bandage still covers the worst of the damage, but the fading bruises are still visible. As are the implications of your wound. “But believe me when I say that I am fully committed.”
Professor Kim appraises the side of your neck, eyes widening for a fraction of a second.
“The woman in my story,” you continue, “the one whose dreams are stolen. I believe I’ve thought of a better idea for the ending.”
He pauses, leans forward in his chair. “Which is?”
“Originally, I thought it would be most fitting for her to die. After all, she was powerless against her enemy.” You meet his eye. “Had no way of defeating him as he grew stronger the weaker she got.”
Professor Kim nods. “A reasonable expectation. But you said your ending has changed.”
Nodding, you continue, “I think I’d like to incorporate a new plot element. A special plant, maybe. Something that makes her dreams toxic to her husband. Something that makes him ill every time he tries to steal them from her.”
Your professor’s gaze is still tight, but his eyes are beginning to relax. Glossing over with the realization of your implication.
“In my story, the person who introduces her to this plant is a mentor of hers, and ultimately, someone she decides to work with. Someone whose mission she strives to fulfill. To protect her dreams and everyone else’s.”
“An interesting thought.” Your professor leans back in his chair. You can tell that he’s still not fully convinced. “But what if this mentor of hers turns out to be a dream stealer himself. Wouldn’t it be only natural for your heroine to be wary of him, to fear him?”
“She does,” you admit. “But fear won’t save her from her husband. And between the two of them, her mentor is not the one that has ever attempted to harm her. To steal her dreams. Between the two of them, she has no confusion about where to place her trust. Even if it is hesitant.”
Your professor considers for a moment. Then, after a second that seems to stretch infinitely, he nods. “I’d like to hear more about this story of yours. At the publishing house, if you’re able to meet me there.”
Your heart gives a traitorous lurch, but your voice is steady when you affirm, “I am.”
“Can you be there in an hour?” He’s already standing, as if this was a business meeting, a simple transaction, and he’s back to the office now.
You confirm that you can, and he offers you one last nod.
Then, with little in the way of fanfare, he buttons his long coat closed, retreating through the front door of the coffee shop without so much as a backward glance.
…..
The metal is cold against the skin of your leg. Biting, it demands all of your attention, even as Heeseung pleads for it where he kneels in front of you.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks, not for the first time. “Because you don’t have to—”
“Heeseung,” you interrupt, and he looks up, his hands pausing in their ministrations. Beneath you, he’s adjusting the second part of his gift. Because not only did he give you a dagger in a wooden box pulled from a lost century, but also a holster. One that wraps around your thigh. One that he’s currently securing into place as he tries to convince you not to meet your murderous professor at New Haven.
But that’s the least of your worries at the moment. Right now, you thank whatever cosmic forces must be on your side that you wore loose fitting pants today. First because they will help to conceal the shape of your hidden weapon. And second because they’re roomy enough to pull up over your knee, so that you’re still clothed while Heeseung helps you adjust the dagger and holster into place.
The mere thought of the alternative is too mortifying to consider, has another spark of heat gathering on your cheeks.
Then again, it’s not like this is much better. Just as you were in your apartment, you’re painfully aware of each brush of his fingers against the skin of your thigh. You have to suppress the urge to sigh, and not in exasperation, every time he opens his mouth to tell you how bad of an idea this is. Mostly because it sends soft whispers of breath over your flesh, goosebumps following in their stead.
“Heeseung,” you try again. The sound of his name makes him look up at you through long lashes. In front of you, on his knees, his attention has never belonged to you more.
“We’ve been over this.” He’s had his chance to share his woes, voice his worries. You’ll never make any progress if he pitches this much of a fight every time a new opportunity comes about. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a meeting.”
Heesung frowns. “I don’t like that he wants you to meet him all alone. Why couldn’t you have your meeting at the coffee shop?”
“Right, because I’m sure you’d want to tell me all about your vampire history while a group of twelve-year-olds down caramel frappes a few seats over.”
Heeseung’s lips flatten. “Don’t compare me to him.”
“I’m not.” It’s the truth. Similarities between the two of them have yet to cross your mind. Despite the obvious similarity, your professor and Heeseung exist in entirely different planes as far as you’re concerned. On opposite sides of a vast spectrum. “I’m just saying, it makes sense that he would want to meet somewhere with a little more privacy.”
Heeseung slides the last strap into place, giving it an experimental tug. The holster and the dagger within it hold strong. Wordlessly, he rises back to full height. You release your pant leg, skin and weapon disappearing in one fell swoop.
“At least let me come with you,” he pleads. “I’ll stay out of sight.”
You’re shaking your head before he can even finish the request. “You and I both know that’s a terrible idea. If he could detect you before, he can do it again. Let’s just consider ourselves lucky that he can’t tell we’ve been together.”
Because what a disastrous nightmare that would be.
“I can barely do that,” Heeseung counters. “We don’t have to worry about that.” The concern in his gaze doesn’t ease, though.
You get it, you really do. And you empathize with it. It’s only natural, you suppose, that he would feel some sort of responsibility for you. Even though it was your own volition, your own actions that led you here, he was a part of the catalyst.
But you don’t want him to feel any guilt where you’re concerned.
“I’ll be fine,” you reiterate, trying to placate him. “He’s convinced that I’m convinced that he saved me that night.” Looking for Heeseung, begging for a bit of his permission, you add, “This is the first step in getting the answers we need. Besides,” you lift your leg slightly. “he won’t be able to hurt me even if he wants to. I’ve got a secret weapon.”
Heeseung’s lips only thin further. “And no idea how to use it,” he retorts under his breath.
“Hey!” you protest. “I have some idea how to use it.” You’re lying through your teeth. You don’t think you retained a single thing from Heeseung’s rather unorthodox lesson in your apartment. But in your mind, any fight that comes down to physical strength was always doomed to be a losing battle. “And you said it yourself, I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to wait until he’s distracted. Catch him off guard.” You point right at Heeseung’s chest, finger hovering a few inches away from his skin. “And aim right for the heart.”
But now you’re thinking of your apartment again. Of hands on your hips, covering the expanse of your stomach. Warm, steady, grounding. And so goddamn distracting.
“I can tell that you’re nervous,” Heeseung says, voice tangled with worry. “Your heartbeat just jumped.”
You’re too mortified to correct him.
“Of course I’m nervous. But I’ll be careful.” You meet his eye, hoping your false confidence will reassure him. For the third time, you promise, “And I’ll be fine.”
Heeseung just looks at you for a moment. Inhales. Exhales.
And then he says, “Keep your phone on you the whole time. Leave it open to my contact so that you can message or call me faster if you need to. And if something, anything feels off, get out of there.” He glances toward your thigh, where your concealed weapon rests. “That dagger is a last resort, but don’t be afraid to use it.”
You nod. After opening your phone to his contact, you check the clock. See that it’s time.
It feels wrong to leave without any parting words, but you’re not sure what you would say. If there’s anything left to be said.
You turn on your heel, surprised when Heeseung falls into step beside you. Again, the two of you agreed he would wait a considerable distance away to avoid detection. “What are you doing?”
“I can walk with you a little further,” he insists, stubborn.
“No, you can’t,” you argue. “We’re only a few blocks away, and you don’t know for sure how far his senses extend.”
“I wouldn’t even be able to—”
“Heeseung.” You stop in your tracks, turning to face him. “Remember how you told me that you trust me, just a few hours ago?”
You need him to dig deep, find some of that faith again. Or else this is just going to be miserable for the both of you.
“You’re not the untrustworthy variable in this situation.”
You sigh. “Then just…” you trail off, not sure how to put him at ease. “Just trust me to be okay. Wait here, and I’ll be back,” you plead. “Soon. I promise.”
Heeseung is nothing but serious when he tells you, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I’m not planning on it.”
A moment passes. Another. Then—
“Fine.” But his shoulders don’t release their tension.
Again, you turn to walk away. To leave him behind. You feel his eyes on your back, and you’ve barely made it a few feet before he says your name again.
“What—”
“Be careful,” he whispers, so low it’s almost lost to the breeze. “Please.”
Something in you softens at the tenderness in his voice, the worry in his eyes. But you don’t have time to linger on it now. You nod, only once, before turning away from him again.
The distance between you and New Haven feels short fades quickly. As anticipation begins to settle uncomfortably in your stomach, you replay your fabricated story in your mind, the one you’re about to feed Professor Kim. The one you hope is convincing enough to earn a bit of his trust. Tight enough that he won’t be able to poke any holes in it.
You’re at the door of the publishing house before you know it, before you have the chance to fully collect yourself. Pausing on the porch, you look around for a moment. It’s just as deserted as it was last week, just as eerily quiet. But this time, at least, you think you see a light in the window.
Knocking with a hand that’s steadier than you feel, you will your heartbeat to maintain an even rhythm.
It takes Professor Kim less than ten seconds to open the door. He glances over your shoulder, surveying the area with no small amount of suspicion, before he ushers you inside.
The layout is just as strange as you remember it, but the hallway doesn’t feel so ominous now that the lights are on, the faint hum of electricity buzzing in the background. Then again, standing face to face with a vampire has a way of being unnerving all on its own.
Beckoning you forward, you follow your professor past the same closed, unmarked doors before arriving in the open space at the end of the hall. Again, like the rest of New Haven, it looks different in the light. Warmer, more welcoming. Even if it still doesn’t look like much of a publishing house. Even if it still carries with it a distinct sense of unease.
This time, at least, Professor Kim has pulled out two chairs and a small side table,so the room isn’t completely barren. Sitting in the first chair, he gestures for you to join him. You do, eyes only darting towards the door marked with his name once.
The blood is gone, you realize.
“Thank you for meeting me here.” Professor Kim is all cordiality where he sits across from you. Again, you struggle to reconcile this version of him with the vampire who shot you full of poison just a few nights ago. “I trust you understand that this conversation is too delicate to have in a more public space.”
“Of course,” you nod.
“Since we’re here,” he continues, “let’s not speak in riddles any longer. I’m sure you have questions about the last night you were here.” He pauses, passing you a meaningful look. “As do I.”
You inhale, reminding yourself that as far as he’s concerned, you don’t know anything about vampires other than the usual, superstitious lore. “The last time I was here, there was blood on your clothes. Your mouth.” The shiver that traces your spine is not forced. Even now, you think it’s one of the most chilling scenes you’ve ever witnessed. Finally, in a small voice, you breath, “You’re a vampire.”
Professor Kim doesn’t try to hide it. “I am.”
You force confusion into your eyes. “But you didn’t try to drink my blood. You’re not trying to now.”
He nods at your observation. “I have ways of managing my hunger,” he explains, frustratingly vague. “You do not need to fear me.” You hadn’t expected him to spill all of his secrets within the first minute of your conversation, but that only leaves you with more questions than answers. And it certainly won’t give Heeseung or the rest of the boys much to work with.
“But you… you threw something at me.” Again, you don’t have to try hard to put fear in your gaze. “Something that stuck in my neck.”
“Yes,” he nods again. “That was an injection of moonflower. It’s a substance known to be poisonous to vampires. I believed that injecting it into your blood would prevent you from being preyed upon.” It takes a concentrated effort for you not to show any smugness. Your hypothesis had been right. He was trying to protect you. “I’m pleased to see that it seems to have worked, although I do apologize for the bruising.”
You realize then that the bandage on your neck covers the bite mark, the place Heeseung left a scar of his own making just next to Professor Kim’s.
Your professor, you realize, doesn’t know that you were bitten. Doesn’t know that the moonflower was beginning to have an adverse effect. That Heeseung took it right back out of you.
Internally, you debate. You don’t want to reveal any more cards than you need to, but you don’t know how long the scars will last. Don’t know how much longer you can wear the bandage without raising suspicion. And if he discovers later that you lied to him, it could be disastrous.
Slowly, you reach for the bandaid on your neck. Removing it, you explain, “What you did that night saved me. I was—”
Professor Kim cuts you off. Leaning forward in his seat, his attention is honed on the twin puncture wounds on your neck. “You were bitten.” Something flashes through his eyes. Confusion. Suspicion. He looks you over again. “But you haven't changed.”
Too late, you realize your mistake. Heeseung’s words come back to you.
“No, that’s another difference. The seven of us can’t create new vampires.”
Shit. Shit.
Scrambling, you try to come up with some sort of explanation.
“Barely,” you correct, doing your best to maintain an even tone. “I was barely bitten. I don’t think he consumed any of my blood.” Trying to create a sense of false wonderment, you ask with wide eyes, “Do you think that’s what prevented me from transforming?”
“Perhaps,” your professor muses, but doubt lingers in his gaze. He appears more guarded when he conjectures, “Or perhaps moonflower has more qualities that even I didn’t know about.”
You’re curious about it, the way he makes it seem as if he’s quite familiar with the substance. Based on what you’ve learned from Heeseung, it’s rare. Difficult to come by.
But with that suspicion still in his eyes at the potential hole in your story, you’re desperate to change the course of the conversation. Pushing forward, you poke at another one of the boys’ questions. “Did you know that… that he was a vampire?” Your struggle to say Heeseung’s name out loud is not entirely fabricated. It’s to your advantage that it makes sense now. What university student wouldn’t be horrified at the prospect of a classmate being a monster?
“I had my suspicions,” your professor confirms. “But I wasn’t certain. Not until that night. I apologize for leaving you there with him.” There is sorrow in his eyes. He seems genuinely regretful. “But I was afraid that he would follow me after he realized I’d poisoned your blood. That he would seek his revenge on me.” Looking at you with a newfound curiosity, eyes honed in on the mark on your neck, he levels your with a question of his own. “If I might ask, what happened?”
The best lies are always wrapped in truth, and this is one you were prepared for. You start, “He bit me. But he stopped immediately, before drinking anything. I think he was confused for a moment. He couldn't tell what was wrong with me, with my blood. To be honest, I was quite disoriented as well. I remember him leaving, although I couldn’t say for sure how long he stayed.”
You also have no way of knowing if Professor Kim returned to New Haven. You can’t tell him that you spent the night there, not if he came back at any point and found you gone.
Instead, you tell him, “I was weak, confused. But I think I remember getting into a taxi, going back to my apartment. I slept for over a day. When I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything. My entire body was exhausted, sore. But after a while, my memories started to come back. That’s when I reached out to you.”
He frowns. “So you don’t know then, if Lee Heeseung is alive or dead?”
You meet his eye. Shake your head. Do your best not to think of the boy waiting for you a few blocks away, sick with anxiety. “I don’t.”
Professor Kim considers for a moment, lets your words settle into the air. Eventually, slowly, he nods, accepting your warped version of events. “If he really didn’t consume any of your tainted blood, it’s likely that he’s still alive. But it’s no matter now.” He shakes his head. “I’m glad that you reached out to me when you did. And I’m glad you survived, that the moonflower had its intended effect. I do apologize for the memory loss you experienced,” he adds. “That is an effect moonflower has on humans.”
You display your palms in a sign of gratitude. “There’s no need to apologize.” You try to mean it, at least a little bit, when you say, “You saved my life. I’d rather lose my memories a thousand times over than succumb to a vampire.”
Professor Kim nods. “You said earlier that you were interested in working here, in aligning with New Haven’s cause.”
This is it, you think. This is your way in. This is how you play your part in preventing any morme unnecessary bloodshed. “I am.”
Professor Kim doesn’t smile, but he seems pleased with your answer. “I know that this was originally meant to be an opportunity to look at how a publishing house functions, but in light of recent events, I have another task in mind.”
It shouldn’t catch you off guard as much as it does. You try not to let any traces of dread imbue your tone when you ask, “What kind of task?”
“We would still publish your original fiction, of course,” he assures you, “but with the recent attacks occurring, this city needs someone willing to report on them.” He speaks with the fervor of a madman when he continues, “To share the truth that other news outlets are afraid to publish. To remind the public how evil vampires truly are. To encourage their support and convince them to join in the fight against these monsters and all of the suffering they bring.”
You’re silent for a moment, his vitriol settling with a chill into your bones. “You want me to work here as a journalist?”
“If you’re willing to,” he nods. “I know that your background is not in journalism, but your words hold power. The ability to convince people, to hold the truth in front of their eyes and force them to see it, to understand it. I won’t pretend that there are no risks involved. Although blood is their ultimate priority, vampires do have a sense of self-preservation. Those that are sentient enough may be angered by what you write. If you accept, I will offer you as much protection as I can. Including, of course, a steady supply of moonflower.”
Moonflower. You can’t help the shudder this time. Memories come back to you unbidden. You, suspended in a terrible place between consciousness and unconscious. You, waking up in an unfamiliar room, afraid and without any recollection of how you got there.
You could go your entire life without seeing that damn plant ever again.
“It would be difficult to write,” you point out, trying to tamp down on the panic, “without my memories, even if they’re only lost temporarily.”
Professor Kim nods. “I believe that was due to the potency of the moonflower you were given, along with the fact that it was injected directly into your bloodstream. But there are other ways of consuming it. The petals of the flower itself can be made into a tea. I have other ideas, too. I’ve been wanting to create a salve out of it. Something applied topically to the skin.”
That you do find interesting. Again, Heeseung made it sound as if moonflower is quite rare. Hard to come by, difficult to obtain information about. He did also mention that it is sometimes consumed as a tea. You make a mental note to tell him about the professor’s seemingly extensive knowledge of it later.
You might be pushing your luck, but you have one more question. If you leave here without at least trying to get an answer, you know you’ll regret it. “Forgive me, Professor, if this is untoward, but why did you help me that night? Clearly you’re different from other vampires, but…”
“But why do I hate them so much?” he finishes for you.
You nod. “I’m sorry if it’s not something you’d like to share. But I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my head around it since my memories started to return.”
At your explanation, he says nothing. For a moment, you don’t think he’ll give you any sort of answer at all.
But then, he begins, “It’s not a very happy story. I was turned just over twenty years ago. It was around this time of year, actually. I was visiting my family for the holidays. My parents had an old cabin, way out in the countryside. Far from the city.”
A flash of sorrow crosses his eyes, as if it causes him pain to remember it.
“By then, vampire attacks were as rare as they are today, but we both know by now that doesn’t mean much. It must have been a group of nomadic monsters that came across our cabin that night.”
He looks at his hands, gaze full of agony. “They massacred my family, every last one of them. My parents, siblings, cousins. My wife and daughter.”
The small gasp of horror you let out is genuine.
“It was an accident, I’m sure, that my blood wasn’t completely drained. That I was left alive, even if just barely. Alone, in a cabin that was meant to be a place for celebration, I spent long, agonizing days turning into a monster.”
“And then,” he concludes, looking at you, “I vowed to spend the rest of my immortality hunting down every last one of those wretched creatures that took everything from me. That stole my life and everything I love and made me into a demon.” Determination is etched into his features when he tells you, “Lee Heeseung isn’t the first vampire I’ve come across, and my only regret from that night is that he left it alive. I plan to remedy that failure. Especially now that he’s leaving bodies in his wake.”
“You think that it’s him, then?” you breathe. “The one that killed the humans at the river? All the other deaths?”
“Of course it is.” There’s no question, no room for argument in your professor’s assertion. “There hasn’t been any vampire activity in this city for two hundred years. And then, suddenly, I find him trying to drink your blood the very same day the first attacks occur. It’s not a coincidence.”
“But you’re able to see past your desire for blood. What if—”
“I am the exception to the rule.” He strikes your argument down before you can finish it. “Not once, in the last twenty years, have I ever seen a vampire that’s capable of empathy. As I warned you before, the only emotions they have are driven by instinct. Self-preservation on occasion, but above all, vampires are consumed by hunger. The constant need for blood.”
It’s similar to what Heeseung told you. Variations on the same theme, the same devastating truth. But you still don’t feel any closer to discovering what it is that makes Professor Kim different from the other descendants of the eighth lord’s son. And you can hardly reveal to him the truth of Heeseung’s nature.
Instead, you ask him, “How many people have died? Since the first attack.” You want to know how current his information is, if it differs from what the boys told you.
“Eleven,” your professor confirms. “Eleven too many. Which is why I need you. The city needs you. Your words could save lives, prevent tragedies before they occur.”
You’re silent for a moment, pretending to be lost in thought, to be considering his offer. Weighing the pros of his words over the cons of your potential endangerment. After a quiet minute, you inhale, as if steeling your resolve, finding your courage. Against the skin of your thigh, you feel the cool kiss of the metal dagger Heeseung gave you. “I’ll do it.”
His face remains stoic, the gravity of the situation far too heavy for him to be truly excited at the prospect. But you can tell that he’s pleased. “Good.” He nods to himself. “Good. This could change things. You could change things.”
He looks around the space, as if realizing for the first time just how strangely empty it is. “I know that there’s not much here. I prefer to do my work in other places, but if you’d like for me to set up an office for you here—”
“That’s okay.” You shake your head. “Thank you, but I have places I like to write, too.” The thought of working here, of spending more time in this odd, dilapidated building, in the immediate vicinity of Professor Kim is reason enough to decline. Never mind the protest Heeseung would surely wage.
“Very well,” he nods. “I’m sure you understand the gravity of the situation. Typically, I wouldn't put a student on such a difficult schedule, but the truth is not something that can be delayed. I’d like you to have your first article prepared by tomorrow afternoon.”
It’s a tight turnaround, but you’ve done more with less. For his class, even. Your ability to write in a short amount of time, at least, is something you’re truly confident in. “I can do that.”
“Good,” he says again. “Send me your piece by three p.m., and I will have my edits back to you within the hour. I want it published as soon as possible. The following morning would be ideal.”
“Are there limitations?” you ask. “Things I shouldn’t share or write about?”
Your professor considers for a moment, then he shakes his head. “The only thing I care about is that people understand why they need to be afraid of these attacks. Why they need to join the fight against them. Obviously your reporting needs to be factual, but do what it takes to get that message across, loud and clear.”
“I will,” you assure him, trying to be as much the frightened, determined girl he thinks you are.
“I’m going to start reaching out to some of my connections,” he tells you. “Finding ways to promote this as much as we can, to get as many people reading as possible. But for now, I’ll get you some moonflower to take with you.”
Standing, he motions for you to follow him towards the door marked with his name. His office. The same place you heard strange noises emanating from the last time you were here.
It’s confirmed as you approach. The bloodstains are gone.
He opens the door, ushering you inside, and still, none of your questions are answered. It’s a normal office, nothing out of the ordinary. Similar to his office back at the university, in fact. Clean, orderly, meticulously organized.
The sounds you heard that night… you swear they had seemed distant, far away. But this office is as cramped and impersonal as any other.
In fact, the only touch of personality you can find is the large painting that hangs on the far wall, opposite from the door you entered through. Glancing at the scenery it encapsulates, you pause. There’s something strangely familiar about it. Like it’s something you’ve seen before.
It does strike you as almost comical, too, that the balance of it is off. It hangs slightly too far to the left, one side dipping lower than the other.
You spent a semester reading Professor Kim’s lecture presentations that all had the same uniform Times New Roman 12-point font. You watched as he publicly criticized students for turning in work with nonstandard margins. And yet, it appears that he couldn’t be bothered to make sure the one painting in his entire office is level.
It’s odd. Entirely out of character.
But you don’t have long to dwell on it before he reaches for a small bag on his desk.
“Here.” He hands it to you. “These are moonflower petals, crushed into small pieces. You can brew a pinch at a time with boiling water. Don’t let them seep longer than five minutes, and there should be no negative effects on your memory.”
“Thank you.” You take the bag from him, doing your best to appear grateful even if your hand shakes slightly as you receive it. “I’ll use it well.”
“I’ll look forward to reading your article, then,” he tells you. “Three p.m. tomorrow.” The two of you leave his office, walking back into the large, empty, open room. You sneak one last glance at the painting before he closes the door. Frowning, you shake your head. In the grand scheme of the day’s revelations, it’s certainly not something worth fixating on. “Do you need any help getting home?”
“No.” You shake your head, already turning towards the hallway. “I’ll be fine.”
So with your bag of moonflower in hand and unused weapon still cold against your thigh, you bid your professor farewell.
Heeseung is pacing when you find him. Wearing down a path in the grass next to the abandoned building you left him at just over an hour ago.
He hears you before he sees you. Detects the sound of your heartbeat or your footsteps or maybe even the smell of your shampoo. Whatever it is, it has him stopping in his tracks, turning towards you with something desperate in his eyes.
He makes quick work of scanning you head to toe, and you watch as tension drains from him visibly.
“You’re okay,” he breathes as soon as you’re close enough for conversation. “You’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine,” you confirm, suppressing the urge to run a hand through his hair. Just to soothe him a little. But you don’t know if it would calm him down or make things so, so much worse. You offer him a small smile instead. “Just like I promised I would be.”
Heeseung spots the small bag you’re carrying, the gift from your professor. “What’s that?”
“Moonflower.” You hold it up to the light. “He gave me some. I was right. He shot me with it that night to try to protect me. He…” You trail off, remembering his story. The blame he is now mistakenly laying on Heeseung’s shoulders. “He has a reason for hating vampires.”
As you recount the details of your conversation, it’s hard not to feel a distinct stab of sympathy for your professor. He’s honing in on the wrong target, yes, but his life has been informed by a deep, profound tragedy. He lost his family. A wife. A daughter.
When you finish, Heeseung frowns. “He wants you to write articles about the attacks?”
You nod. “He thinks it will be a way to rally people together, to generate enough momentum to stop the attacks and drive out the vampires. Similar to what happened two hundred years ago.”
Heeseung is already resigned to your commitment to seeing this through. No matter how resistant he is to the fact that you’ll be spending more time with your professor, there’s no fight in his voice when he asserts, “And you’re going to do it.”
Again, you nod. “It’s a way for me to keep getting close to him. Maybe I’ll learn how he’s able to keep his bloodlust under control. And I know it’s more complicated than good and evil, but these attacks are horrific. If this helps to stop them, or at least to make people more aware of them, that could help save lives.”
That, at least, Heeseung understands. “The others are out right now,” he tells you. “Spread throughout the city near the places where the attacks occurred. We’re trying to stop what we can, too. And maybe get an idea of what’s going on. Where this vampire came from. Stop them before more are made.”
You think of Heeseung’s story, the painstaking steps they’ve all taken to allow themselves to get involved in matters like this. The sacrifices they’ve made. The dreams of a normal life they’ve all had to grieve, to give up entirely. “Have they found anything?”
Heeseung shakes his head. “Not yet. But we’ll keep looking. Vampires aren’t known for being careful. They can’t be, not with their head so full of bloodlust. They’ll make a mistake eventually, and then we’ll find them. I’m surprised they haven’t already.”
For the sake of your city, you can’t help but agree. Your only wish is that no one else will have to get hurt to finish this for good. “I hope so.”
Heeseung turns to you again. The bag of moonflower is still in his hands. It strikes you, just how close he can be to poison without feeling any of the fear that seems to find you so easily these days. “Are you sure there wasn’t anything that seemed… I don’t know… strange about him? About New Haven?”
You shake your head. “I mean, the building itself is still really odd, but it seemed less sinister with the lights on and the blood cleaned up.” Remembering that Heeseung sat through his lectures too, that he’ll understand just how odd it is for Professor Kim to have a painting hanging askew, you add, “Honestly, the only weird thing was this painting in his office. You know how meticulous he is, but it was super tilted to the—”
Your words die on your lips. It hadn’t clicked, then, what was so familiar about that painting. But here, now, in the aftermath, you put two and two together.
Heeseung’s eyes flick to yours, finding them wide. “What?” he questions, suddenly urgent as he takes note of the odd expression on your face.
“The painting.” Your mind is racing, willing things to make sense. “There was a painting in his office. I thought it looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why.”
Heeseung’s brow draws together. “What was it?”
“The field.” You match his gaze, eyes brimming with a million unanswered questions. There’s nothing believable about it. It sounds ridiculous, an absurd lie, even to your own ears. “The painting in his office was of the field from the vision you showed me.”
…..
Jungwon isn’t answering his phone.
“C’mon…” Instead of sitting on the navy couch in his living room like Jake was when you found him here, Heeseung paces in front of it. A few feet away, you stand, still reeling at your realization.
Finally, on the fifth ring, Jungwon picks up.
“Jungwon,” Heeseung breathes. “How close are you to the professor’s house? Could you get eyes on him?”
You hear the muffled sound of Jungwon’s indecipherable response from the other side of the line.
After a moment, Heeseung says, “Okay, that’s fine. Just have him text me.”
Ending the call, he turns to look at you, phone falling limply to his side.
“Niki’s closer,” he explains. “Jungwon will check with him and have him message me when Professor Kim is confirmed to be back at his house.”
Because now that you’ve connected the dots, Heeseung insists that he needs to see this painting for himself. Which means the two of you need to wait until you’re certain Professor Kim is nowhere near New Haven.
“I mean,” you try, grasping at straws to find a way for all of this to make sense, “is it possible that he’s been to that field too? Or knows someone that has?”
“You don’t understand.” Heeseung shakes his head. “That field is—was—in Celedis. It hasn’t existed for four hundred years.”
Your eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean, it hasn’t existed? I know you said that people forgot about Celedis, but—”
“They didn’t just forget.” Heeseung sighs. After a moment, he stops his pacing to take a seat on the couch. He looks at you from where he sits. “The blood moon I told you about, the one that comes every hundred years.”
You nod, remembering that piece of his story, of his visions.
“It has certain powers,” Heeseung explains. “It’s a night when old magic is the strongest. And four hundred years ago, one hundred years after the seven of us stopped aging, the eighth son went back to Celedis. It was mostly empty by then. Had been so ravaged by vampires that everyone was either dead or had fled to other kingdoms.”
He doesn’t accompany this story with narration, but you see it all the same. The devastation. The vast emptiness. The tragedy of a kingdom lost to destruction of its own making.
“But he went back, and he found the oak tree where the seven lords, the seer, and his father had all cast their wishes. He didn’t understand old magic, but he was so consumed by his own bloodlust, his thirst for more, that it didn’t matter.”
Heeseung looks at his hands, turns his fingers over in the light as if the lines in his palms contain unknown answers. Explanations for sins past.
“Fueled by his selfishness, he wished for ultimate control over everything, to be the most powerful being in the world. Old magic took his wish and interpreted it as old magic does. It is said that moments after his wish was cast, the kingdom of Celedis collapsed in on itself, destroying hundreds of years of architecture, history, culture. All gone in a single second. And it took the eighth son with it. Returned his body to the land. After all, what could be more powerful than the earth itself? The very source of the kingdom’s magic.”
Heeseung looks at you with something fierce in his eyes. “No one alive today should know what that field looks like.”
His assuredness sends a chill into your bones. How could it be true? You know what you saw, or at least you think you do, but how on earth would Professor Kim have any connection to a kingdom lost centuries before his birth?
Heeseung pauses for a moment, something suddenly occurring to him, the same idea crossing his mind. “You’re sure that Professor Kim said he was turned only twenty years ago?”
“Yes,” you nod. “And I think that makes sense, actually. New Haven was founded shortly after.” The publishing house he created to spark a literary revolution against the monsters that consumed his world, ruined his life. It follows logic that he would establish it in the wake of his tragic changing.
Heeseung accepts this, prodding at the other variable instead. “And you’re sure it’s the same field that you saw?”
The more he tells you, the more you doubt your own eyes, your own fallible memory. But— “I mean, my memory isn’t perfect, but I recognized it instantly. I just couldn’t remember where I had seen it until I was outside again, with you.”
Heeseung is quiet for a moment, contemplating. An incoming message from Niki sounds out with a quiet ping, breaking the silence.
Glancing down at his phone, Heeseung’s lips tighten. He looks back to you. “The professor is home.”
A handful of minutes later, you’re back at the publishing house, this time with Heeseung at your side.
The two of you stand on the front porch, trying to shroud yourselves in the shadows as much as possible. The whole area still seems uncannily deserted, but erring on the side of caution has never hurt. Heeseung reaches for the door handle with a firm grip, but despite his efforts, it doesn't turn.
“It’s locked,” he whispers to you. “Do you have a bobby pin or anything similar?”
“No.” You shake your head. Did the two of you seriously get this far to be thwarted by something as simple as a locked door? After a moment of contemplation, you realize that you do still have something narrow and sharp holstered to your thigh. For a handful of seconds, it seems almost too ridiculous to consider. But your pride is not the most pressing issue at the moment. Slowly, you ask, “Do you think the dagger might work?”
Heeseung pauses, turns to look at you over his shoulder. “Maybe, actually.”
Again, you pull up the fabric from your left pant leg, retrieving the weapon in question. Sliding it out of the holster, you hand it to him wordlessly.
You watch as Heeseung struggles with the lock, letting out quiet curses every time the knife slips. And then, after a few frustrating attempts, a quiet click signals his success.
Who would have thought? The dagger did actually come in handy at New Haven.
Despite Niki’s confirmation that the professor is far away in his home, the two of you enter quietly, carefully. The hallway remains dark as you forgo turning on any of the lights. Instead, you let the dim light of the dying day outside guard your path. You’re not even sure you would need that. At this point, this place is starting to become familiar.
Plunged in darkness, the publishing house is nearly as eerie as it was the first time you visited, but with Heeseung at your side, at least some of your nerves are abated.
In the open room at the end of the hall, your two chairs from earlier still sit, now empty.
Moving past them, the two of you approach your professor’s office. As you get closer to the door, you wonder if Heeseung will have to pick the lock again. But when he reaches forward this time, the knob twists without a hint of resistance.
Heeseung waits until you’re in the office next to him, shutting the door behind the both of you before flicking on the light. It’s another precaution. Just in case a passerby were to look in through the window from the open room, they wouldn’t notice any usual movement or light.
But the world outside now feels like a distant concern.
Because the painting, illuminated by artificial light, hangs in front of you just as surely as it had an hour ago.
For a moment, Heeseung says nothing, just frowning at the scenery.
“Well?” you prompt, desperate to hear his appraisal, “what do you think?”
“It’s similar,” Heeseung admits, eyes narrowing. He exhales, and you can’t tell if it’s in disbelief or acute relief. “Really similar, but it’s not exactly right. Those flowers there,” he points to a small cluster of bright red tulips at the edge of the painting, “there were never any like that.”
The most prominent of your emotions is relief. At least you won’t have to add this to the growing list of mysteries surrounding your professor.
But then, another thought creeps in. Again, you wonder what life must be like with a perfect recollection. Glancing sidelong at Heeseung, you suppose it certainly comes in handy at moments like this. Although you’re not sure the price he pays for eternal memory is worth it.
“It must just be a place that looks similar,” Heeseung concludes, as eager as you to leave New Haven far behind. “Let’s—”
“Wait.” Frowning, you take a step forward, closer to the painting. “Earlier today, the reason I thought it seemed so out of place, it was hanging off center.” But the painting in front of you is perfectly level. “He fixed it.”
Heeseung follows your gaze. “Do you think it got knocked around that night we found him here? Maybe he didn’t have a chance to fix it until today.”
“Maybe,” you agree, “but the rest of his office was perfect.” Nothing else was out of place.
Taking a few more steps forward, you stand directly in front of the painting. It’s beautiful, but the closer you look, the odder it gets. Looking at the brush strokes, it seems almost… amateur. The scene is strikingly realistic in the way only a practiced artist could manage, but the individual lines are messier the closer you get. As if unrefined hands put it together.
An idea comes to you, along with a sinking suspicion that settles heavily in the pit of your stomach. Looking at the painting again, your eyes are assessing now.
It’s large. Heavy, probably. You’ll need his help.
Turning to face Heeseung, you request, “Help me move it.”
Heeseung frowns at you. “Why?”
You shrug, but the last thing you feel is nonchalance. You’re thinking of voices behind this door. Too far away to possibly be coming from an office this small. “Just a hunch. If I’m wrong, we’ll put it right back.”
Heeseung still wears an odd look on his face, but he does as you ask. On the count of three, the two of you lift the painting off of its mount. Set it down.
And reveal a small, circular opening in the wall, just large enough for a person of Professor Kim’s size to squeeze through.
A glance passes between the two of you, composed equally of shock and dread.
Still, you force yourself to get closer. Despite the light from the office, it’s dark when you peer in. The only thing you can tell for sure is that it goes down. Which is confirmed by the ladder that’s attached to the side of the wall.
God, you’ve had enough of goddamn ladders today to last you a lifetime.
Heeseung sends another message to Niki, once again confirming that Professor Kim is still far, far away. And then he hoists himself up through the opening.
Or at least, he tries to.
Feet back on the ground, very much still on your side of the wall, he shakes his head. “I can’t go in.”
You balk. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark.”
The look he gives you is withering. “No, I physically cannot go in. Vampires can’t enter into places they haven’t been invited to, remember?”
“What?” It’s not new information, and with moonflower out of your system, you have all the ability to retain it. But suddenly you’re confused. That particular restriction seems like something that should have been causing him a lot more strife. “How did you get through the front door then? Or into this office?” Another realization dawns. “How did you get into class?”
“The rules are a little blurry,” Heeseung explains. “Public spaces like businesses and universities that don’t really belong to someone are usually fine. Even offices, since they still lack that true sense of personal belonging.”
You arch an eyebrow. “That is ridiculously convoluted.”
“I told you, old magic is finicky.” Looking back at the opening in the wall, he adds, “Either our dear professor feels a particularly strong attachment to the secret chamber attached to his office, or that hunch of yours must have been right. This is more than just a publishing house.”
The admittance does make you a little smug, even if you’d never tell him that. Turning towards the opening, you move past him. With a large inhale, you start to hoist yourself up. A hand around your wrist keeps you firmly planted on the ground.
You turn to look at Heeseung over your shoulder, brow pulling in confusion.
“This was a good plan,” he tells you, “and a good idea. We’ll just have to figure out another way to come back and—”
“Wait, what?” You frown. “Why would we go back? We’re right here.”
Heeseung looks at you like you’re missing something blatant. “Yeah, with one small problem.” After a moment of extended silence, he gestures to himself and says, “I can’t go in.”
You return his gaze, equally incredulous. He’s the one that’s missing the obvious here. “But I can.”
“No.” His lips flatten, reminiscent of when you told him you’d be seeing your professor again. “Absolutely not.”
But you don’t have the time to waste on his misplaced sense of guilt-ridden protection over you right now. “This might be the only chance we get!” you insist. “You’re willing to waste that?”
Heeseung doubles down, equally stubborn. “I’m willing to wait for another option that doesn’t include you disappearing down a ladder into a dark room alone. We have no idea where it leads. Or what could possibly be waiting down there.”
“Fine,” you concede, shoulders slumping. “I guess you’re right. Maybe Jungwon will have an idea how we can—”
Cutting off mid-sentence, you turn again, trying to squeeze yourself through the opening before he has the chance to realize what’s happening and put a stop to it.
This time, your wrist is untouched. Instead, it’s an arm around your waist, just under your ribs, that pulls you back.
Heeseung’s chest pressed along the curve of your spine, he whispers against the shell of your ear, “Did you really think that was going to work?” His voice is low, dangerous as his irritation makes itself apparent. “I can tell when you’re lying, you know.” With the hand not currently wrapped around you, he taps the base of your neck, right on your pulse point. “Right here.” He presses down, pressure light but insistent. “Your heartbeat. It races like crazy when you lie.”
You feel it in your throat now.
“Heeseung,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to remain steady if you speak any louder.
“Mm?” His breath ghosts along the sensitive skin of your ear. You suppress a shudder. The ghost of it traces your spine anyway.
“Let me go. I’ll be careful—”
“I’m starting to think you don’t know the meaning of that word.” But his grip relaxes anyway. Loosens until his arm is back at his side.
Slowly, you turn to face him. He’s still close to you.
So close. Too close. Not nearly close enough.
Angling forward, he places the palm of his hand on the wall behind you next to your head, just below the opening. Effectively caging you in.
“What could go wrong?” You’re breathless and you hate it. “I have a dagger.”
“Actually,” he corrects you, “I have the dagger.”
“Well,” you argue, “if you give it back, we won’t have a problem.”
He still doesn’t look convinced. “Do you even have a light?”
Shit. You don’t. Well, except for—
“I have the flashlight on my phone.”
Disapproval makes itself the most prominent expression on his features.
Slowly, he lets his arm fall back to his side. Then, before you have a chance to make sense of his action, he sinks to his knees before you. With steady hands, he starts to lift the bottom of your left pant leg.
Your first instinct is to relax into his touch. Your second, not trailing far behind, is to kick him in the jaw. You doubt either of those would serve you well.
Instead, you remain motionless, prone to whatever whim spurs him on as he continues his steady path upward.
The skin of your calf is revealed, inch by agonizing inch, until he reaches the juncture of your knee. Until he stops just above it.
You understand, now, what he’s doing. Every inch of you hones in on the sensation of gentle fingers sliding the dagger back into place. The holster on your thigh gets a little heavier. You feel his exhale against your skin.
Slowly, he guides the fabric back of your pant leg into place, weapon now secured. From beneath you, his gaze finds yours. He maintains eye contact while he rises to his full height.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” It sounds like a prayer, and you have no idea what to do with that.
“When have I ever—”
“Please.”
It’s so damn vulnerable, the sound of him begging. Pleading with you to treat your life with care. As if it’s something precious to him, something he can’t stand the thought of losing.
You breathe, your chest rising and falling, separated from him by only a handful of inches. Resistance feels futile. So, you muster all of your sincerity, and you mean it when you assure him, “I won’t.”
This time, he helps hoist you up. Makes sure you have solid footing on the ladder on the other side of the wall before letting you go with a reluctant grip that lingers a little too long.
“Be safe,” he whispers. One last request between the two of you. “I’ll be here.”
You nod once, committing the strange look on his features to memory, and then you’re descending. You do your best not to think about how tall the ladder might be, how far you might have to drop should you lose your footing. You couldn't see the bottom from the office, and you’re not about to risk taking a hand off of the ladder to activate your phone’s flashlight.
Ultimately, it’s not as great a distance as you feared. You can’t have been going down for more than a minute when your feet hit solid ground.
Still shaky from residual adrenaline and the lingering remnants of whatever just passed between you and Heeseung, you reach for your phone, turning the flashlight on.
It’s not a very powerful light, and it only illuminates small sections of the darkened room at a time. Turning side to side, you get the impression that it’s a fairly large space. Crouching down, you place a palm against the floor beneath you. Stone, you think. The limited light of your flashlight helps to confirm this.
There’s a distinct sort of permeating cold down here, so far from the sun, so deep beneath the earth. You can sense large amounts of moisture in the air, too. It clings to your skin, making you feel more clammy than you already were.
It’s quiet. Eerily so. The only sounds you hear are the rhythmic drip of water somewhere in the distance and the furious thrumming of your own heart in your ears.
Immediately, you think of the night you heard strange noises that sounded like they were coming from Professor Kim’s office. He must have been down here, you realize. Maybe with someone else.
Or something else.
That thought sends your skin crawling with a deep sense of unease. You don’t know the extent of Heeseung’s heightened senses, but you’re sure he’d be able to tell if there was another living thing down here. Or, at least, you try to convince yourself that’s the case in order to ease some of your rising nerves.
Turning to your right, you can barely make out the shadowy shape of some kind of structure a few feet away. Again, Heeseung was right. A stronger flashlight really would have been better. But you’re here now, and you’ll have to make use of what you have.
Slowly, you begin to walk towards it. But after a few steady steps, you’re nearly sent sprawling over the stone floor as your foot makes contact with a hard, heavy object in your path. Letting out a hushed curse, you shine your light down at the ground once again. This time, stone floor isn’t the only thing you see.
Frowning, you bend to take a closer look. Shackles. You’ve stumbled across an old, rusted pair of iron shackles.
The discovery sends a fresh chill down your spine. What on earth is this place?
You don’t have long to linger on it. Niki is keeping an eye on Professor Kim, but even that will only give you so much warning if he should decide to come to New Haven for any reason. And you have your promise to Heeseung to consider. Nothing stupid.
Taking care to step around the shackles, you shine your light towards the ground this time as you continue pressing forward.
As you get closer, the structure you could barely make out comes into clearer view. But with every inch that’s revealed, your horror only grows. It isn’t much of a structure at all, you realize, stomach dropping. It’s a cell. Thick, heavy metal bars that appear to be carved into the earth itself.
You can’t quite bring yourself to step inside, but you do get as close as you can. It’s empty, but evidence of terror remains. There are more shackles. These ones are attached to the stone that forms the back wall of the enclosure.
And that’s not all you see. There are other strange objects in the cell. Long, long metal instruments that you don’t want to imagine uses for. Old, faded blood stains that cover the stone floor.
Forcing your breathing to even out, you angle your phone towards the enclosure, ensuring that your camera’s flash is on before taking a photo. If Heeseung can’t come down here, you’ll bring as much of it as you can to him.
Turning away from the cell, you start moving in the adjacent direction, the one that will take you further and further from the ladder with every slow step. In the silence, the sound of your feet against wet stone rings out like gunshots.
You suddenly feel vulnerable. A sitting duck, an easy target. Shaking the thought away, you force yourself forward.
Continuing to walk, more horror lines your periphery. There must be a dozen of them, at least. These strange, terrible cells that line either side of the long room. After the first one, you don’t stop for long to examine the others.
Instead, you continue until you reach the end of the room. Similar to the publishing house above you, it’s essentially a long hall that opens into a wider room. Your eyes have adjusted slightly to the dark, but you still squint to make out anything other than the solid expanse of stone.
Shining your flashlight to the left, you can just make out the shape of two large objects. As you walk closer, they become more clear.
The first is a desk. A simple wooden surface to sit and do some writing, perhaps. Nothing particularly strange or out of the ordinary, other than its location.
It’s the object next to it that gives you pause, has you leaning closer with furrowed eyebrows.
As you shine your light at it directly, it appears to be a large chest. The kind you would find at an antique store or see in a museum. Something people from past times would use to store clothes or books or other household essentials.
There’s a lock on the front of this one, however, Complete with a large, heavy chain that makes you think its contents are less than ordinary.
Crouching slightly, you reach down. Your fingers shake slightly as you tug at the lid. It doesn’t budge, the lock holding firm. You suspected as much, but the result is still frustrating.
Setting your phone down for a moment, you reach for the dagger strapped to your thigh. You aren’t as well versed in the art of lock-picking as Heeseung seems to be, but you know you’d regret not at least giving it a try.
It’s no use, you realize after only a few seconds. This lock is different from the one on the front door. It’s large, looks as if it can only be opened by an equally ancient key. One forged by a blacksmith in a lost century. The dagger slips in through the opening, but the shape is too different to gain any purchase. Your dagger can’t find anything to maneuver.
So you settle with the next best option. As you did with the first cell, you angle your camera towards the chest, taking a photo of ir and its impenetrable lock.
Frowning at the dead end, you stand back to your full height. You replace the dagger in its holster, reaching for your phone. It might be wise to message Heeseung for a quick status update, to ensure that you have time to keep looking around. In fact, you’re surprised he hasn’t been blowing you up since the second your feet hit solid ground.
But as soon as your phone screen lights up, you check the top corner and find the reason for his radio silence.
No signal. Your heart gives a sudden lurch. It makes sense, in hindsight. You have to be at least several feet underground, and cell service providers probably didn’t have secret underground prisons with strange locked chests in mind when they planned their coverage maps.
But it also means that Heeseung has no way of communicating with you. That you have no way of receiving any messages he may have been trying to send.
You’re sure you would hear him, if he yelled loudly enough from the opening in the office.
But if there were any reason he couldn’t speak loudly, any reason he didn’t want to draw attention to himself…
Scenarios suddenly spinning through your mind, you turn back, retracing your steps. The hallway seems even longer now that you’re trying to move through it quickly. The cells seem even more ominous, shadowy silhouettes in your periphery.
You give a slight start when you almost collide with the ladder, so consumed with hurrying that you almost missed the wall in front of you entirely.
Grateful that you didn’t just break your nose from a collision with a stone wall, you shut off your phone flashlight. You slide it back into your pocket, and then you begin to ascend back up the ladder you came down. It’s a precarious balance, trying to be both swift and sure footed.
After what feels like hours but is surely less than two minutes, you’re back at the opening.
Heeseung, just like he promised he would be, is already there, waiting.
“Oh, thank the skies,” he breathes as soon as you come into view. If the situation were any different, you might laugh at the turn of phrase. Another relic of his unnaturally long past, you suppose. “I’ve been trying to message you this whole time, but—”
“No signal,” you explain. Your words are slightly stilted as you ease yourself down from the opening, less gracefully than you hoped. “I didn’t realize it until I turned back.” You nod at his phone. “Does Niki still have eyes on him?”
“Yeah,” Heeseung nods. “The professor is still in his house.”
Tension drains from your shoulders. But as you begin to tell Heeseung what you saw, show him the photos you took as evidence, it slowly starts to creep back in.
“Jail cells?” He frowns, echos of your own questions repeated back to you. “For what? For who?”
“I have no idea.” You shake your head. “But there was also a box, a chest of sorts.” You show him the photo. “It was locked. I tried to get in with the dagger, but it was no use. The key hole was too big for it to move anything around.”
“Can I?” Heeseung asks, gesturing towards your phone. You hand over the device in question.
Eyes narrowing in concentration, he zooms in on the photo.
“I can’t remember the last time I saw a lock like that.” It’s hard not to feel defeated, to feel like everytime you’re on the brink of a discovery, some new obstacle blocks your path. After a moment, you add, “I don’t even know if I ever have seen a lock like that. Other than in movies or museums.”
Heeseung could get into it, maybe. Either by picking it or with brunt force alone. But he can’t get to the chest. And it’s far too big for you to carry back to him. Besides, you’re hesitant to move anything, even if Professor Kim is back at him home for the evening. You doubt you could get the chest back to its exact location without shifting something around. And if anyone were to notice something out of place, it would be him.
Even if it was just a chest in a dark, cave-like room, shifted a few inches in the wrong direction.
“I think…” Heeseung looks up, directly at you, interrupting your train of thought. “I think I may have seen this key before.”
“What?” you ask. “Where?”
Heeseung still sounds unsure, but the more he reveals, the more you start to wonder if he’s right. “I can’t be certain, but towards the beginning of the semester, I remember seeing Professor Kim carrying an old fashioned key in his briefcase. I’d been following him all morning, and I saw him take it out once he got to the university. He put it in his office. I think he might have left it there.”
You frown. “That makes no sense. Why would he leave a key to a locked chest in his secret evil cave prison at his very public university office?””
“I don’t know.” Heeseung looks equally as confused. “And like I said, I’m not completely certain. He might not have left it there, but… it could be worth a shot.”
You want to say that it feels impossible, but the events of the past week have made that word hold very little weight in your mind.
“That seems…” you trail off, searching for a semantic replacement, “improbable.”
“I know,” Heeseung agrees, “but it’s all we’ve got.”
“It’s still winter break,” you point out, moving past probabilities to logistics. Glancing at the time on your phone, you add, “And it’s almost sunset. How would we even get into the university?”
Heeseung just smiles. There’s no humor in it, but there is an air of self-assuredness. “Leave that to me.”
Half an hour later, you find yourself standing at the top of a third unnaturally tall height of the day.
“You know,” you cross your arms, “when you said you had a way of getting into the university, I didn’t think it would involve breaking in through a window on the fourth floor. You may be invincible but a fall from this height could actually take me out, you know? And aren’t there cameras?”
Heeseung wiggles the window frame for another handful of seconds, a self-satisfied smile crossing his features when he hears a telltale pop. “This is the liberal arts building at a public university. The only security cameras that have been updated since 2005 are by the stadium and the school of business.” He pauses his ministrations, suddenly serious when he turns to look at you. “And I wouldn’t let you fall.”
You’re not reassured. “Still,” you hiss, “we’re breaking in through a window. What if someone sees—”
“Like you said,” Heeseung interrupts, sliding the window open, giving the two of you just enough space to slide through, “it’s winter break and after dark. No one is around.” He nods his head toward the open window. “After you.”
Tossing him one more glare, you maneuver your body through the open window. Heesueng follows you, sliding into the fourth floor hallway of the liberal arts building with more poise than you could ever hope to embody.
He pulls the window shut behind you, slides it back into place with a firm tug. Brushing his hands on his pants, he turns to face you, expression light as if the two of you have just walked through the front door of a bowling alley, not committed a federal crime by breaking and entering through a fourth floor window.
It’s all you can do to stare at him blankly. What has your life turned into?
“His office is on the third floor,” is all Heeseung says, “at the end of the hallway.”
“I know where his office is.” You sound petulant even to your own ears. But the location of your professor’s office is not the problem. The fact that you’re breaking and entering into a public university to try and locate a key to unlock an ancient looking chest in the prison-esque secret basement of your vampire professor’s publishing house, however, is.
Still, you match Heeseung’s pace as he begins to walk, following a steady path to the third floor offices. After descending the staircase, the two of you round a corner, turning down the long, narrow hallway that leads to your desired destination.
“How likely do you think it is that he even keeps the key here?” You’re whispering. The two of you are alone, so it’s probably not necessary. But speaking at full volume in a situation like this would just feel… wrong.
Heeseung shrugs as your footsteps erase the last of the distance between you and Professor Kim’s office. “Only one way to find out.”
“Wait.” You stop, now directly in front of the door as another thought occurs to you. A particularly annoying limitation of those afflicted with vampirism. “Are you even going to be able to get in?”
“His office at New Haven wasn’t the problem,” Heeseung points out. “Besides, I actually have been invited into this one.”
You arch an eyebrow.
“What?” Heeseung shrugs. “I went to office hours once.”
Office hours. You’d been a regular at those too. It suddenly feels like a lifetime ago.
Reaching forward, you try the door handle. It’s locked.
“I think we might need the dagger again.” You reach to retrieve it, a memory flashing through your mind. The last time you were here, you were armed with a first draft of a homework assignment and enough anxiety to make you nauseous. Now, with a dagger in your hand and a vampire at your side, the contrast is stark.
Handing the knife to Heeseung, you watch as he methodically jiggles it for less than thirty seconds before you hear a soft click.
“Thanks.” He hands the dagger back to you, waiting for you to secure it back into place. Then, he opens the door, and the two of you enter.
It feels illicit. It is illicit, but the first thing that strikes you is just how similar this office is to the one at New Haven. Meticulously organized. Not a file out of place. The only thing missing is a painting that looks eerily similar to visions of Heeseung’s childhood. Oh, and the secret basement hiding behind it, of course.
Here, however, there would be nothing to hide it behind. And no matter where your eyes wander, you can’t seem to find anywhere worth hiding a secret key, either. No glaringly obvious evil drawer of a file cabinet or particularly sinister potted plant.
But Heeseung must see something you don’t. He approaches your professor’s desk slowly, a frown tugging at his lips. His gaze is fixated on the far corner of it, where the only indications of personality in the entire room are arranged in a neat row.
Three small figurines. At first glance, they appear wooden, hand-carved. The first is a tree. The second is a rose. And the third is a startlingly lifelike human heart.
They’re all relatively small, about the size of your closed fist. The closer you look, the more intricate they become. Details are carved with phenomenal precision. From leaves to petals to veins, the craftsmanship is remarkable.
Heeseung is staring at them with a distinct intensity.
“What is it?” you ask.
“I’m not sure,” he admits, still fixated on the carvings. “I just feel strangely… drawn to them. The heart in particular.” But he still doesn’t do anything about it.
Spurred by his inaction, you reach for the figurine, lifting it to eye level. It’s smooth to the touch, nothing particularly noteworthy about it other than the intricacy of the carving.
But then you give it a slight shake. The two of you lock eyes when something rattles inside.
“Do you think…” you breathe, sentence trailing into oblivion.
Heeseung’s eyes flicker from you to the heart. “Does it open?”
From your current vantage point, there’s nothing obvious. But then you turn the heart upside down. Whatever’s contained inside follows the flow of gravity, settling heavily inside the upturned figurine with a small thump.
And on the bottom of the heart, there’s a latch. Tiny, but unmistakable. Your hands are shaking, almost too hard for you to get a proper grip. But once you do, the latch clicks open without a hint of resistance.
Turning the heart upright again, all you can do is gasp as a large, ornate, metal key falls into your open palm.
Your gaze locks on Heeseung’s, jaw open in disbelief. “How did you know?”
He shakes his head, just as dumbfounded as you. “I have no idea.”
But now you have another dilemma. Do you take it with you? Go back to New Haven now? If Professor Kim were to make a stop by his office or the publishing house for any reason, the two of you could be in deep, deep trouble. For something far worse than breaking and entering.
But you can’t just leave it here. Not when you’re nearly one-hundred percent certain you know exactly what it opens. Not when you’re dying to know what’s worth guarding with that much effort.
You’re about to voice your concern to Heeseung when he beats you to it. Eyes flicking to yours, imbued with a sudden intensity, he whispers, “Someone’s coming.”
“What?” you whisper back. “Who?”
“I don’t know.” He listens for a second longer. “It’s not Professor Kim. I can tell by the footsteps. But whoever it is, they’re headed in this direction.”
“Do we stay in here?” It’s unlikely that whoever it is will check your professor’s office, but if discovery is inevitable, it would be better for the two of you not to be found not inside a university employee’s locked office.
Again, you glance around the room, this time frantically searching for somewhere, anywhere to serve as a hiding space for the two of you. You come up empty handed.
Then, to your relief, Heeseung says, “They turned down a different hall,” It’s short lived when he adds, “Let’s go. I think we can make it back to the fourth floor.”
Making a run for it feels like the worst possible option. “Are you serious?”
“Do you want to be found in here?”
You don’t, but the sound of footsteps in an otherwise empty building will surely alert whoever it is to your presence. Staying put feels like a far better choice. “Can’t we just wait for them to leave?”
“We don’t know when they will,” Heeseung argues. “Or if they’ll come this way before they do.”
He’s right, you realize, something sinking in your stomach. You know he’s right, but staying in place feels safer to you somehow. Making a mad dash back to the fourth floor feels like a suicide mission.
“Okay,” you agree, breath suddenly rapid as you slide the key into your pocket. “Okay.”
“Give me the dagger.” Heeseung holds out his hand.
“You’re not going to stab—”
“Of course not! We need to relock the door.”
Mollified, you retrieve the dagger before handing it to him.
As quickly and quietly as possible, the two of you tiptoe out of your professor’s office, key heavy in your pocket. Heeseung slides the door shut behind you, slides the dagger into the lock and maneuvers it back into place.
As soon as it clicks, his hand freezes.
When he turns to you, it’s with panic in his eyes. “The footsteps,” he whispers. “They changed again. They’re headed in this direction.”
Shit.
Shit.
Maybe making a break for the fourth floor is still an option.
“Do we still have time to—”
Heeseung shakes his head. You know he’s telling the truth. Because now you, even with your mediocre human senses, can hear the footsteps too. The way that they’re getting louder. Getting closer.
You’re frantic now. “Don’t you have super speed or something?”
“The only exit is down the hall,” Heeseung returns. “We’d just be running at above average speed towards the person.”
“Well, can you make yourself invisible?”
“I’m not a wizard!”
“Oh, well forgive me for assuming the immortal supernatural being who can project visions from their mind through physical touch might be able to do something useful in this situation.”
Arguing will do little to save you now. The footsteps are only getting louder. Even if you wanted to, there’s no way you’d have time to get back into Professor Kim’s office before you’re discovered.
Heeseung confirms this. “We have approximately three seconds.”
You look up at him, his features soft in the low light of a nearly abandoned building. Panic etched across his face, eyes locked on yours.
Panic still outlining your words, you whisper, “Do you trust me?”
He recoils an inch, obvious distrust written in his expression. “Why?”
You roll your eyes. You should have expected as much. “Never mind.”
But you reach for him anyway, before he has time to register what’s happening. His supernatural senses will do him little good here. They warn him when your heart starts racing, yes, but they don’t make your actions predictable. Especially not the ones you don’t feel entirely in control of yourself.
And of all the improbable, impossible things to happen today, this just might be the most unexpected.
He’s surprisingly easy to maneuver, you realize, when he’s caught entirely off guard. There’s no resistance when your hand wraps around the nape of his neck. Nothing but acceptance in the way his muscles give as you pull him down to your height.
There’s a second, a fragmented splinter of time, in which his lips hover just above yours. A millimeter of distance. A chance to retract regret borrowed from the future.
But like every moment you’ve stolen with him, it slips from your fingers just as surely.
And then, with the steadiness of a sure thing, his lips are on yours.
You won’t pretend to be privy to the extent of his knowledge, the experience the past five hundred years have afforded him, but all you can think is that it feels a little bit like a kiss you would steal behind the bleachers in eighth grade.
Hesitation renders him all but immobile. It’s written into the way his eyes are still open in shock, mouth screwed shut, hands anywhere but on you.
Despite his obvious reluctance, despite everything in you screaming that this was a bad idea, your mouth parts against his, a breath escaping between your lips.
He swallows it, and for a moment, everything is still. Until it’s not.
Hands on your waist are the first thing you feel. The first initiation in this dance between you that’s of his doing. The second is pressure returned against your lips, firm, insistent.
A line is being crossed; a barrier is being broken. Desire that he keeps tethered on a firm leash is slipping through his fingers as they land on the base of your spine.
This was always going to be something forged between the two of you. In response, you bring your second hand to join your first at the base of his neck, tangling in the hair you find there.
He pushes forward, and you’re left with nowhere to go but the expanse of the wall behind you. Back flush against it, you can’t help the small noise of surprise that escapes. Somewhere between a sigh and a hum.
Whatever it is, it has Heeseung doubling down. As if he wants to swallow every sound you make. As if he wants to earn them first.
His mouth opens against yours, and suddenly, his hands are everywhere. Your spine, your hips, the hem of your shirt. He pushes further, crowding you against the wall. Until it feels like your desire, the feverish heat brewing beneath your skin, doesn’t belong to you anymore.
Sensation is suddenly a shared thing, and you’re both chasing fleeting glimpses at a future neither of you thought you would ever have.
Fingers tangling further in his hair, you can’t help the small, pitiful noises that escape now. Crawl up your throat and drip from your tongue with every give and take, every push and pull.
Heesung is anything but immobile now. And he’ll give as good as he gets.
It’s on an unsteady exhale that you feel it, a quick, sharp pain on your bottom lip. Hissing in pain, it’s nothing but a knee jerk reaction when you pull away slightly.
Heeseung doesn’t let you get far. Mouth chasing yours, he hovers just a fragment of an inch above you. Whatever remains of his inhibition keeps him there, a hair's breadth away from you.
Slowly, you raise a finger to your bottom lip. To the source of your gasp, the site of the small flicker of pain. When you pull it back to eye level, your fingertip comes away red.
You’ve never seen his fangs before, as your eyes drop to his mouth, you realize that they’ve made an appearance. Sharp, predatory, destructive. All the things you’ve been told to fear, raised to run from.
His eyes, however, hold nothing but apologies.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He’s still just as close, but you can feel the way he’s pulling away, retracting into himself even as he remains tangled in your embrace. “I didn’t realize I had—”
You don’t hear the end of it. It doesn’t take much to erase the space between you again.
And where you expect to find that same resistance from before, where you expect to have to fight his hesitation, convince him to give into the sensations building between you, you find only a feverish desire.
If you thought you were falling into him before, you’re surely drowning in him now. Consumed in your entirety.
There’s no space for you to breathe, to think, against the sudden insistence of his mouth, the fervent exploration of his hands. Pretenses between you have been vitiated, and the only thing you crave now is the feeling of reciprocation, some kind of indication that he’s fallen victim to it, too.
You don’t miss it, either. The particular attention he pays to your bottom lip. The way he bites at it, pulls at it. Careful of your injury and meticulous about using only the teeth of his that don’t double as weapons, yes, but it’s desperate all the same.
“Fuck, ___,” he whispers, the taste of you on his tongue, sliding down his throat. You feel his words reverberate down the length of your spine, settle heavily in that space just behind your navel. It’s sharper this time, more poignant. You want to follow it, trace all the lines between you until you’re not sure where he ends and you begin. “Fuck.”
It’s slipping from him, that facade of aloofness, that pretense of detachment. It belongs to you now, all of it. His attention. His desire. His feverish lust for everything his inhibitions have always kept him away from.
His tongue presses against the sensitive skin of your broken bottom lip just as his hand slides under the barrier of your shirt, traces a steady path up your spine until it finds a place to settle, just beneath your rib cage.
“I’m sorry,” he’s still whispering, because he hates himself for wanting this, loathes the way it feels like he’s stealing something from you. Your blood is on his tongue and your trust in his hands. He’s never felt more like a monster, never had such selfish prayers.
But this was never transactional in your mind, and you feel the furthest from fear that you have since you woke up with his wound etched in the skin of your neck.
You pull away, only slightly, breath forgotten as you look at him. Your chest heaves with it now. His eyes are cast downwards, as if he can avoid the reality of what’s passed between you by averting his gaze, by looking away. As if his hands aren’t still sitting on your skin. As if he can pretend nothing has happened between you.
It’s not a particular peace you’re willing to give him. And an apology was never what you wanted.
Sliding your hand to his jaw, you turn his chin upward, forcing him to look at you. Your touch, like his, is gentle but firm. Insistent. Again, despite the obvious mismatch in your strength, he lets you adjust him to your will. Allows himself to be manipulated.
You don’t want his apologies. You don’t want his regret. You hate every unearned sorry he lays at your feet. “Don’t be.”
Slowly, you bring your other hand, the one not tangled in his hair, up until it’s at eye level. Without breaking eye contact, you press the pad of your fingertip, still stained with a drop of your blood, against his mouth. He opens it under your insistence, maintains eye contact as his lips part, wrap around the tip of your finger.
When you retract it, the night air feels cold against the wetted skin of your finger.
It’s only then, when his lips descend on yours again, imbued with a sense of desperate urgency, that you realize you were never disturbed. That the footsteps have faded, lost somewhere that your mind has no use for now.
The only thing you hear now is the mingling of sighs and the fervent thrumming of your own heartbeat.
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TO BE CONTINUED...
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note: THANK YOUU for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. all the best <3
#heeseung fanfiction#heeseung fanfic#heeseung x you#heeseung x reader#enhypen fanfiction#enhypen fanfic#enhypen x you#enhypen x reader#heeseung scenarios#heeseung imagines#enhypen scenarios#enhypen imagines
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Is It Over Now? | Matt Murdock x Reader
Masterlist
Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader ; (hinted) Frank Castle x Reader ; Elektra Natchios x Matt Murdock
Summary: Matt cheated on you, and you are trying to navigate through it.
Warnings: Angst, no happy ending, break-up, mention of cheating, song references (Taylor Swift), inspired by 'Is It Over Now?', (some) Matt "slander", (somewhat) suicidal thoughts, alcohol consumptions, hint at smut
Word Count: 1.7k
A/n: 1989 TV came out and I am losing my shit. Is It Over Now? Is my new favorite song and I just had a brain fart that made this. You can read this if you're a Swiftie and catch the references or just read it without listening to the song. It works either way.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
To be fair, there was a time when you thought it would never end. The thought of ever having a last kiss with him would have killed you back then.
He told you that you were the love of his life. You believed him. He was yours, certainly. You can’t deny that.
You were happy, you laughed and cried together, and part of you figured that if you ever broke up, you would find a way to work through it somehow.
Maybe in another universe, you are still together. Maybe in another universe, you two are still friends. Maybe in another universe, you never had to lose each other.
In this reality though—in this brutal, unforgivable reality—everything changed in a matter of a day. And there is nothing you can do about it now.
Your flower was withering in secret, and you didn’t realize what it was doing to you. Every time you woke up alone, every canceled date, every time he called you and told you he wouldn’t make it home tonight, it was sure to build up to this.
But this, whatever the hell this is, it hurts beyond compare.
He said you were a rose, but now that you look in the mirror, you only see a rotten mess.
The past few months have done this to you. He has done this to you. The paper airplanes crashed and burned. There is nothing left but pure bitterness and this hatred you have toward yourself and him; you just want to land your fist in his face, and then maybe your own because how could he hurt you like that after making you love him so very much?
You loved him so much, but now you doubt he ever loved you back.
Date after date, coffee after coffee, nights spent together on his couch and in his bed, sharing laughter, sharing tears, it all feels like a hoax now.
You held him when he was unconscious, stitched him up and told him he was going to be okay. Where was he when you were bleeding out from your own battles? You wonder.
His smile used to be your safe haven, the epitome of innocence and strength, but now it only makes you angry. It makes you resent him. You shouldn’t, you really shouldn’t, but you still do.
So much has changed, and all it took was one day.
One day.
Three hundred days, all wasted in one.
If you think about it, you spent almost an entire year attached to each other’s side. You moved in together. You kissed, you had sex, you shared secrets you wouldn’t have told anyone else. You helped him hide away from the world, from his enemies, made the world go quiet, and comforted him while he cried. You waited up, you worried, and you almost lost him more times than you can count, and you still stayed.
When no one else would take a chance on him, when he felt everyone was against him and going to leave him, you acted as his rock. You stayed.
You thought he was the one.
And then it just… ended.
You gave him the benefit of the doubt when you found her in his dress shirt on his leather couch. The very same couch you two often shared passionate nights on, but at the same time it used to be a symbol of so much more than that.
You let him explain. He explained that she got seriously hurt after showing up out of nowhere, and he just wanted to help without putting you at risk. You believed him because that is the kind of man he was in your head. He was going through some things, things you couldn’t possibly understand, and she was the connection. You tried to understand. In the process of understanding him though, you lost yourself.
That is something you will never forgive him for. Making you care, making you love him, and unintentionally making you give up on yourself while he continued to break your heart.
You never wanted this to end, never wanted him to go, but in the end, it was the only way. Sticking around wasn’t an option anymore, you have to remind yourself.
He did the one thing he promised he would never do. He broke your heart and your trust into a million pieces that you are now left to pick up on your own.
You didn’t want to see it before. You were too in love to open your eyes.
He wouldn’t do such a thing, right? You remember repeating that to yourself, to your friends, to Foggy and Karen, but Karen saw him with her, too, and she gave you little hope.
Still, you believed in him. You believed in his morale and his faith. You had faith in him, not even in God but in him and the man he pretended to be—and somehow, he still picked up the knife when you weren’t looking and buried it in your back.
There were so many signs, but you were blind. So many flashing lights. Red flags. Screaming voices in the back of your head begging you to think. You were in a forest full of trees, yet you saw nothing.
When you came home to find his lips on hers, that’s when you knew. Too little, too late.
He called your name. He told you, “This isn’t what it looks like!” But you lost count of the times he used the same line in relation to her.
To anything, really. He always knew how to talk his way out of something when you were together, although back then, it was mostly harmless.
“I trusted you,” you remember saying. You couldn’t even cry. “And you turned right back around and fucked her!”
“It was just a kiss,” he argued.
“Are you sure about that? ‘Cause if I ask Elektra, I’m sure she will tell me the truth.”
“No,” Matt was adamant because he could hear your heart breaking.
The way you spoke to him was so eerily quiet. That was how he knew he lost you, and he tried to fix it with nothing but his hands.
But that is not how you fix a broken vase. That’s how you make it worse and hurt yourself in the process.
You remember him opening his mouth, having the audacity to apologize. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No. Fuck you, Matt!”
You tore the necklace with his initial off your neck and tossed it at his feet. You couldn’t even look at it. You wonder what happened to it after he picked it up.
“I trusted you. I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I was there when no one else was, and this is how you repay me?” you said.
You should have never let him fool you.
At least you had the decency to keep your lonely nights to yourself.
“Sweetheart, please,” Matt tried to beg again.
You wouldn’t let him. Thank God you were strong enough to withstand the tears in his eyes.
“You’re a fucking traitor, Matthew Murdock,” was one of the last things you said to him. “I wish we’d never met.”
Three hundred days. You fell in love. You finally knew what love felt like, and then…then he turned around and fucked it all up.
“We’re done.”
Some days, you still regret it, but if it was so easy for him to toss all this time together down the drain, he probably wasn’t worth it.
But God, you were so in love.
Sweet nothings whispered in your ear are gone now. You’re all alone in your bed. No one to cuddle, no one to touch. It has been a while since you heard someone say, “I love you,” and mean it. You felt loved until you didn’t. Until the life he led ate him up.
Instead of talking, instead of fighting with you, he drove you into a tree. A car that didn’t need sight, and still he crashed. It was winter then, the snow painted red by the blood of your broken heart. Your favorite dress torn up as you tried to escape. He reached for you the same way you reached for him, but you weren’t there. And he wasn’t there when you needed him most.
Part of you feels bad. You could have worked through this if he hadn’t kissed her. Or maybe you wouldn’t have. In the end, it killed you. It killed him.
You killed each other.
Though there are still days when you think about jumping off of very high somethings just to get his attention. Just for him to see you. To come to rescue you. It is a hurtful and selfish thought. Yet, you can’t help it.
He was your first true love.
Your mind keeps repeating the same sentence: It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he told you once.
He searched for something greater in the bed of someone he loved before. You weren’t his first love. You should have known he would say that and not mean it.
But when exactly did you go wrong?
Was it over when he stopped coming home at night? Was it over when he forgot your anniversary? Was it over when he canceled your birthday dinner? Or was it over when he shoved his throat down his ex-girlfriend’s throat in front of you and acted as if it didn’t matter? Was it over then?
“Another one for the lady,” a voice pipes up beside you.
Your empty glass of tequila disappears, now replaced by a full one. In your drunken haze, you see a head of brown hair, and his smirk makes you wonder if there’s more to him than he lets on.
“Thank you,” you murmur, tipping your glass to the stranger.
“Nah, don’t thank me.” He sits down next to you. “You look miserable.”
“What if I am?”
“I’d tell you I know the feeling.”
You huff but offer the stranger your hand with a mention of your name.
He smiles. Your name rolls off his tongue effortlessly. “Frank,” he introduces himself in return. “Castle.”
“Nice to meet you,” you say.
Broken people make bad decisions, but whether it was over when he took her right there on his couch, or it was over when you told him it was doesn’t matter.
It is over now, and all you want to do is forget.
You need to forget Matt Murdock.
And if this stranger called Frank needs to unbutton your blouse to help you do so, you will gladly follow him home.
Matt Murdock Tag List: @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @itwasthereaminuteago @mattkinsella @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @thychuvaluswife @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @ravenclaw617
(also, I keep tagging you in stuff, but I also think you might like this @blackshadowswriter)
#matt murdock#daredevil#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock angst#daredevil x reader#daredevil angst#angst#no happy ending#songfic#is it over now by taylor swift#elektra natchios#frank castle#frank castle x reader#x gender neutral reader#elektra natchios x matt murdock#cheating trope#lizzi writes#charlie cox#matt murdock imagines
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holy crowns || paul atreides x black! fem reader
it was supposed to be your sister, your bene gesserit trained sister molded by the great houses, spy for the imperium. with no warning, paul chooses you instead and changes your life forever. some call him messiah, others an abomination, but you will call him husband. 18+only, minors dni note: hello! this takes place after the events of dune part two and Paul is about to become emperor. Irulan and her father are in exile and Chani is gone. i'm so sorry for the wait, I've been writing and rewriting this chapter, and even now I'm not sure if I have Paul's voice right. I hope you like it!
tw: paul has some quick naughty thoughts!
if you wish to see the story continue on beyond this chapter, please comment or reblog!
Chapter One.
Chapter Two.
CHAPTER THREE
THE STEEL IS THE WATER.
Paul Atreides did not dream, he augured.
What great and terrible things existed beneath his eyelids, a pocket world of hope, atrocities, and hopeful atrocities all at the command of the young emperor.
He was still young, wasn’t he?
There were times when he looked upon his own reflection and saw a thousand Fremen faces, no eyes nor mouth, just Paradise.
In the corner of his lips, he stole a glimpse of Chani.
At night, in the very edges of his vision, Paul stared at himself and his father stared back.
Yet now, the emperor’s visions turned to you in bed, still adjusting to the heat, sleeping fitfully, tossing and turning.
He could hold you still to rest if he wanted to, flatten the stress crease between your brows. The sweat between your breasts would not be wasted water for Paul, the tongue of the outer world would lap quick and perhaps venture further south-
No, it was not time.
Paul's sight moved from sleeping you to hundreds of thousands of visions in a single second, your past and futures laid out before your soon to be husband.
He saw your daughter learning to sandwalk, he heard the laughter of his grandson echoing from Caladan and through his mind’s eye.
So much love and destruction in between then and now.
“You give the sister absolute power over the Bene Gesserit, why?” Jessica asked, not bothering to knock before entering Paul’s rooms, ripping him back into the present.
“So the sisterhood falls in line under me, as you have done, as Alia will do. The sister is the key but I am the door, Mother.”
“Power over the Bene Gesserit is earned, the choice of Mother Superior takes planning yet you give it like a wedding present.”
“Why does it bother you? You created the prophecy, I led the Fremen through it, the holy war has ended. You have everything you want, and now my bride and her sister are the future of the empire you desired. Is it because you can no longer whisper in my ear?”
Paul loved Lady Jessica.
But long gone were the days of Jessica’s son and he caught the way she looked at him now.
Reverence, amusement, and just a whiff of fear she believed to be hidden from him but there was nothing anyone, Bene Gesserit or desert mouse, could hide from him, The Water of Life had seen to that.
Lady Jessica had birthed Shai Hulud in human form and yet still wondered why he swallowed the world.
“You turned away the most powerful family for an alliance and have given a nameless house two seats at our table. Your new bride has no training, no rank and you bestow upon your almost assassin the sacred sisterhood. I’m worried for you, Paul.” Lady Jessica said, kneeling in front of Paul, her son, her product.
Paul took his mother’s hand gently and looked her in the eye.
THERE IS NO OUR TABLE.
I AM THE TABLE.
I AM THE WOOD THAT CARVED IT.
I AM THE STEEL BENEATH YOUR FEET.
WHEN YOU CRY FOR LETO I AM YOUR WATER.
THERE IS ONLY ME.
“Do we understand each other?”
Jessica was gone before Paul could blink.
He turned his sight back to you, present you, but you were not there.
Lady Jessica had not brought worry to her son, but a distraction.
You had been taken.
Again, I’m sorry this took so long but I hope it is worth the wait! Thank you for reading!
Tag List
@drunkennunicornn
@fanfiction-addict22
@wonderpals02
@qveendiorsworld
@turn-thy-paige
@hoyoooo
@oscarissac2099
@inesven
@blahzaiblahsheep
@0strawberrysorbet0
@tian-monique
@iwishchalamet
@sabrielka-133
@mywellspringoflife
@gamorxa
@hidazinie
@slaybestieslay946
#paul atreides x reader#paul atreides x black!reader#paul atreides x you#paul atreides fanfic#paul atreides
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Feeling feels about the SWTOR "If you didn't log in, you're losing your name" bullshit. One thing, giving this only about a year's grace period is pretty sus IMHO especially when one considers the amount of disasters happening, longterm illness, deployments, wars, etc. happening. I feel like they should have given this a grace period of a bit longer.
Am I going to play SWTOR again? Not incredibly likely given that the way the story has gone since 6.0 - the Alliance Commander being reverted to a faction lackey with all progress completely lost - does not sit well with me. One of the reasons I have mostly fallen out of love with Star Wars is that unlike the first three OG films, it seems like a fucking hamster wheel nobody ever escapes. For millennia after millennia, the same exact bullshit, or variations thereof, with a very stark, narrow and dogmatic worldview and "this side evil! This side good" simplistic perspective that is entirely grating. They never learn. They never move on. Any of them. One of the reasons I loved SWTOR up through KOTET is that it seemed like they escaped that hamster wheel, that there were broadened perspectives and "gee, it looks like there are good and evil people everywhere in the galaxy, and maybe we shouldn't write off entire planets and spiritual expressions as evil, and how can we build bridges to go beyond what we have now?" sentiments and stories. And then they did the traitor arc and oops, here we are again on the same treadmill. Having said that I poured so many hours into Viri, and so many into my other alts there, and built up such a world for them, and spent so many hundreds of dollars on years of subscription, that their names mean something to me. I also worry that since I have the Rain Plays SWTOR page, which still does get read and referenced, that if someone sees a character running around with one of my names that does awful shit it will reverb back on me by name association. ...which is why I'm downloading a 51GB game so I can log in for two minutes to save Viri's names. I haven't even played since 7.0 drops so I assume I'm going to find her abilities bar gutted and also have to pick fighting styles for her (I don't give a damn; all my Jedi are getting the Sith equivalents and all my Sith are just getting whatever is the other DPS in their own home class). Ah well. Just dropping in to say hi, putting Viri and Lana back in their house if needed (the Alderaan stronghold has a tendency to not leave people where you put them) and dropping out again. But I feel like it might be nice to say hi to these two for a few minutes. This is where I left them.
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And. We. Are. Back! Jam Mechanics returns for season 2 with our first guest prompter (Our longtime collaborator and artist, @deepblueink2d!). In our first episode back we reveal the fate of Jam Mechanics Mansion (Castle?) and reflect on the ocean that separates our two co-hosts Jam Mechanics is a podcast hosted by Matt (@narcissistcookbook) and Bug (@bughuntermusic) where we are challenged to write a song demo from scratch every episode.
If you'd like downloadable files for this episode (and the demos we showed off), you can go to our Bandcamp or website to pay-what-you-want to support us!
Our brand-new discord is here
and follow us on Instagram, YouTube, etc! Please share the show (and our music) with friends!
-- SPOILERS FOR THIS EPISODE BELOW --
Challenge: Transatlanticism
BUG'S SONG Title: Agamemnon Lyrics: I am aboard the Agamemnon, we are laying down a line It's gonna cross the ocean floor, the greatest project of our time A telegraph from Newfoundland will reach the Irish Shores but by by the time this note arrives you will not love me anymore
I am aboard the Agamemnon, laying cables in the sea For the purpose of the president to parley with the queen As for me, I've got this letter that I'll send you in the morn but by the time this note arrives you will not love me anymore
You will not love me by the time you read this note You told me you would wait if I had to go I keep your photo in a locket to remind me of my home
but while aboard the Agamemnon I have so much time to dream of a world where I can reach you with no middle-man between And maybe when we're done I'll get my turn, as a reward but I never got that chance, now you don't love me anymore When I made it to Niagara, you didn't love me anymore
You will not love me by the time you read this note You told me you would wait if I had to go I think of you so often with no way to let you know
This is only the beginning, this simple cable in the sea Soon we'll have radios and satellites and waves we cannot see No one'll know the pain of loving one they cannot reach
I'd commandeer the Agamemnon and I'd sail it back to shore it's just a faster way to learn that you don't love me anymore so I'll keep laying this cable for the lovers not yet born so that they may never hear "No, I don't love you anymore"
MATT'S SONG Title: The Tollbooth Lyrics: When Britain's national health service was launched in 1948 it set sail in the wake of the second world war when the country's citizens the upper and lower classes both the rich and the desperately poor had served together, side by side and the ones who survived the horrors came home demanding to no surprise more
we did not fight, they said in our millions just for things to return to the way they were we didn't die they said in our hundreds of thousands just to save a country where the leading cause of death is poverty and perhaps for the first time in british history the aristocrats and the working class agreed on something largely that arming the nation and teaching them how to fight and die for what they believe in makes their demands somewhat more convincing
and so barely three years after the soldiers had come home on july 5th, 1948 the british health system was torn out by the follicles and rebuilt in a new vision that it would be free at point of service, that no one, NO ONE, would be turned away or trapped into debt by lack of personal means that it would be available to everyone who walked through the doors of a hospital or a GP's office and that the well off wouldn't be able to skip the queue this was radical beyond comprehension a truly universal healthcare system doctors across the nation barred their doors and hired personal security so sure were they that the empowered impoverished would storm their offices demanding medicine and aid only to find on that monday morning a polite queue of people in need who for the first time were able to receive the treatment they would have had since birth if they had been born into a wealthier family
the trouble is healthcare is one of those futureproof industries like plumber people are always going to need water and if you can fix their pipes you are, within reason, set for life and the hospital and the doctor's surgery are no exception people are always going to get sick they're always going to get injured at the very very least everyone has to be born and everyone has to die and you would be an idiot would you not if you had the opportunity and the presence of mind to not set up a tollbooth at the well-worn bridges that lead into and out of this life
i am being faceitious of course who thinks like this who is so calculating and cruel that they would look at the legions of dying and sick and feel not compassion but greed who would see not the faces of their own parents, friends and children but a sea of investment a captured market a well of bottomless profit
it would be inappropriate for me to delve too deep into the catacombs that are the American Healthcare System if you are listening from those shores, then you know better than i do how it feels to live in fear of a broken bone of a cough that won't go away of a necessary surgery or a birth in the family I have personally met people who were having to choose between treatment for a treatable disease and a slow death So as to have something to leave their loved ones in their will A meagre windfall, after all, is infinitely preferable over a cascade of debt Maybe, at best, you are simply aware of how lucky you are To not fear these things as many do The privilege of being able to treat mild maladies as the inconvenience they are rather than an existential threat
I bring this up only because The profit machine that is the american healthcare system Is hungry And needs to be fed There is no such thing as too much money There is no endgame in an investment portfolio Where you find the princess in the very last castle and the credits roll There isn't a kill screen where the arcade machine craps out and kicks you back to the beginning The score just keeps getting bigger and bigger, the numbers getting longer and longer, Separated by decimal points and letters and commas And when the numbers get so unwieldy that we run out of space, Eh, we'll just start printing the end of year reports in landscape The machine needs to eat And the painkillers and bloodied sheets of 333 million people could only satisfy it for so long Its eyes, inevitably, have turned east
And what do you think it sees? When you have broken your arm and are getting it cast at 3am When your parents start visibly ageing and wilting When your child gets a cough that won't go away Do you think it wants to help? Or do you think it wants to fucking eat them?
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here’s a compilation of all the times katniss talked about her body.
-
“I’ll be all right, Katniss,” says Prim, clasping my face in her hands. “But you have to take care, too. You’re so fast and brave. Maybe you can win.”
I can’t win. Prim must know that in her heart. The competition will be far beyond my abilities. Kids from wealthier districts, where winning is a huge honor, who’ve been trained their whole lives for this. Boys who are two to three times my size. Girls who know twenty different ways to kill you with a knife. Oh, there’ll be people like me, too. People to weed out before the real fun begins.
-
And then he gives me a smile that seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me.
A warning bell goes off in my head. Don’t be so stupid. Peeta is planning how to kill you, I remind myself. He is luring you in to make you easy prey. The more likable he is, the more deadly he is.
But because two can play at this game, I stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. Right on his bruise.
-
It’s the first time we’ve been assembled, on level ground, in simple clothes. My heart sinks. Almost all of the boys and at least half of the girls are bigger than I am, even though many of the tributes have never been fed properly. You can see it in their bones, their skin, the hollow look in their eyes. I may be smaller naturally, but overall my family’s resourcefulness has given me an edge in that area. I stand straight, and while I’m thin, I’m strong. The meat and plants from the woods combined with the exertion it took to get them have given me a healthier body than most of those I see around me.
-
The slight advantage I held coming into the Training Center, my fiery entrance last night, seems to vanish in the presence of my competition. The other tributes were jealous of us, but not because we were amazing, because our stylists were. Now I see nothing but contempt in the glances of the Career Tributes. Each must have fifty to a hundred pounds on me. They project arrogance and brutality. When Atala releases us, they head straight for the deadliest-looking weapons in the gym and handle them with ease.
-
Still, I won’t be the only target. I’m betting many of the other tributes would pass up a smaller girl, even one who scored an eleven in training, to take out their more fierce adversaries.
-
As a precaution, I remove my belt, loop it all the way around the branch and my sleeping bag, and refasten it at my waist. Now if I roll over in my sleep, I won’t go crashing to the ground. I’m small enough to tuck the top of the bag over my head, but I put on my hood as well.
-
This could be it, I think. What chance do I have against them? All six are there, the five Careers and Peeta, and my only consolation is they’re pretty beat-up, too. Even so, look at their weapons. Look at their faces, grinning and snarling at me, a sure kill above them. It seems pretty hopeless. But then something else registers. They’re bigger and stronger than I am, no doubt, but they’re also heavier. There’s a reason it’s me and not Gale who ventures up to pluck the highest fruit, or rob the most remote bird nests. I must weigh at least fifty or sixty pounds less than the smallest Career.
-
I give Cato time to hoist himself into the tree before I begin to climb again. Gale always says I remind him of a squirrel the way I can scurry up even the slenderest limb. Part of it’s my weight, but part of it’s practice. You have to know where to place your hands and feet. I’m another thirty feet in the air when I hear the crack and look down to see Cato flailing as he and a branch go down.
-
The girl with the arrows, Glimmer I hear someone call her — ugh, the names the people in District 1 give their children are so ridiculous — anyway Glimmer scales the tree until the branches begin to crack under her feet and then has the good sense to stop. I’m at least eighty feet high now.
-
“Where do you sleep?” I ask her. “In the trees?” She nods. “In just your jacket?”
Rue holds up her extra pair of socks. “I have these for my hands.”
I think of how cold the nights have been. “You can share my sleeping bag if you want. We’ll both easily fit.” Her face lights up. I can tell this more than she dared hope for.
We pick a fork high in a tree and settle in for the night just as the anthem begins to play.
-
I climb dangerously high into a tree, not for safety but to get as far away from today as I can.
-
Then there’s Thresh. All right, he’s a distinct threat. But I haven’t seen him, not once, since the Games began. I think about how Foxface grew alarmed when she heard a sound at the site of the explosion. But she didn’t turn to the Woods, she turned to whatever lies across from it. To that area of the arena that drops off into I don’t know what. I feel almost certain that the person she ran from was Thresh and that is his domain. He’d never have heard me from there and, even if he did, I’m up too high for someone his size to reach.
-
But when I look at my naked body in the mirror, all I can see is how skinny I am. I mean, I’m sure I was worse when I came out of the arena, but I can easily count my ribs.
-
Cinna comes in with what appears to be an unassuming yellow dress across his arms.
“Have you given up the whole ‘girl on fire’ thing?” I ask.
“You tell me,” he says, and slips it over my head. I immediately notice the padding over my breasts, adding curves that hunger has stolen from my body. My hands go to my chest and I frown.
“I know,” says Cinna before I can object. “But the Gamemakers wanted to alter you surgically. Haymitch had a huge fight with them over it. This was the compromise.”
-
When I manage to pull my eyes away from the flickering fabric, I’m in for something of a shock. My hair’s loose, held back by a simple hairband. The makeup rounds and fills out the sharp angles of my face. A clear polish coats my nails. The sleeveless dress is gathered at my ribs, not my waist, largely eliminating any help the padding would have given my figure. The hem falls just to my knees. Without heels, you can see my true stature. I look, very simply, like a girl. A young one. Fourteen at the most. Innocent. Harmless. Yes, it is shocking that Cinna has pulled this off when you remember I’ve just won the Games.
-
I start out by leaning on his shoulder, but I’m so wobbly he just scoops me up and carries me upstairs.
-
Peeta walks me down to my room in silence, but before he can say good night, I wrap my arms around him and rest my head against his chest. His hands slide up my back and his cheek leans against my hair.
-
Looking at Prim's face, it's hard to imagine she's the same frail little girl I left behind on reaping day nine months ago. The combination of that ordeal and all that has followed—the cruelty in the district, the parade of sick and wounded that she often treats by herself now if my mother's hands are too full — these things have aged her years. She's grown quite a bit, too; we're practically the same height now, but that isn't what makes her seem so much older.
-
I feel him lurch forward and realize Finnick has come back for us and is hauling Peeta along. I wedge my shoulder, which still seems under my control, under Peeta's arm and do my best to keep up with Finnick’s rapid pace. We put about ten yards between us and the fog when Finnick stops.
“It’s no good. I'll have to carry him. Can you take Mags?” he asks me.
“Yes,” I say stoutly, although my heart sinks. It's true that Mags can't weigh more than about seventy pounds, but I'm not very big myself. Still, I'm sure I've carried heavier loads. If only my arms would stop jumping around. I squat down and she positions herself over my shoulder, the way she rides on Finnick. I slowly straighten my legs and, with my knees locked, I can manage her. Finnick has Peeta slung across his back now and we move forward, Finnick leading, me following in the trail he breaks through the vines.
It's not Mags's fault when I begin falling. She's doing everything she can to be an easy passenger, but the fact is, there is only so much weight I can handle. Especially now that my right leg seems to be going stiff. The first two times I crash to the ground, I manage to make it back on my feet, but the third time, I cannot get my leg to cooperate. As I struggle to get up, it gives out and Mags rolls off onto the ground before me. I flail around, trying to use vines and trunks to right myself.
-
I know it's stopped when I feel Peeta's hands on me, feel myself lifted from the ground and out of the jungle. But I stay eyes squeezed shut, hands over my ears, muscles too rigid to release. Peeta holds me on his lap, speaking soothing words, rocking me gently. It takes a long time before I begin to relax the iron grip on my body. And when I do, the trembling begins.
-
“Haymitch said you wanted to talk to me,” I say.
“Look at you, for starters.” It’s like he’s waiting for me to transform into a hybrid drooling wolf right before his eyes. He stares so long I find myself casting furtive glances at the one-way glass, hoping for some direction from Haymitch, but my earpiece stays silent. “You’re not very big, are you? Or particularly pretty?”
-
Boggs quickly examines my face, then scoops me up and jogs for the runway. Halfway there, I puke on his bulletproof vest.
-
Suddenly, I see myself through his eyes. A smallish seventeen-year-old girl who can’t quite catch her breath since her ribs haven’t fully healed. Disheveled. Undisciplined. Recuperating. Not a soldier, but someone who needs to be looked after.
-
#thg#hunger games#katniss Everdeen#while all you pig out here’s a post about how starved and wasted katniss is lolololol
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Okay. I need to talk about Xie Lian. This is gonna be a bit rambly, jumbled, and unedited because I am kinda sleep-deprived right now.
Out of every fictional character I’ve read about… Xie Lian stands out as possessing the most remarkable mental fortitude and resilience I’ve ever seen. He’s such a brave and stubborn man. He’s, well… a diamond in the rough.
I always thought him to be really mature for his age in the flashbacks. He was what, only around 16-17? And then after he descended down to save his kingdom, he was around the mental age of 20. He was barely an adult. Yet he had his whole kingdom’s fate on his shoulders, and the way he was treated was beyond horrible.
That’s the problem with getting assigned the role of a leader… a general even. The number of deaths, their successes, their losses all fall upon the one who had the most status, most importance. So many people blamed Xie Lian for the fall on Xianle, but really, none of that was on him. Xianle was gonna fall either way due to all the politics and strife. But my goodness. To put all that blame on a child??? It’s so despicable.
It made me terribly sad to see Xie Lian blame himself for what happened to Xianle and his people, when they were the ones who put him on a pedestal and did nothing to help ease his burdens. I think Xie Lian has natural charisma and could be a good leader, however he does not have the heart for it. He cares too much. He’s the type who wants to save everyone. He doesn’t like or want to see people suffer, even those considered his enemies.
Xie Lian suffers a lot. He goes through so much, goes to unimaginable suffering constantly for 800 years. However, the core message of the series is that Xie Lian, as an individual, has the power to decide his own fate. He has the power to decide to remain pure at heart in the face of immeasurable suffering and to not give into Bai Wuxiang’s manipulations.
His suffering can’t even be put into words. To be blamed for a whole kingdom dying. To blame himself for the horrifying Human-Face disease. Then he was banished and cursed and hunted by the Yong’an’s people. He became extremely depressed on top of trying to survive and take care of his parents each day. Mu Qing helped a lot, but he too eventually left. He resorted to stealing, which went completely against his morals. He was cornered by 33 Heavenly Officials, who humiliated and bullied him, Mu Qing being one of the people involved as well. All the while being haunted bu Bai Wuxiang, who’s truly a sadistic, unredeemable monster. Then he was brutally stabbed fatally hundreds of times in the most horrific way possible and the recovery-time was just two months of pain with the monster who made it all happen keeping him for company. Then Feng Xin left because Xie Lian changed too much, was too hurt and numb and lashed out.
Then his parents left him too in a way. And Xie Lian probably blames himself for that. So at that point, Xie Lian just craved death. But he couldn’t even die because of the cursed shackle.
But still. Still. Even after going after Lang Ying and having Wu Ming burn down the palace and could release the Human-Face disease all over the Yong’an kingdom.
He still chose to pin himself on the ground outside with the same sword that killed him hundreds of times… and waited for three whole days for one, just one person, one samaritan to help him. He still had a dredge of hope in humanity. In people. Because in the end, Xie Lian is an empathetic and kind person. He believes and has hope in people- because he is a pure-hearted person himself, and has to believe there are other people like him out there. Because he can’t be the only one. (He’s not, but a person like him is one out of millions.)
And deep inside he starts to believe Bai Wuxiang’s words when he come on the third day to convince him that this test/social experiment he was doing was pointless. That it is all so hopeless, and these people aren’t worth living, not after how much Xie Lian suffered at their hands.
But all it took was one person. He was waiting. To be proved wrong. He wanted to be proved wrong, even after everything. That truly… I don’t have words for how amazing that is.
And then. Even after 800 years of having literally nothing. 800 years of loneliness, suffering, and depression. Being nailed through the heart and buried alive for an undetermined time. Just so he could save more people again. He still remained the same. So pure of heart. So sweet and kind. He even asked for his second shackle to take away his luck so other people more “deserving” than him can take it.
He still has his problems. His mental health is terrible. He’s very depressed. He chose to stay in a coffin for what could be a hundred years because of self-flagellation probably.
He has no self-esteem, except he’s so interestingly contradictory. He loathes himself, but he also believes he’s completely right. If Xie Lian had to do everything over again, I have no doubt he would do the same thing, except the second-time, maybe blame himself less, because he knows deep down what he is doing is right. He has a simple, but strict moral code. All he wants to do is the right thing. That means saving the common people. Interfere and help if he sees someone suffering. If he can save one person, he will save one person. If he can save a hundred people, he will save a hundred people.
What a stubborn, beautiful person.
Book 8: “I won’t! I won’t I won’t change!”… He’s been pent up for far too long. It was as though he’d been waiting for a chance like this all these years, and tears rolled as he screamed. “I won’t change! Even if it’s painful, even if I die, I won’t change, I will never change!”
And he didn’t. He has more than proven that he won’t change even if he died a hundred times. He won’t change even if he died a million times. Even as a young adult, he stood in front of a whole village of people after experiencing what is it like to feel stabbed fatally hundred of times already and was ready to do it all over again willingly. With even more people, even a whole kingdom of people.
Insane does not even begin to cover it. What an extraordinary resilient and compassionate person.
Xie Lian is truly… something else. Something beyond words. He is also the only type of God I would willingly pray to.
I understand why Hua Cheng would go to any extent for him.
#tgcf#xie lian#xie lian rant#my favorite character#tian guan ci fu#heaven official's blessing#mo#mo xiang tong xiu#mxtx#brilliant character#analysis?
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Hm, I see you like yuri and aporia quite a bit.. :3 how do you think they'd react to each other? (It can be in your au too if you want :33)
The boy has eyes like a greedy dragon and a smile like a maddened cannibal as he examines Aporia's claws with delighted fascination. "So this is what it looks like to become one." The smile grows wider, hungrier. "We really are the same."
"I fail to see the similarity." Aporia huffs, recoiling his hand. The child simply snickers in reply, disappearing into the tangled curtain of wires and cables plugged into his back and arm ports. He reemerges a moment later on the other side, having to crane his neck to meet Aporia's gaze, even with the great and powerful Embodiment of Despair sitting ever so gingerly on the ground.
"Then maybe you should look harder, Aporia. We may as well be twins!" says the boy, leaning against Aporia's knee and giving him a fiendish little grin. "Metaphorically speaking, of course. We've both been parts of a whole, haven't we? Well, I suppose I still am, unfortunately I'm still trying to collect all of my pieces, but you… you did it. You reunited as one and unlocked your true power. I have to admire the efficiency! You make it look so easy." His smile twitches, sliding into a grimace as he glances at the cables and cords around them. "I would admire the rejection of humanity too, if you weren't so dedicated to being a machine." A disgusted sniff. "Why on earth would you want to become some cold metal Thing when you could just embrace your divine flesh and become a creature of true organic destruction instead?"
Aporia narrows his eyes. "You cannot fathom the divine touch that's had its hand in making me," he rumbles, a warning tone. "A holy machine is an existence beyond your very comprehension, little one. I exist unbound by useless, distracting emotions; I have no need to be a slave to things like your juvenile yearning for chaos and destruction!"
That earns him a nasty little glare. "Come now. My name is Yuri."
Something flickers in the corner of Aporia's mind. He pushes it back, hastily. Leans down as much as he can to bare his ever-sharp fangs at the boy. "Hmph. Another thing then, Yuri--you and I are nothing alike. Our goals and situations are night and day." He speaks slowly, syllables taking a particularly prickly edge. "The Three Emperors of Iliaster were made to become me. They're androids. They were built from my despair, built with reunification intended… and I stand as the sum of their parts. They merged into one by their own accord, for the good of completing the Circuit and saving the future. It was their decision. They wanted it."
Yuri matches his bared teeth with the lazy glint of his own devilish fangs. "And you think we don't?" he purrs. "Please. I know how badly the others are yearning to be one. They're desperate for it! I'm just the only piece ambitious enough to make it happen."
"Ambitious." Aporia snorts. Ambitious the way a vampire sinks its teeth into your neck, sure. "Perhaps that's the crux of how we differ, Yuri. My pieces weren't hunting each other."
"My, my. That's an awfully accusatory tone you're taking."
Aporia has had enough feelings for ten lifetimes. A hundred, even. His Z-one crafted mechanical makeup dutifully seals every distracting, useless emotion away, at his own insistence. And yet he's all too aware of something very close to frustration digging its barbs into his brain. Dancing around with that flickering something that's refusing to stay out of sight out of mind. "The Emperors are… were… a unit. A shared existence. Allow me to point out that you and all of your pieces have your own separate lives. Had, I should say. And it seems you won't rest until you've ensured the complete and utter ego death of every last one of them." He sits back, letting cables slacken. Hums. "My pieces weren't so eager to annihilate one another."
"Oh? Then why don't they come out to play?" Yuri quirks the second most ridiculous eyebrow in the room. "Ah, that's right, they can't! They don't exist anymore! Not in a way that matters, anyway. It's just you now, isn't it?" He purses his lips, smirks. "So presumptuous of you, old man. Acting like I'm the only one here annihilating people. Though I suppose "people" is hardly an applicable term, in your case."
Aporia clenches his jaw. "That's completely different."
"So you agree then? That your little--what did you call them? Emperors? How adorable--you agree that they aren't people." That increasingly irritating smile splits into a vividly vicious grin. "Just spare parts necessary to becoming whole. They may as well be gears and screws." A giggle, starting small then blooming into a full blown cackle. "Though I guess they already are!"
"Enough!" Aporia bellows, snaps forward to swat Yuri away like a meddlesome housefly. He ducks out of reach, though, nimbly grabbing hold of a particularly thick braid of wires and shimmying up it like a climbing rope. With a pounce he lands on one of Aporia's pauldrons, still laughing as he settles into a precarious crouch.
"Awfully cranky for a so-called emotionless machine, aren't you?" Yuri snickers. "Admit it, we're far more alike than different! All I've done is just accelerate the same process you went through. You wiped your Emperors from existence to become yourself again, and when I absorb my last two stray fragments, well, then it will be my turn." His turn to hum now, as he admires his nails with a thoughtful frown. "Honestly, why bother dying on such a morally righteous hill over something that's such a simple matter, anyway? It's just mutual exclusivity! Our pieces weren't born--ahah, created, to be separate forever, don't kid yourself. We've always been the ultimate end goal."
His gaze snaps up, meets Aporia's scowl with snake-split pupils. "And the only way our lives get to truly flourish is if theirs reach an end." Something wicked sparks in those violet, inhuman eyes. "But I think you know that. Don't you, Aporia?"
What a truly… aggravating little insect. So adamant, so filled to the brim with blistering venom and malicious glee. Clinging to arrogance a little too tight, like a shaky hand grips a rapier. This boy with a truly nasty smile and an even nastier laugh.
It would be clawing its way through Aporia's emotionless walls, lighting a flame of exasperated fury inside him right now, if it wasn't so familiar.
Isn't this precisely what you would do, if you were that age again? Postured, plotted, picked at sore spots, just to see a reaction? Fought feverishly with any adult who'd dare try to argue with you? Defended your choices, one of the few things left still well and truly your own?
For a moment as Aporia stares Yuri down he can almost see a flicker of long red hair, a wild, gleaming green eye. It's all certainly what Lucciano would do, isn't it? Right down to the hysterical madman cackle. If he focuses, Aporia can access every inch of his components' memories within his circuits and systems, see all of the child Emperor's schemes and outbursts and chaotic leanings. And while Lucciano was a despair-driven, exaggerated facsimile of his childhood, Aporia needs only glance at those memories for mere seconds to see the true shades of himself within them, the lonely child from a future he now hopes will never come to pass. The lonely child who screamed and sobbed and lost the ones who loved him most. The lonely child who never truly stopped being afraid.
It's like gazing at a painting and all at once understanding it, suddenly seeing the 'how' and 'why' in every brushstroke. The despair of losing those who love you… maybe Yuri was spared such grief. Maybe he wasn't. Either way, Aporia can't fight the pang of sympathy that awakens and pushes through the cracks in his "emotionless" walls.
He's just a kid.
With a sigh, Aporia shifts, an uneven motion that almost-but-not-quite shakes Yuri off his shoulder. "I do admit," he says finally, slowly, "If I was the more foolish sort, I would almost believe your vicious resolve about all of this was quite the display of compensation."
That rattles Yuri out of his self-satisfied staredown. "What--!" he spits, bristling like a particularly ornery purple cat. "What are you getting at? I'm not compensating for anything, you miserable bag of bolts!"
Aporia doesn't flinch. Just sits, watches him.
An uncharacteristic redness creeps onto Yuri's face. He crinkles his nose, bares his teeth, before the thickening silence can grow too great. "Answer me!"
"Mm. It's nothing important. You simply remind me of someone." Aporia looks away, diverts his attention to the thick braids of wires plugged into his arm. Runs the back of his claws along their dull sheen. "He spent a very long time being scared and alone, too."
"Hah!" The laugh is high and loud and knifepoint dangerous. "And just what is that supposed to mean? Do you think I'm some sniveling little scared-of-the-dark toddler? Shaking in my boots, trying to hide behind my other pieces, so the big bad monsters don't get me? Please! I am the monster, Aporia. And I am not scared."
Aporia slowly turns his head to look back at Yuri. He can almost feel a pitiful smile playing at his lips. "You admit to the loneliness, then."
The glower he receives in response could burn a wheat field to cinders, but Aporia's mechanical senses are too fine-tuned to miss what comes before: a single split second of eyes going wide, mouth twitching into a mortified wince. A child caught with a thieving hand deep in the cookie jar. Aporia's turn to prod at a nerve, it seems.
It still comes so naturally to him after all.
"Hmph. Perhaps placing my admiration in you was a very stupid mistake." Yuri hisses finally. He tears his sour gaze away and, quick as a viper's strike, leaps from Aporia's shoulder back to the ground, cape fluttering behind him. "Fine! Stay on your high horse. I don't care." He turns, flashes a mean, toothy smile. "Just remember which of us obliterated more souls to be here." The smile quivers, coils once more into a grin just short of diabolical. "If we want to count machines as having souls, anyway. But, ah! That's a moral quandary for another time. Either way, hopefully I'll be matching your record soon!"
Yuri crows and cackles like it's the funniest joke in the world, and the wires and hardware that were once Lucciano thrum with a wave of kinship so strong it nearly re-acquaints Aporia with nausea.
"Ahh, well, anyway. This has been oh so… fun," Yuri's lip curls with disdain. "But I really must be going. I am terribly busy, after all. Do think of me when the world's in ruins soon, won't you?" His eyes cut one last noxious pink inspection over Aporia's hulking form, and he smiles almost sweetly. "Enjoy your rust. Ta ta!"
Then, with a flick of his wrist and a flourish of his cape, the boy is gone, turning on his heel and marching off to God-knows-where to do God-knows-what. Aporia sits in the silence of his cord and cable jungle for a moment, letting their charge course through his inner mechanisms, his beautiful heaven-touched form. He sighs again. Of course it's a fool's errand to get Yuri to see their differences, to understand the merits of shedding the human for the powerful and perfect machine. He knows the adamancy in one's opinion only a child can hold with such vicious gusto. Sometimes it's truly the only thing you have, at that age.
Somewhere inside him a child who will never exist again yearns for a friendship that will never be, and Aporia can't help but wish Yuri a safer, better future than he himself will ever know.
((WOW I AM SO SORRY THAT THIS TOOK LITERALLY LIKE 3 MONTHS TO GET TO, ANON i got so inspired by this i ran off into the woods and had to write a fic about it. :,)
I loooved loved loved thinking about the way these two Certified Danaguys would react to each other... the fact that theyre honestly kind of similar is making me a little sick in the head i must say. something something reuniting into one, embracing a divine individual identity (in organic and mechanical flavors,) plant vines vs power cables... never mind the fact lesterlucciano and yuri are definitely the same breed of sadistic cackling 12-14 year old little fucker and would probably get along like a house on fire.
there's a bit in tag force 6 on Aporia's route, where he comments on how he never got to have a normal childhood/play with other kids growing up, and how lucciano has that same desperate aching for connection with other people. i just definitely think he'd be able to see a similar loneliness in Yuri too, past the nasty venom. traumatized child recognizing traumatized child Big and a Lot. wahhh
tysm for this ask! got me writing again which is a big deal for me :3
(meanwhile in kansas au i think they would lock eyes at the beauty supply store when yuri is shoplifting mascara. aporia wont snitch tho <3)))
#ygo posting#dana fics#dana art#ygoart#aporia#yuri arc v#asks#anonymous#GWAHH... AFTER TEN THOUSAND YEARS. IDK WHY IT TOO ME SO LONG TO WRITE LIKE 2K WORDS BUT WHATEVER!!#this is such a niche fic but i like how it came out. so ❤ yay
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✿ ✿ 〞 voicemails and kisses for eternity
✰ pairings: seungmin x gn!reader
✰ genre: romance, angst, bit of a poetic add and slight fluff
✰ warnings: angst, ex seungmin who is trying to win you back, miscommunications, real life talks, fluff, nostalgia
✰ word count: 1.2k+ words
SEUNGMIN | chan | minho | changbin | hyunjin | han | felix | jeongin
one 𖨂
where are you love? and why have you lost directions to my dorm? come back, please. it’s getting harder without you here. it’s been four weeks now. not a single text or a single glimpse of you has wrecked my mind. your vanilla body wash- it’s over. and i don’t want to buy another one, because it may smell like you, but i have begun to forget that scent. the little touches, the head pats when i’m asleep, blowing on my food for me, buying me my favourite coffee. . . all of this is beautiful. but it was beautiful, before we ended up ruining it.
two 𖨂
please tell me that i am not the only one who still re-reads our texts. am i the only one who still watches our videos and laughs before it reality hits, that it’s in the past now. we were a thing. the most beautiful one in my opinion. i still remember the way you carved yourself into my heart and refused to budge. the way you treated me like an art piece and added strokes to highlight my beauty, all because you wanted me to see it myself. it’s funny isn’t it? how in a matter of a second, all the memories we created, the hardships we went through together, the times where we would just hold each other all night long– all of it came crashing down in waves. when the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning and you can feel the water forcing you to shut your eyes and making breathing a lot tougher. everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and strength that the ship had, that’s no longer there. we may still remember it, but it’s gone now. too broken that it cannot be fixed back anymore. even the molten gold cannot fix these type of vases like us. and all you can do is recklessly cling onto it, fool your mind and tell yourself that it’ll be okay. even though deep down you know, it can never be okay. nor can it go back to the way it was. the way we were. and the other thing you can do is float. you find something to hang on to. maybe a photograph of children on a slide while their parents watch them with a small smile. or maybe it’s a person, for me it was you. so all i am doing is floating. trying to stay alive.
three 𖨂
when i first fell in love, i was soaring high in the sky with magical wings supporting me to go beyond. but when love ended, it feels as if you have been dropped like a rock in mid-air. and before you know it, the rock shatters to a hundred small pieces. and i still remember how we used to write on pizza boxes, but now it write alone. i write on every dying sunset hoping you’ll resurrect from a poem. but neither do i want to force your way back. i never want to change you. never. you’re perfect just the way you are. and if time could turn back, i would have told you how much you mean to me. but time, it wasn’t on my luck. and as time passed further, we drifted further. long night talks turned into small smiles before sleeping. eating together turned into taking out our frustrations on each other, and in the end we grew tired of it. they say love heals everything. then why did it tear us apart? why were we the ones who suffered when we loved each other unconditionally? why couldn’t we just talk out all the time instead of yelling at each other? why couldn’t we just understand each other?
four 𖨂
i still wonder when you stopped loving me? but i do know it happened before our break up. i want to hear from you. hear the exact moment when you fell out of love. the moment when all my quirks became flaws, the moment i stopped being endearing and started appearing annoying. these days i still wonder why you let things go. why you gave up on such a beautiful thing we had. our memories. all the months we spent together. but other days i thank you, for ripping off the bandaid. doing something neither of us wanted to do, but it was for the best. at least that’s what we told each other. i hated goodbyes so much. because i know it was the end of us. i remember that day clearly. i held your hand tighter, kissed you longer, stared at you longer and just held you in arms hoping you would stop. but you didn’t. and when i saw you grab all your things and hand me my hoodies i felt the tears brim but i held them in. it was mutual right? this decision. so i had to look happy. i just had to. and when you gave me the last goodbye hug, i was trying to memorise you. so that no matter how many months pass by i would still know that a piece of you is with me.
five 𖨂
it’s been a few weeks since my last voicemail and they’re about to end too. i still miss you, just not as much as i did before. and it hurts a little less. sometimes i wake up and don’t rush to check my phone like i used to. i heard our song play in the cafe and it made me smile, no tears this time. but it’s 2:06 in the morning and my eyes sting from crying and my head is pounding. why did you show up? why? why now? when i was finally trying to do better. you came in and ruined it. though my heart hurt when you cried into my chest saying you missed me too. and that you read all of my voicemails as well. then let me ask you, what is it that stops you? that stops you from loving me freely? tell me, my love. no secrets, remember?
six 𖨂
no matter how hard i try to fit into society, i feel like i don’t belhere. i feel like there is something missing in me, something that ignites my feelings and makes me feel alive. i may not be the perfect per, but i try my best to be the best for you. and one thing that i’ve learned is that it’s my fault as well. i let you. i gave up. i didn’t stop you either. and i regret that. please forgive me. can we try to make things right? i know you need your space and time to make the decision, but i want you to know i was in the wrong as well and i ask for your forgiveness. and in your kisses i found the flavour of the twinkling stars. bright and small. unreachable but pure. so kiss me again and again. till you fill my empty heart with it. till you leave your imprints and till i remember your every bit again. kiss me, once more. for eternity.
PERM TAGLIST: @taeriffic 🧣 @hello-2-u-from-me 🧣 @ilychee08 🧣 @sleepyleeji 🧣 @spacegirlstuff
#ॱଳ͘#k-labels#kflixnet#stray kids angst#stray kids reactions#stray kids fluff#stray kids imagines#stray kids x reader#chan x reader#minho x reader#changbin x reader#hyunjin x reader#han x reader#felix x reader#seungmin x reader#seungmin angst#kim seungmin#seungmin fic#jeongin x reader#skz fluff#skz scenarios#skz imagines#skz x reader#skz x gn reader#skz fanfic
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