Bloody Teeth

[antiresolution]

[frodo-of-the-nine-fingers]

immortality as theft (you have to steal life from something else) immortality as parasitism (there is something else inside You that is keeping you alive and you become less of yourself more and more the longer it stays in you) immortality as violence (everything is trying to kill you because everything is supposed to die and the universe will always try to find a way to right the wrong that is You) you understand

[antiresolution]

@uninvitedawn

I. In numb stillness, they recognize each other without the need for names. 

The leather back of a gold rimmed watch slides loose from his wrist into a waiting palm. His near invisible tan line would disappear as the murmur of fall turns into the sighs of Seoul’s working class dragging the dead weight of another winter. 

Lingering bodies on the street this late chase warmth in pocha full of ranting drunks inhaling the smoke of chili oil and rice cakes. Any other day, he might have entertained the same to drown out the sweet whisper of boredom carrying an itch of impulse. Gambling with half-buzzed retired minds willing to hemorrhage money wouldn't quiet his thoughts.

Instead, he stares down at tiny metal hands journeying around a pearl clock face. 

He doesn't bother to pick the watch up when it falls to the ground. The cold enclosure of the parking garage captures the cloud of his exhale.

He lifts the pointed toe of one shoe. Precise top stitching across leather is clean of rain coating the streets. The edge of navy slacks exposes the uniform line of dark dress socks as he lifts his leg. A stray hair falls across his forehead. 

Glass pops underneath the twist of one heel. He straps the shattered watch back onto his wrist, a phone’s blue light throwing shadows underneath his eyes as notifications pour in.

Wenhan ignores vendor stalls bellowing smoke into the cold air, plastic tents shining wet under street lamps. Wind tears at the loose tails of his trench coat. Fingers wrap uselessly around the motionless phone stuffed in his pocket. His thumb lazily traces the hairline cracks over a blacked out screen. 

He stands in the center of a crosswalk, becoming an omen springing from the city's forest. Headlights carve razor angles into the hollows of his face. Unflinching eyes are trained on the faceless outline of its driver.

Seconds between standing in the road and his aching stillness on the ground are erased. Wenhan’s vision sways between bright lights of stopped traffic and shadow figures crowding the night sky above him. He expects pain from impact, but it never comes. Instead, silence in a pounding skull, and the weight of wet gravel on his back when he tries to sit up only for quick hands to force him back down. 

There’s no ringing in his ears. No ache. No noise–

“Your phone...” That same unyielding demand in his tone turns to hand grasping at a stranger’s sleeves. His fingers slip underneath their collar, dragging them close enough to see brown eyes in the dark shift gold under harsh street lamps. Where his shock should be spills across their face instead. “Let me use your phone.”

II. He thought about never returning the book, and in this way, he never really would. 

The permanent stain of his memory sits hidden in a top right corner, tucked somewhere in the middle of the book, a single page dog-earred by an eager mind with selfish hands. He had pressed the tip of a ball point to paper until ink bled into the opposite side, leaving a freckle trail to follow and wonder about. 

Delicate Chinese characters argue for ownership in the margins of What I talk About When I talk About Running. Of course, such carefully placed hanzi has no right to take up space in someone else’s book. He’s comforted by Sen’s reaction seeing his notes in the future, and whether the other man could translate it or not wasn’t really his concern. Wenhan enjoyed living in the space people carved out for him in their lives. 

If that space was small enough, or big enough to hold resentment.

Whether they he asked for it, or not. 

Fingertips trace down the spine. As if he could map out the origin of each crack and envision every time Sen flipped through its pages. 

The careful scripture now littering the other man’s book is no better than graffiti. A message for him to hide in plain sight, and someone else to ignore or plant their own meaning into. It's not unlike the smile drawing across his lips. Out of place and timeless with potential for interpretation.

What he could offer to Sen now is a lie. Something comfortable for them both to hold onto. A lie that could fit in his mouth the way he would practice smoking a cigarette for background roles in films as a kid. An illusion, but better. Eventually, anything formless takes shape the way you want it to fit into your life. Hollow words. Empty habits. Favorite books.

So, a lie?

He leans forwards, offering Sen the book as if he were holding a sacred artifact. 

“I hate Murakami.” 

Or the truth. 

III. They search for each other in crowds, as if looking for something familiar in an empty house.

[ sms: 草莓 ] Do you like taking the train?

Rather than time eroding memories, perhaps it is more accurate to say time exposes the raw nature of people. 

In memory, Sen is enigmatic. Shapeshifting easily in any environment. Tattooing an impression on anyone eager to be close, yet someone who becomes shapeless in your hands the moment you dare to let go. If Sen is the ocean, then Wenhan is the carved cliff side withstanding a timeless onslaught each time they meet. Always willing to carry the violence of memory if it means survival. 

Maybe selfish hands had always been desperate.

With every passing day, which one of them takes more or less from the other? 

If this were poetry, the line between what they know and what they want from each other would always begin to blur.

In reality, it’s been months since they've seen each other, and the only poetry to be found is in the universal language of cursing when one of them decides to disappear without a word of warning.

Sen still dresses the same, with soft silhouettes and practical shoes. His hair had grown long enough to curl under his ears. 

The dull bite of elastic digs into the back of Wenhan’s ears. He keeps his face mask on as he walks the length of the train car. Oversized jeans weigh down his legs. A loose cotton sweatshirt hangs off his shoulders. Untraceable clothes that don’t belong on the body of the man who would never drain the pride in his blood by pretending to be someone else.

Hiding in crowds had never been difficult for him. His mouth is the real measurement of success and failure. His words would always carry the arrogant weight of silver spoons he just can’t manage to replace with too many cigarettes. “You should get off this train in the next 10 minutes.”

Could might have sounded better. Or maybe should is right. Wenhan mouths the alternative choice quietly to himself, not caring if this theatrical pantomiming paints him as the crazed man to avoid in the back of the train. 

“This wouldn't have happened if you just told me your name the first time we met. I check for these things. Now it's just…” he cuts one hand through the dead air, then smooths fingers back through locks of hair that had curled over his forehead like the silent semicolons hanging on every word. “Complicated.” 

A heart beat of silence stands between them. Wenhan lets his head rest back against the seat. Sen doesn't drop his eyes from Wenhan’s. A curious gaze that narrows.

“Approaching me like a normal person would really kill you, wouldn't it?”

Growing hairline cracks in the window behind Sen form a fissured halo around wisps of dark waves just barely grazing the curve of his cheekbones. There’s shadows pressed under each of his eyes. The top few buttons of his shirt are undone, and the limpless corners of an unironed collar cradles his neck. 

Wenhan’s attention drifts away from Sen’s face as he murmurs, “‘I miss you’ is a shorter sentence, and more romantic.”

“I don't lie like that.”

Wenhan watches the bloom of cracks widen with every jump of wheels on neglected tracks.

“I don't need to hear you lie to know you were worried about me.”

Sen sucks in a breath between his teeth and looks away, as if Wenhan were a child with too many questions that haven’t lived long enough inside his head to have intention worth discovering. Words that would pull Sen underwater, but never drown him. He learned how to tread water around the wrong people he can’t seem to stay away from. 

“Then what do you need, Wennie?” 

Sen might not lie in such an obvious way, even if the words he used carried a far blunter edge these days. What did he need?

Was need ever living in the space between them–

When the train car lurches on its tracks upon entry into the tunnel, half-asleep bodies in every aisle jolt upright. Wenhan throws his jacket over Sen’s head just as the window rains shattered glass. 

Or the roots of want. 

[eclipsenoir]

This AU is heavily inspired by many different little things (Armored Core and Nier Automata etc.) for @antiresolution

Mars. 25 years post the Great Destruction on Earth. 4 years since the second war began.

You have suffered too much damage. Breaking 40 km in altitude. Hull integrity at -23 and dropping fast, fuel cells at 10% and 12%, oxygen supply approaching dangerously low levels. Pilot, you must disengage. Pilot, you must disengage. Hellhound must turn back.

Skulls can host eclipses, too.

Taeil is just about fourty five kilometers above ground level when he finds out how.

His bare torso sags in on itself, air pressure contorting ink adorned shoulders against his seat as both of his eyes roll to the back of his cranium. Two eclipses happen at once, whites momentarily reaching for heaven. The longsword attached to the cold, hard mech of steel encased around his body slashes true and bright blue into the enemy unit that'd made it up with him. A last ditch effort that wins him the fight, before both their operating systems succumb to unresponsive pilots and their Cores begin their descent.

An infinite stretch of scorching red dust awaits him below. The unforgiving terrain stretching out dry as far as the eyes can see. Every now and again, large cracks in the ground adorn the bedrock like bleeding gashes across flesh-- some as great as ravines, fashioned as entrances and exits for manmade spacecrafts. If Taeil were to remain unconscious too long, perhaps he would be able to make a crate large enough to rival the awe of those sandy red chasms. Blood painting red on red.

But Hellhound is still running despite the syntax errors and partial disconnect with Taeil's spinal cord. Its peripheral scanner an erratic pendulum as it sways back and forth in search for the earliest signs of conscious eyes. All the while, the digital assistant's grating shrieks occupy the speakers.

Wake up, pilot. The Core is now 25 kilometers above ground. Probability of crashing at 60% and rising. Pilot, wake up. Hellhound is fast approaching 20 kilometers above ground. Pilot, wake up.

For a few agonizing seconds, all the urging and the beeping going on around him translate to a faint whirring in Taeil's ears. His brain and heart hit consecutive records of overdrive while he clambers to thrash less and finally reconnect with Hellhound. The only thing clear in the fuzz is a memory at the back of his head, something like a flashing mirage that doubles as a beacon of light. It's himself, seated on a bunk bed in the barracks back at the base. His bunkmate would've been there too, had he not been sent out to die the night before. Lucky him.

Disappear, thinks Taeil then and now. The only way to disappear from this hell is to die and never come back.

Oxygen floods his lungs first, slowly pouring from the back of his throat as he inches closer and closer to certain death. And then, it happens all at once; notably the system's rush for a generous deposit of adrenaline into his veins. The tubes connected to his forearms and obliques turn bright yellow.

The scanner holds his gaze again, reporting even a grainy moan and the curl of his toes when the new high blitzes past his brain stem.

Everything becomes too loud again. Too bright, too hot. Taeil grits his teeth so hard he tastes blood as he pulls Hellhound's reigns back into his purchase, just shy of Mars' barren surface. The thing sharply jerks upright in the air, crunching and groaning and smoking somewhere.

Two other Cores immediately find him below, one belonging to the squadron captain who's roaring through Taeil's speakers before any of them can land.

"Private Yu? Private Yu! Respond if you're still in there, son. You'd better fuckin' be in there."

"Yeah... yeah, I'm alive, cap. Still in here." Taeil reassures and deflects, just barely managing to steady his panting. Tattooed digits run through his sweatslicked hair so he wouldn't think about the thrashing in his chest.

"What's the situation looking like now?"

When the captain speaks this time, he sounds alarmingly apprehensive. Taeil turns to find the planet dust lifting and brushing past his jet black Core like a bad omen.

"A quick radial scan shows a hangar nearby and more enemy reinforcements approaching at twelve o'clock. Piloted. Got at least two augs amidst 'em. But we have lost all contact with our main base and more than half of our squadron to death in the process. And Yu..." A heavy sigh ends that sentence. "We can't keep fighting like this."

"No, I can keep going." Taeil hears the firm echo of his own voice vibrate through the comm speakers, fists simulating his bloating resolve as they tighten around Hellhound's steering handles. Disappear.

"And we're some of the best aug's out there. We can't just give up on our mission halfway."

Finally, the voice sealed within the third Core joins the conversation. "We weren't sent here to die either, dumbass."

A flicker of orange slices through the dust lingering between them, revealing Wenhan's longsword suddenly erect and pointing directly towards Hellhound's middle. A few good slashes of that could slice through an entire squad in seconds. And Wenhan never once missed the opportunity.

Upon careful inspection though, Taeil notices cracks embellishing the scorching blade. The message written in them crystal clear.

His lips find a soft frown, "So what? I have about 10% of fuel left, and oxygen doesn't really matter. And there's still three of us. We can take 'em if we're fast enough and worst case scenario, at least one of us can--"

"No. The edge seems to be gettin' to your head already, kid." Their captain steps in the middle, hoarse and hasty, "We retreat, now. Come on."

All ally Cores locked on by approaching enemy units. You are heavily damaged and outnumbered. Retreat advised.

"Hear that? Too late, cap!" Disappear. Orders mean nothing anymore. Taeil abruptly rips through the air towards the oncoming barrage of missiles, sweat building thickly on his browbone and cupid's bow. "They're already on us!"

"Oi, I just fuckin said--!"

The blaring around him swells densely enough for Wenhan's shouting to barely fit through the comm speakers, "I'm going to make sure you live so I can kill you myself after this."

Except Wenhan would never get that chance. Not now.

Together, Hellhound and Taeil's central nervous system impressively withstand two and a half rapid-pace engagements, aggressively fighting on the offensive as he's quickly running out of time to stay alive. Sometime after dropping to two percentage of fuel, his tongue grows heavy with an apology at the tip. One he spares no courage or oxygen reserves to say out loud.

All the mourning of what'll be lost to him has been done already, after all.

The emergency system kicks in a second after Hellhound falls to enemy blades. Flashing lights bathe Taeil in blood red as the battle suddenly turns inward. Inside the Core, with himself. Crashing a certain distance away from the still ongoing fight, he can only make out blurry, flashing lights-- the vibrant orange colour of Wenhan's Core's longblade keeping his eyes from rolling back into his skull far too fast.

........System rebooting in emergency mode.... All modifications in place.... Autopilot activated.... Destination: [Redacted].

—

Titan. 10 lightyears from Mars, 14 lightyears from Earth. 31 years post the Great Destruction on Earth. 2 years since the second war ended. 6 years after death.

Titan is known as the vampire planet. Home to one of the most neglected and ungoverned human populations to have ever colonized the galaxy post cataclysm, people usually come here for trouble or to pass on.

With the planet being largely uninhabitable because of the unceasing snowfall, and the terrain too dead to yield anything other than grave and junkyards, the locals have turned perpetually bitter and angry. Though not at each other. To them, every outsider is a red herring.

Frost solidifies the blood in Taeil's fingertips for ripping a poster off the bar door on the way in. He tightly crumples and pockets his own face, pace steady yet stiff as he brushes shoulders with warmth bathed in club lights and the strong, pungent stench of ale. A corpse doesn't belong on a wanted poster. Neither a bar hidden amidst a raging blizzard, though he's more than willing to debate on that front with any friendly drunk. If they existed.

The bartender expresses distaste at first, chin cocking upwards and nostrils flaring bright purple in the bar headlights. His gaze wanders, assessing for inferiority under a patched jacket until the total opposite is found. The outer corner of Taeil's left eye, where a series of glowing numbers that should've never been there glare right back at him. He visibly scrambles for Taeil's order, or perhaps a gun.

Taeil remains calm, dull nail scraping the worn bartop. Surprisingly, he's simply met with stinkeye and a tall glass of pale ale.

While highly possible that everyone in here has recently seen the face in his pocket somewhere, it's even more possible that everyone in here is merely pretending not to notice their target retreating to the bleakest corner with his head held down. Maybe he's too dumb to not be afraid, to sit there and not touch his drink or utter a word once.

If gone entirely unnoticed, the pager in his pocket will be the only thing that could get him up again. Or his right arm. But that's just the ideal; almost always just a wish.

The beer shivers and curdles to the music blasting through the speakers, foam disappearing as quickly as the whispers begin. Taeil compresses his lips tightly together, stare on the glass hard enough for him to believe he could rupture it.

What's an aug doin' in a place like this? I thought those guys were scarce nowadays... Should be. Corp's huntin' 'em down to the last of their corpses... Glorified half-robot junkies... Wanted.

Ten minutes pass, murmurs of hearsay making a proper round around the room before two men eventually approach Taeil's corner. They don't forget their blatant hostility on the way over, let alone the stench of booze. The one who speaks first clumsily draws his blade mid-sentence.

"Oi, you. You got business to take care of 'round here? How 'bout you take that hood off 'n let us see that pretty face of yours, eh?"

Within an instant the rest of the bar falls drastically silent, drunken chatter replaced by a mix of expectant stares leaving only the dull humdrum of background music.

Taeil's table jerks back and forth from the sheer force the man slams his pocket knife onto its edge with, intentions as clear as day. Were he any other ordinary man, Taeil thinks that would've been enough intimidation to subdue.

Yet the cloak of stillness he becomes while the blade man's friend puts out his burning cigarette on his left hand says entirely otherwise.

Inhale. Taeil counts to ten before finally raising his gaze for the first time in an hour. As it is in the poster, the serial number tented on the soft crest of his cheek twinkles to life. In tandem with the rage now blazing in his eyes though, it probably appears entirely irrelevant.

Exhale. The cigarette man's wrist is snapped backwards before he goes down with Taeil's pint of beer smashed to bits in his jaw.

"Satisfied?"

Knife man is surprisingly agile for a man in his predicament. Red rimmed eyes wide and swings swift despite him being obviously weighed down by arrogance and however many pints he's got sloshing in his belly. He matches Taeil's pace for half a heartbeat before all his coordination takes a backseat in favour of brute force. Nonetheless, Taeil is the much bigger beast. And that's with him hardly making use of his right arm.

Crossing limbs, atmospheric music and their synchronized panting momentarily turns their scuffle into a waltz on the dance floor, with Taeil in the lead and the one responsible for ending it all. Knife man all but sticks to the wall on the other far end of the bar when Taeil finally gets a good grip on him. Lucky ones duck in time while the less fortunate spill their drinks, or even find themselves pushed to the ground as the body flies.

A final, wispy grunt of defeat precedes the crowd's eruption into a rowdy bristle, though Taeil faces some trouble with solving who's mad at him specifically and who's more furious with the idiots who'd picked a fight with a monster and lost.

Naturally, just as Taeil's pager begins to vibrate in his pants, a third man emerges from the chaos. A phoenix out of fire.

First thing Taeil notices is that he's likely sober, or at least his steps are steadier and certain, like there's real purpose behind his intent. He's dressed differently-- proper for the cold, but his drapes fall smooth and gracefully on his frame.

Like he already knows what to expect, he instantly engages on the offense without speaking a single word. Much too hasty for Taeil's squinting to graze across his face, to check for digits that might reflect his own. Easily far quicker than the first two, he successfully throws Taeil's rhythm off, defense forcing him to barely tiptoe around the stranger's onslaught.

A familiar tingle begins in the back of Taeil's head, like the slow blossoming of a flower after winter. They clash like two bulls heavily on edge, neither seeing red yet but equally as determined to win. The bar is reduced almost to half capacity in the process, throng of bar-goers squashed against the walls as they shove around their drinks and cheer. Sweat builds so quickly underneath the layers Taeil is wearing that it almost feels like the beginning of drowning--

Third guy finds his nape and Taeil finally understands how burgeoning feels. Then he sees stars.

—

Same night, just four (?) hours later.

Taeil comes to amidst competing qualities of silence and darkness. Dizzy and temporarily stripped of his senses, a furious panic immediately slithers into his chest, so persistent it squeezes around his heart until he can feel the erratic leaps beating behind his teeth. Closing his eyes, he grits his jaw against his pulse until it hurts, so as to still the frenzy before he's not the only one in these shadows who can hear it.

In what feels like this tiny room, occupied mostly by the bed he's in and the nightstand next to it, Taeil meets eye to eye with fear for the first time in many lightyears.

The unfamiliar air sliding off the walls feels coarse in his throat and lungs, every breath more uncomfortable to draw on than the last. There's something abandoned about the way it tastes on the back of his tongue, like this cycle of air has been stuck in this same room for many centuries before him.

But Taeil endures for a moment longer, waiting for the moving shadows his dread conjures in the corners to pounce and tear his flesh open. Listening, specifically for the clicking of a gun.

Maybe the blizzard outside might even whisper to him his current coordinates, or tell a sweet lie about how the night will end.

Instead of any sound, comes a smell. Taeil shoots upright in the creaking bed as he recognizes that smell and the new layer of horror it sneaks between his sore ribs. Antiseptics and the tacky, strange odour of old bandages.

He lifts his right arm and though it responds by signaling a shard of pain to his brain, Taeil empties his lungs and does not inhale anymore. Thickset fingers stroke across his bicep, tracing what does not feel like the same haphazard technique he'd used to cover it up much earlier in the day. Tracing where there should be a small chip surgically installed beneath his flesh-- where it no longer is.

The bedroom door creaks open to the silhouette of a man who never makes it fully inside the room. Adrenaline and the inherent desperation for survival turn Taeil into an angry bull; lethal spring in his step and brunt of his physique prompting their crashing into the hall wall within a singular breath.

The other man, recognized by Taeil by all but his face, squares his shoulders and braces for impact with his arms protecting his torso. Effectively softening the impact of the punches aimed at his lower ribs.

Like this, they exchange the roles they both held back in the bar-- Taeil taking the offense and head start this time.

Somewhat larger and heavier than his opponent, he wields it to his advantage. Actively pinning his body up against the thick stench of cigarettes to keep those arms from getting loose or any slinking away from the corner they're in. His mechanically altered left leg locks into place behind him as it tanks the oscillation between them as a buoy would the sea.

"Not killing me is about to cost you your own fucking life."

"If you're trying to crush my nuts, you could at least start with some foreplay."

Taeil suddenly freezes in place like a stag caught in the headlights. That voice, a bullet to his temple. Last time he'd heard it this clearly was the night before he died, and that was over six years ago.

A sharp intake of breath is the only response he can manage as that tingle at the back of his skull from earlier returns at full, blinding force. It opens the floodgates on memories he'd only dreamt all these years of unearthing again. Lodges a roulette of words-- of a name on his tongue he believed he'd never get to taste again.

Wenhan tugs down the scarf that'd been concealing the lower half of his face. His lower lip is freshly split and barely clean. A keepsake Taeil must've given him during their first tussle.

"Do you want to kill me now?"

The open invitation draws Taeil's thumb from Wenhan's throat to his upper right cheekbone, where his serial number glows faintly in the dark. A habit he'd lost to time and self-afflicted loss. Tenderly, the finger ghosts over it as he echoes the numbers committed to memory in his head, as though caressing the sharp edge of a knife.

Wenhan doesn't flinch or protest. He never once did.

"Should've known..." Taeil finally chokes on the heart in his throat, usual rasp exacerbated by exhaustion and the poor air quality. Tension melts from his tone all the same. "But why the fuck did you have to punch me that hard?"

The corners of Wenhan's mouth twitch with fleeting amusement. "Why do you think? That was for ghosting me almost seven years ago. Asshole."

"You were counting?"

Wenhan's blinks slowly. A crease forming between brushstroke brows. When he opens his mouth again, the inflections unique to his voice change. Sounding crisp, and somehow more honest. "What can I say? I'm a slut for grudges."

Taeil realizes he's now speaking in Mandarin only after he's already rummaging in the next room.

The bedroom hall is barely existent, living room and main entrance arranged just a stride beyond it. Similar to the bedroom, the most tangible presence in the room is an anomalous, possibly planet-borne gloom. Akin to a phantasm lingering at the tips of the fingers, always and never present simultaneously. It settles uncomfortably on top of Taeil's shoulders when he breaches the space.

He chooses the dilapidated couch somewhere in the center and sits on the arm's edge, not risking hinderance nor disruption. From the kitchen, Wenhan produces a sweater out of what feels like thin air for him. It smells faintly of cigarette butts, the sleeves too short to cover Taeil's distinctively tattooed hands.

Wenhan had seen numerous corpses in his life before. Spent countless nights afloat within the darkest nooks of his skull, teetering dangerously close to the edge of haunting. Cigarette smoke had never been good at warding off ghosts from the backs of his eyelids. Though he never stayed long, Taeil's had been the most persistent one. Appearing as inconsequential shapes in the distance, or a flash over his shoulder in the steamed bathroom mirror. Interrupting Wenhan's nightmares like a torch in the dark.

But no burning or blood ever came of it, not like tonight.

Harsh, frost bitten stinging spreads throughout Wenhan's bottom lip and jaw as he swipes his tongue across the gash for crusted blood. Entirely eclipsing the comfort he finds within the icy lick of a loaded gun on the pads of his fingers. The wound throbs and tastes alive, like a kiss full of teeth.

So this is real. Carefully hovering beyond the kitchen counters isn't just a few grams of liquified atomic mass stuck in his brain stem. Corpses and ghosts don't look so warm while shivering in the cold, or ask questions Wenhan can't quite answer.

"So are you going to tell me where we are?"

Wenhan's tongue curls back with the truth in his mouth. His silence palpable and howling across the walls until it's the loudest thing in the room, second to Taeil's swelling impatience. That shift in the rhythm of Taeil's breathing narrowly escaping his notice, approaching footsteps hastening Wenhan's working hands. He knows.

Taeil, albeit warily, closes the distance Wenhan had so keenly been trying to keep between them a second time. Shadow-esque, he towers at the rear of Wenhan's heels, his smoking breath so close it tickles hair coiled at the back of the other man's neck. Wenhan grits his teeth at the sound of his name.

"Wenhan," escapes Taeil's lungs through a whisper-plea. He continues in stern Mandarin, "You're making it really hard for me to trust you tonight... Tell me what you know."

Wenhan's idea of a proper reply is to press a gun into Taeil's palms the same way he would a helping of barley tea. An all too casual quip follows, "Coffins used to be smaller than this. Hide that in your pants. Shoot your dick off and I'm killing you."

Taeil wastes no time baring his fangs in Wenhan's face, exhales cool grimy air on his eyelashes. "So you took it. You brought me here and thought you could soften me up with your bullshit and get away with it."

"Relax. I put it somewhere safer than under your foreskin. Now be quiet unless you want the worst of evil on our asses, because unfortunately, I'm not the villain you think I am--"

But the more he speaks, the more impenetrable of a fortress Taeil becomes. Rationality sinks too far beyond his reach as he cocks the gun in his hand and sandwiches it between their hips. He presses the tip against the softest tissue he remembers on Wenhan's lower belly, nostrils and warm eyes flaring with abandon.

"Give me the fucking chip back. Or this place will soon become a coffin for two."

Wenhan languidly curls a palm to rest around Taeil's thick wrist and finds no reason to doubt that he'd pull the trigger. Part of him even wishes they had the time for it.

"Idiot." He tries instead, "I'm trying to fucking protect you. I'm on your side."

"Bullshit! This is so much fucking bigger than me faking my death and all the other fucked up shit that's been happening, don't you get it? That chip and it's copies have lead so much peril into the lives of many innocents, thanks to the corp." He erratically points to the permanent serial number tented on his cheek, "By our kind. But if you just give it back, I can help rectify--"

"They'll kill you."

"And so many others after me if you don't--"

The front apartment door standing just a few feet away from the argument suddenly erupts inward into infinite splinters. The gaping clearing allowing safe passage to a group of thugs-- no, government officiated soldiers trained specifically for hunting.

"Kill both traitors on the spot and take that fuckin' chip!"

Wenhan jerks violently in motion; that grip he's just had on Taeil's wrist tightening significantly for the sake of hauling them both as far away from the threat as possible. This is not how he'd expected them to get caught-- at least not this soon. But he'd count his losses later.

"Here. Jump off and turn left, and don't you fucking dare stop running."

Taeil doesn't question it. Blood and adrenaline beat hot and hefty like a second heart in his ears as he finds and flings himself out of the nearest window, just shy of when the rain of bullets begin.

Falling for four agonizing stories with a wild, hungering blizzard slapping and pounding against his skin until it's chipped and cracked by ice and frost would've killed just about any man. Had he been any more injured even now or still housed regular lungs inside him, he wouldn't have made it either.

But he's desperately wheezing upon landing--alive, though briefly blinded by a whitehot bolt of pain shooting up his right arm. The blood curdling scream he indulges is something he can't help, not while this vulnerable and exhausted beyond all possible measure. Burning in his nostrils makes it impossible for him to smell the fresh blood thickly soaking up his bandages, ruining Wenhan's sweater.

Panic and dread are his two lifelines, keeping him warm and alert. A few deep breaths later force him up onto knees that buckle and protest against the unforgiving snow. In two steps he realizes an oddity with the spinal plates underneath his skin-- the stuff that hold his nervous system together feeling dented, or just broken. Defining the beginning of a very long trek.

One he may never emerge from.

Go left and never stop. Wenhan's voice echoes in his head and like some sort of clockwork reaction, Taeil defies instruction to look up and check if he could find any signs of the other man's escape.

Nothing in sight suggests the presence of Wenhan's silhouette, but he is met with a timely blast of glass, metals, rags and flying body parts. Four stories above, the storm tastes fire.

And then it's all bleak stillness once again. Like Taeil is back six years, enveloped by silence as the fiery orange of Wenhan's longblade burns across the glass of his eyes.

[antiresolution]

@minseologs Minseo had always run along with Wenhan's thoughts. No matter how strange or mundane, including ones that sound terrifying. She was unsure how to reply because she thought he knew the answer. There is no way around it; the idea of peace counts as an ultimate luxury for people like them. "Well," She shrugs, words hanging as if she wanted to say a whole monologue. "You're not crazy." Her eyes averted over his, and a half-hearted smile was shown on her lips.

The way she escapes his eyes reminds him of a kid collapsing to the ground without screaming out for anyone. Weirdly satisfied with picking at dried over scabs alone. As if wounded knees were a victory in their own way. Someone who has learned silence gives a faster answer. 

He, who has never found comfort in silence. His jaw flexes. Words threaten to spill on his tongue. A mouth so comfortable with braiding sentences together that could give him answers to everything he wants, and nothing. He speaks as if searching for something undiscovered. She speaks as if there is nothing more for them outside the violence permeating beneath their skin. 

Is there comfort in that–

Her, comfortable with holding pain.

Him, too willing to give it to someone holding out their hands.

And this time, he’s quiet. The kid always willing to wait until his performance takes center stage before collapsing. Every movement practiced. Suddenly, alone and without a proper line. 

Every lie of his is perfect.  Loving, tender, sweet

Every truth, ultimately, clumsy. Spitting, biting, scathing.

He tightens his grip around a cold can of barley tea. The heat of his palm turns to a numb ache. He grabs for her hand, pressing their open palms together to one of her cheeks. 

He lets the ice kiss of metal press against the other cheek. Forcing them both eye to eye so she has nowhere else to wander.

“Are you here now?”

If she was going to sink into her own sea, he’d chase her with the cold shock of his own.

Did there need to be comfort in that?

[lousolversons]

SQUID GAME | 2x01 | Bread and Lottery

[antiresolution]

tell me everything will be okay.

Wenhan answers first with a growing plume of cigarette smoke. This is not unlike the first meetings between them. Sudden and intense and ambiguous with strangness. Except the face in front of him had undergone a metamorphosis and lost some of its boyish edge. It's words that reach for him instead of hands this time. And it's his eyes that search Zan's a little too long.

Perhaps the signature of time could be measured by the loss of something and the return of certain habits. 

“It probably won't be if you're looking at everyone with that face.” Wenhan’s hand rests on the back of the zan's neck. A touch that could easily turn gentle, demanding, or violent. To anyone else, it probably looks like he's about to force a little brother into a headlock. If zan wanted to be comforted, he would've gone elsewhere. Or maybe, he likes being a masochist with certain people more than hearing a shallow lie. “Who’d you kill this time.”

[antiresolution]

do you ever wish you knew the person i am now?

Knowing someone across a lifetime comes with the weight of perverse clarity.

He can't unsee the proper chaebol kid with a summer dust of freckles. I know the hurt child.

Can't unknow the woman behind the scar that still itches beneath his clothes. I know what you're capable of.

Can't forget the weight of Jinwoo’s head in the palm of his hand after holding him for the first time. I know who you want to be.

"Tell me. What version of you do you think I'm actually willing to forget?"

There was his habit of punctuating questions as if they were impenetrable. His eyes meet hers as if he's challenged her this way a thousand times already. Hoping, or knowing every version of her would push back.

[antiresolution]

trigger warning: This au is based off the godzilla universe (specifically minus one). I focus on the aftermath of graphic disaster scenarios, so I suggest to skip if you're not in the mood!

He stumbles in the second act. 

Prisms of light scatter in Wenhan’s peripherals as he stares down at the stage floor. Red and gold pom poms and strings of glass beads hit against rouged cheeks, gouging out small trails the way careless brushes of fingertips do. The sweat curtaining his skin becomes seamless pearls blending into white face paint. 

The orchestra continues on, drowning out murmurs in the audience. They’re trained to recover from falls and mistakes like any other performer. Punishment from directors and sponsors is always more severe than a split second of humiliation. He could be up and into the next sequence within a heartbeat.

But he’d caught himself on stinging hands and knees. Motionless until the throb of the fall is a numb pulse and his tongue curls dry to the roof of his mouth. Frozen in place as ribbon dancers and masked figures in loose hanfu move around him. The slightest tremor caresses his open palms.

A guttural screech from a violin in the pit raises Wenhan’s head. Stage lights flood his eyes as he searches blindly in the audience. Dancers to his left hit the floor as the stage sways with a thundering crack and shrieks puncture the air from all sides. A layer of white dust rains down against a fleeing crowd, blanketing colorful costumes in splintered fragments. The ceiling above the audience collapses first, throwing up toxic clouds. Wenhan stumbles to his feet as his lungs shudder to breathe, pressing a sleeve to his mouth and nose as he shoves hesitant crew to the emergency exit backstage. 

Wenhan watches as a beam of overhead lights crashes down onto fleeing bodies. Snapped metal groans above from the weight of the collapsed ceiling. Shattered glass pops under his feet as he stumbles back to escape the gush of water from gutted pipes in the walls and stripped live wire. The low whine of twisted metal above ends with a sudden snap. The debris in his throat chokes him more than the pain of his legs pinned beneath steel beams. 

 He stares up at the open sky now painted in smoke and filled with the clamor of emergency sirens. A shaking hand grasps weakly at his shoulder, and he doesn’t recognize the face smeared in blood and dust to his left. A body smashed beneath slates of plaster and metal.

Wenhan stares up at the sky, holding that hand in his until fingers no longer tremble and everything is still. 

-

February 23, 2008

The WPC (West Pacific Coalition) was formally established after an unprecedented attack killed thousands in Shanghai during lunar new year celebrations. This international security effort is recognized by the governing bodies of China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Curated teams of military personnel and emergency responders are deployed based on high risk scenarios regardless of nationality to prevent further loss of human life and destabilization of global society. 

–

Tiles bleed cold underneath knees tucked in front of an empty hole in the wall meant to house a cross. Two weeks ago, the wood had been needed to repair the roof due to a small quake’s aftershocks. Now, no one wanted to make time to properly dress the space for anyone to pray, or mourn, or curse. Rebuilding Busan’s port communities took every willing pair of military hands. Any spare unwilling ones were busy burying the dead or clinging to a warm body, leaving no room to beg God for favors. 

Yet, it’s a quiet space, even if mostly abandoned. Away from shuffling bodies of overworked soldiers and unfamiliar faces.

Taeil stares down at the spray of grey and white now dusting his army fatigues. 

“Does that work?”

The man perched over him reminds Taeil of a bird. Every feature of his is sharp. The way each angle meets the next throws shadows under dark lashes and glaring cheekbones. Simultaneously jarring and soft. The way you wouldn’t expect a row of feathers next to talons. Even the accented Korean on the other man’s tongue feels pointed. Calculated. Almost too precise to be comfortable.

“What…” Before Taeil realizes his reply is more of an exhale than an answer. “--does what work?” 

The other man pauses, but the amused twitch of his lips lingers. He mirrors Taeil’s kneel, leaning a little awkwardly to the left instead of straight. His right leg isn’t fully tucked under his thigh. The way he presses his hands together is enunciated, as if he’s trying to overcompensate for his role in a silent film. He crosses himself, gesturing wordlessly to the sky. 

Stunned silence is the weight on Taeil’s bottom lip as his mouth opens, before the gnashing of teeth beheads words dying to form. His eyes fall on the burning end of the other’s cigarette, as if he’s watching the dying ember of his own annoyance. Taeil exhales through his nose and nods his head at the smoke. “--does that work for you?”

“Only when I don’t have anything better to put in my mouth.”

“Asshole.”

“Close, but it wouldn't be my first choice.”

Taeil starts to stand, tempted to shoulder check the stranger on his way up. Rationality was never his first choice. He was always chastised for emotionally charged decisions during training. Prolonging this conversation would likely end with his fists bruised and both of them bloody. It was the first week in this base. A reputation built on nothing couldn’t be used as leverage, no matter how good he thinks that sharp nose would look broken.

“It was an honest question. Do you ever get what you ask for?”

Curled fists open and close at his sides before he turns towards the door without answering. A much larger figure fills the frame, blocking Taeil’s exit. Dark eyes glance over a familiar wrinkled face. Taeil’s posture goes rigid. He bows his head to the senior officer. 

“Ah, I see you two met.” There’s the threat of a reprimanding edge, though it seems directed at the soldier behind Taeil. “Private Yoo, this is Private Li, a pilot from Shanghai.”

Private Li was now standing as if the casual collapse of limbs on the floor had been snapped upward by a pulled string. He still leans into his left side, as if he can’t wait to drop the salute once no one’s watching. Both men meet eyes, but this time neither of them are smiling. 

“Your new partner.”

–

Wenhan tears away flyers from the front door of the barracks. The images are grainy pixels enlarged sloppily to fit its new frame of cheap computer paper. But the painted features of the subject are clear enough even from a distance. 

“What a waste. You look so pretty, ge–”

Wenhan tosses shreds of paper at the face crinkled with laughter to his left. The mandarin that rolls off his tongue is an effortless shift. 

“Then you can tape it together and jack off later.”

“Shit, hey– hey, hey,” Hong shields his face and steps out of the way of an elbow aimed at his gut. “It wasn’t me. You know who thinks pulling this shit is funny.”

Even if the construction of this military camp had been congested to a rural corner in the city, their barracks only had four bunks. Compared to other soldiers forced to sweat and curse during the summer in a room with 18 other men. 

Wenhan’s busy emptying a shelf of one of his roommates, tossing the best snack wrappers a guaranteed death payroll could buy onto the empty bunk next to it. 

“You met him, right? Did you ask why he was transferred here? What's he like?”

What comes to mind first is the silhouette of a stranger’s back. One man on his knees in an empty room already abandoned by the hands that built it. 

Wenhan blinks. A dimple forms between his brows. He smooths a thumb over his forehead as if it would iron out the mental crease. 

“Ask him yourself.”

Wenhan gains the uncomfortable weight of Hong’s arm across his shoulders and leans away from the warm breath on the back of his ear. Hong doesn’t even whisper, confident in the disguise of their native language. 

“I heard he volunteered for a suicide mission.” 

Wenhan pauses. Considering superiors kept information to themselves until mistakes rose the death toll. It wasn’t so unbelievable they would consider going on the offensive before signs of an attack in the east sea. But Hong was overzealous, often inflating the truth with his desire for grandeur. 

“I also heard he killed someone, so it was either that, or prison time.”

The mandarin comes from neither of the men, but from behind. Fluent as if it flowed from the memory of a native. He shoves his shoulder into Hong, watching the other dramatically collapse as if he’d sniped him. Taeil stands in the open doorway, wearing neither a smile or a frown. Hong still carries enough shame to apologize, while Wenhan feels the corners of his lips curve up. 

Taeil doesn’t seem offended enough to start a fight as he walks further in, prompting Hong to throw an arm around his shoulders and continue rattling off in Mandarin.

“It’s always a suicide mission. Even if it’s true– just makes you stupid like the rest of us.”

Wenhan starts to roll up one hem of his pants as Hong interrogates the other soldier. He presses fingertips into skin, where his kneecap meets the solid metal of his calf, massaging tiny circles into the joint. 

Taeil’s attention lingers on the flash of silver jutting out where one would expect to see flesh. Wenhan could recognize pity in anyone's face. But the look Taeil casts at his prosthetic is devoid of surprise or even embarrassment for having been caught staring. Maybe more like a stranger in a museum. One who could only be voyeur to a past they could never live inside of or understand. Every glance strangely intense despite the impossible distance. 

But without pity.

“Pretty sexy, isn’t it.” Wenhan kicks his heel against the solid concrete floor. “My eyes are up here.”

“I was looking at your third eye.” 

Taeil catches the extra set of blankets Wenhan throws without missing a beat.

–

No one enjoys the nightwatch at Taejongdae. 

Wenhan prefers the weight of briny air on his tongue to the suffocating anticipation of everyone at the military base. He’s empty handed for his shift, with nothing but the weight of a buzzing comm system strapped to his side and the soft glow of the lighthouse glancing over dark waters below. Weapons wouldn’t save anyone on the ground. Time was all they ever had as a counter strike. 

He walks the length of the highest cliff’s paved trail, roped in by steel fences peppered with rust. Other soldiers stationed on the southern tip of the city are wandering shadows in the night. There’s no one close enough to hear him as he hums the beginning of a melancholic note. No one around to complain as his voice rises in volume, competing against the claw of the ocean’s wind and lick of waves against carved rocks. 

Then he’s twisting on his heel, grasping the butterfly knife hidden at his side. Golden light from the silent carousel of the lighthouse spills over Taeil’s face, lighting curious dark eyes and outlining the soft slopes of his cheeks. His open palms face outward to Wenhan in surrender.

“Are you a fucking idiot?”

Taeil steps closer, dropping his hands as he falls into Wenhan’s retreating pace. The only reply is the soft tone of Taeil’s singing, off key and unsure as he repeats the last line of the song Wenhan hadn’t finished. 

“If you can sing like that, why are you out here?”

Wenhan carries on in silence. The lighthouse careens over black sea water. 

“I wasn’t asking god for something.”

He turns back to Taeil. The abrupt stop has them breaths apart. He can see the dark circles pressed under both the man’s eyes. Chapped lips sealed thin. A small mole marks the corner of a tense mouth. 

“I was cursing him, actually. For giving me the grim reaper as a partner.”

The tense curl of Taeil’s mouth softens. The coil of anticipation is gone, as if a switch had been flipped. The entire man’s body relaxes. On the cusp of revealing something more, but pulling back. He sighs like a tired old dog and raises his hands to the heavens. 

It’s not the first time other soldiers warned new recruits about Wenhan’s reputation as an indirect death sentence. Some would even request to transfer before he’d meet them face to face. No one wanted to disprove potential mythology. 

“Idiot.” He barely speaks above the sound of the ocean. But Taeil hears him, kicking up rocks and dust at Wenhan’s heels as they continue up the slope. He sings in broken Mandarin at Wenhan's back.

But his eyes are trained on glints of silver and white bobbing in the black churn. The glow of the lighthouse sculpts the distant shapes into what looks like overturned buoys. He stands still, staring into the sea as if he could will away the sight of dead fish rising to the surface. Taeil calls his name, but the roar of white noise drowns out any thought or instinct. 

His comm device revives with a series of orders in Korean, Mandarin, Tagalog. Sighting along Taejongdae. Prepare for immediate impact. 

Wenhan’s collar digs into his neck as Taeil forces him into a run. White dead bellies of fish are swallowed by a rising dark form. The lighthouse fights to glow around the massive shadow, illuminating pulsing coils of scarred flesh. An aching roar ruptures the air before the tower collapses into a wave of dust and shattered stone. The ground becomes sand beneath their steps seconds after warning alarms fill the air. 

Taeil shoves Wenhan forward with desperate violence as the cliff beneath their steps crumbles. He turns back once his feet meet the solid safety of grass and arms of trees, lunging to grasp at Taeil falling into empty air. Fingers lock around Taeil’s wrist. Wenhan bites into his tongue, tasting the rush of blood and feeling the hot burn of torn muscle as he fights against the other man’s dead weight hanging over the cliff. 

Taeil’s fingernails carve bloody trails down wenhan’s arm as he struggles for a strong grip. His body drags against the ground, slowly inching over the edge.

Not again. 

His arms are shaking, tips of fingers pulsing numb. 

Not again.

[antiresolution]

I miss you so much. You're a godfather now, by the way.

I love the jump scare but if you switch your burner phone, you have to tell me first.

[uninvitedawn]

ways your muse says i love you.

character headcanons.

The happy I love you’s.

The sad I love you’s.

The “I feel vulnerable”, I love you.

The “don’t leave me”, I love yo u.

The “I’m always the first to apologise”, I love you.

And the inner monologue where he’s waiting for you to apologise but it’s okay, I love you.

The “I really fucked up”, I love you.

I love you’s in:

“I made you your favorite breakfast.” “Here’s your lunch box for work.” “I’m taking you out to your favorite dinner place.”

Where he writes a handwritten letter, I love you.

The “I want every inch of your skin”, I love you.

[antiresolution]

[ sms ] I know where you live. Deleting your socials doesn't help your case, fucker.

[ sms; 草莓 ] Come find me, then.

[antiresolution]

>> dream eating gods Dreams become concrete in his hands. All his thoughts are wet grains of sand between fingers until the oceans steals the castles he builds. Water will flood his empty rooms and truth will be the salt burning his throat, because the truth is all these rooms were always meant for someone else. And nature is always wild and alive inside this boy. This boy who fights wars for his own good reasons. Violence has never been the only way to rebel.

@uninvitedawn

[minseologs]

the pact of the damned

ft. @antiresolution

~

Minseo had always been a busy woman.

Since she was a child, she preferred a nice and scheduled day. Down right to the point of her evening plans. Nowadays her image was being surrounded by either secretaries chasing her for answers about the company’s needs or guards surrounding her for protection, or by business people doing business things, as she likes to put it.

So when things don’t go to plan, she is aware in an instant.

“And it appears Wenhan would also be there-“

“Wenhan?” She pauses her tracks, “as in, the Wenhan I know-?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Tell him no—“

“I believe it’s personal d—“

“Personal duties— right.” Knowing she won’t win an argument, she huffs annoyance before adding another request. “I’d like extra security when we get there, please.”

She was assisted in the vehicle, being taken to a meeting along with other underground heads. They were the current holders of their own family’s secret business, with a few visitors and new faces. This month, she was walking on ports in Incheon, which didn’t particularly have a good memory for her. Four guards made an entrance with her as most men and women looked at the Choi’s new head. They all wanted a piece, considering the power they held when it came to weaponry.

“You could’ve waited for me,” his voice hushed next to her, earning a jolt.

“I thought it was personal duties?” she sighs, a slight pout on her lips. “Why are you here anyway?”

“An invitation—“ his hands tuck behind his back, looking on at others their way. He was polite and courteous, opposing Minseo’s hard-faced exterior. “I guess maybe they could see me valuable.”

“You know it’s too dangerous. What if it’s a set up? You already know what your father could do.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

For the night, the two were in each other’s reach. The rumor mill had been working for quite a few moments now that some attempt to keep him out of reach. Although it was a game of business, they can reject or follow suit to any offers. As the night goes on, so did her patience with the matter. It wasn't that she hated everyone she spoke, but Minseo absolutely hated when they begin their conversations with fake formalities as if they have never voiced out their concerns for her company when she took over. It was great doubt and uncertainty that fueled offers to take Choir Resorts away from her hands.

Minseo watches Wenhan speak to a man, the two appeared as if they knew each other beforehand. His eyes gaze in her direction, before he flashes her a grin. It definitely threw her off, considering the fact that Wenhan rarely shows any kind of emotion when it came to situations such as this.

He begins to head for the door, and in between the sea of socialites and business parties, Minseo had trouble catching up that it appeared as if he vanished in thin air. The next thing she finds was another man in front of her, gun pointing to her direction.

Her reflex was to drop down, as a guard skillfully aims the gun to the ceiling. A shot rings the air as everyone follows suit with avoiding all directions to a possible stray bullet. Men and women with weapons strike fear to others, but the rest just made sure they made it out alive of the hanger. Was it cops? Were we caught? Do we fight or run?

Another shot rings in the air as the man who attempted on her life falls dead. Panic quickly sets in, Minseo being pulled away from the scene with the crowd. She fights her way with the guards, stealing a gun and manages to instruct them to find Wenhan. Focused to the direction he went, she was only greeted by stacks of shipping boxes and freight containers that went on in aisles. Faint grunts can be heard in the distance as she follows the noise. The closer she got inside, the faster her heart beat.

Wenhan pops out from one of the halls— it was as if he just moved swiftly out of thin air. He was in a hurry, and somewhat in shock. There was unnoticed blood in his hands while he grabs her arm and was pulling her away from what he didn’t want her to see.

“Wenhan—!” She attempted to break free but it didn’t stop. “Tell me what’s going on—! Who was that—!”

“Don’t make this difficult for your father any longer… come out— it’ll be quick— if you surrender now, we wont let him know right away...“

Several footsteps echo in this particular hangar. The sudden faint noise of running has disappeared from the other. What was a moment of silence turned in to a hail of bullets ricocheting near their wanted exit. They quickly ducked behind a few shipping containers, Minseo only then realizing that he was mildly injured. One of his knuckles were bloodied only in assumption he must’ve taken down one man.

“You need to go— “ he was set with his decision, whatever it was. “I need you to call your guards—“

“No—“

“Minseo! I'm not arguing—“

“No—“

“Minseo—!”

“I SAID NO—!!”

She huffs out in fear and worry. It left him stunned. Wenhan notices the grip on his hands, Minseo holding tight.

“I’m not leaving without you,” she attempted to stop her emotions from coming out, blanketing it with plain anger fuming at the thought she will leave him there. “It’s my choice, and I’ll protect you whether you like it or not.” More bullets distract their inconvenient argument, himself instinctively protecting her head.

“You’re so stubborn….” He mumbles at the thought, although he was a little irritated. The last thing he wanted was someone dying as collateral from something intended for him.

The bullets stop and more taunts ensue. He thinks of a way to get her out of here somehow as they’re quickly running out of options. If they make a run, one of them will get hurt. If they fight, one of them will get hurt. No one can win. If all wasn’t in their favor, they’ll both get hurt.

The men call him out again, and Minseo’s saving grace finally remembered in a burner phone in her pocket. She immediately sends a distress call to their location, alerting her own men to come to the signal. She didn’t know how long it would take, and she wanted to buy time. Any time.

“Looks like you have a friend there… if you don’t want her to get hurt, just come out now.”

The two look in silence, looking for confirmation. Something that would give them enough just to be able to at least escape: harmed or unharmed. The phone sit still, and they just wait.

“I’ll count to three, don’t make me come there …”

Wenhan was quick on his feet. She hisses a curse between her teeth and watching him with his hands up. Minseo’s trauma was brought up in her mind as it looked familiar before and she was planted where she was. She was unsure as to why she couldn’t move but the panic sets in when he follows their instructions to walk forward slowly. One step closer and they’ll capture him for good.

Damn it, Minseo, move—!

“Don’t do anything funny, little miss behind the containers..!”

don’t let him die…!

“If not, I’ll shoot Wenhan dead…~”

A decision that changes her immediate thought, Minseo could only wish that Wenhan would understand her intention. She loads the gun, coming out of her hiding spot by force and aims. The shot was fired almost instantly, and she fires another as warning for them—

Wenhan furrows his brows as excruciating pain slowly builds up by his side. He holds it, blood seeping through his clothes as he turns to look over his shoulder. Minseo’s face was apologetic, as he weakens and drops to the ground. He looks up in despair, letting the hurt consume him completely. All he could hear was a muffled scream from her, them surprisingly not approaching.

“Stop—!!!” Her gun raised against four men. “This was about him—” she croaks in desperation. “It’s over— “

Before they could respond, the timing was impeccable from her guards that more gunshots are heard. Each dropping like flies. They were immediately protected, with herself using her body with what she could cover of him. Wenhan’s vision begins to blur as he tries his best to stay awake. It was warm and he appreciated the contrast on his body from his cold hands and feet. She’s seen this before— it was reminiscent of her own son’s death. It finally sent her to shed tears seeing him in a painful state, shaking from the thought of actually killing him.

“You’re okay— I promise it’s not—“ deadly. Or so she hoped. she presses gently on his wound as he was being carried away. “I’m sorry— I’m sorry— “

He could only crack a smile in the car, hearing her in such high stress. Blood stained his mouth as she begged them to hurry. That was a good plan. A risky plan. To have them witness that he was dead, she could only assume they were sent by his father, to be sent back where he would surely die. The thought of creating new enemies was far beyond her mind, only wanting everything at the moment to be okay. A hand weekly holds on to where hers was, himself coughing up a chuckle.

“My head… is a little higher… you know….” his silly joke didn’t pierce through her emotional anguish, frowning upon hearing it. “…you said it… I’ll be okay….”

He couldn’t hear anything after that. He did feel rocking, as if he was being forced to wake up. It was Minseo frantically looking for anything to undo what was happening. The last he feels evidently was a cold rush of wind, and being laid down somewhere soft. It wasn’t too bright, and he could guess in his mind he probably wasn’t in a hospital.

-

It must’ve been ages until dawn.

“What happened there—?” her private doctor asks, looking over Wenhan who was finally stable after a couple of hours. It bothered her seeing him so lifeless. The man hands her the bullet she fired. “You would’ve hit an artery.”

It sent shivers down her spine, “We had a pact. Something like that. Thought I’d give it a test run...” She looks on, hoping the joke would’ve gave her some kind of sign he could hear her. “Anyway, thank you, I’ll send the money by tonight.”

The underground was not a forgiving world. Everyone was tossed and dealt with accordingly, with what resources you can offer. There’s personal vendettas to one another but she never actually thought she would be involved in someone else’s other than her own. The higher the rank, the more profitable, but also highest in danger. But once a pact is made, it’s until death.

Until death.

[minseologs]

WRITING EXERCISE: RELATIONSHIP LYRIC PROMPTS  

Wenhan @antiresolution : 소용돌이 (To you/Whirlwind): Seventeen //  정말 고마워서 눈물이 나는 걸, 내가 어떻게 갚을 수 있을까요 //  tears might flow because I'm so thankful, how can I ever repay this?

As warmer weather became frequent, Minseo took the opportunity to have Wenhan outside for fresh air during the evening hours. It was after dinner that they walked together, holding hands as his request, just the two of them. Though they lived in a private and gated community, Minseo couldn’t risk another harm coming towards him, she didn’t say that a guard or two pretending to be civilians roamed around nearby. Able to see that he was getting better from the intentional bullet wound she caused, their walks became longer around the block.

“Remember when we did this? Walking me home and you go straight to that ugly hagwon,” she speaks, mischief lacing her words. Their hand swing gently by habit. “You didn’t even study well, did you?”

It was reminiscent of their university days, with Minseo tattling along a usually grumpy Wenhan. To this day, she held the same mannerisms only familiar to him. The same way she would tell him about her day, the same snickering she did when she thought it was funny. Her animated reactions didn’t change either. The little skip she does when another thought runs by so to get his attention again.

“I can’t believe we’re still talking to each other this long. Thank you for that. Just being here after a long day…. It’s nice.” A soft smile creeps in her lips, feeling a little shy with rambling about her thoughts about them. “You’re my best friend, but you already know how I feel about you, right?"

[shesnake]

“We’re the reason choking is mainstream now.”

BEEF (2023) by Lee Sung Jin

[antiresolution]

@iaesus

Nostalgia is dangerous. Certain people could revive versions of you that you've convinced yourself were long dead and gone. Hanjae is one of few honest relationships growing inside shared ugly truths, so it’s easy to resuscitate old habits.

One thing Wenhan has always been is unapologetic, so this isn’t breaking into Hanjae’s place. Just like it wasn’t an invasion when he crawled into Hanjae’s bed in middle grade, highschool, undergrad. Always without warning, always after a fight within the family, though they both understood in that silent way between people that had known each other too long. 

With this simple act of treating a foreign place like his own, today becomes like yesterday from ten years ago, though the delicate lines in Hanjae’s forehead are new. They aren’t kids anymore, but Wenhan wears a half-cocked smile just as easily as he wears a shirt and sweatpants swiped from a closet that doesn’t belong to him. He’d wear Hanjae’s life on his shoulders again, just for a little bit. 

“What if I told you I’m homeless? Don’t you like taking in strays?”

A half truth that could become reality if his father’s threats were serious. 

Wenhan’s smile might be easy, but he grits his teeth after falling into Hanjae’s bed. That simple movement triggers a fresh needling of pain from a healing bullet wound. Though he pulls the blankets up to his chin and grunts at the ceiling.

“You coming to spoon or not? I can pillow talk better than the unsaved numbers on your phone.”