Ken can’t believe what he’s seeing. He’s witnessed snippets of these types of skills from the handful of instances he’s had the privilege to watch special class heroes fight. Heroes like this are plain gifted. Whether it’s weapons mastery or the superhuman reflexes that come with growing magical capacity, they radiate an aura like no other.
Ken’s mouth drops in shock as his eyes struggle to follow the sheer speed of the fight. If he blinks, he misses crucial moments of the fight. The newest edition of the phantom rebellion is transformed into his battle clothes and with the magnetic shield clipped to his wrist, but he’s too much in awe to join the fight.
He shakes himself back into reality when a spray of monster guts hits his face and stains the white of his uniform. The monster is in a defeated mess, he’s sprayed in the aftermath, and the mystery hero walks like the star of an action movie. Ken rubs his sleeves against his face to scrape off what monster remains he can, then runs towards his new idol. He waves his hand high in the air, but it’s not like anyone could his overzealous self rushing towards the battle field.
“Excuse me?” he asks. “Excuse me?”
The next few minutes are a whirlwind of questions.
“Are you in the League? I don’t think I ever saw you while I was in it, b-b-but you’re so good you might’ve been busy with super secret special class missions! Do you have any tips? I really liked the way you finished him off -- all Kapow! Bam! Bam! Hiyah! -- and stuff! Where did you learn to do that? Wow, you’re so cool! Can I have your autograph?”
He grabs the trash bin with a certain amount of desperation, because he does want to throw up, because the thought of being attached to only half of a leg, the thought of losing one half of what his brother died for, makes him unbearably sick. But his stomach is empty, because his only sustenance is the IV drip in his arm, and it takes only a few dry retches before he realizes there’s nothing in him that’s going to come back up again. He’s empty. And in more way than one.
His eyes sting with the involuntary tears that follow his dry heaves, and he tosses the bin away, anger and grief swelling up in him at the sound of the cheap plastic hitting shiny tiled flooring. Its contents, nothing much outside of several wadded up tissues that are undoubtedly the results of the tears of his mother and Ken, spill out across the floor but he can’t bring himself to care. Sounds start blending together, the slowing down of his heart monitor and Kento’s desperate attempts to console Taeyong and himself aren’t the distinct sounds they should be. Ken says he doesn’t have to do this alone, and yet all he wants in this moment is for that incessant shrill beeping that is his heart rate to just stop.
A prosthetic. A prosthetic to replace the leg he lost, to replace the leg his brother signed a magical contract to repair. He recalls memories from the accident, waking up numb, being told he’ll never walk again, being lifted into a wheelchair as if he’s incapable of doing anything on his own. He spots a wheelchair waiting for him in the corner of the room and all but growls, the pang in his chest getting worse.
“Get that out of here,” he utters hoarsely, harsher than Kento deserves “I don’t want to see it.”
Gentle hands push him down against newly fluffed pillows, and he’s too tired and weak and afraid to protest. He swears he can still feel his missing leg, but he dare not look again, because seeing the truth with his own eyes was overwhelming the first time.
“I know what automail is,” he answers curtly, staring up at the ceiling, “They gave me a stupid pamphlet at the expo.” He exhales sharply in something that resembles a bitter laugh, “I threw it away.”
He realizes his tone might be more poisonous than he intended, his anger at the situation leaking into the way he’s speaking to Ken, which is not his intention at all. Ken doesn’t deserve that. He does his best to soften his tone the next time he opens his mouth to speak, but it becomes more apparent how tired his voice is after everything. He turns to look at Kento, noting how puffy and red and swollen his face is from crying.
“I’m not made of money, Ken,” he explains unnecessarily, ignoring the part about the pain; the pain isn’t what scares him.
Nervous jitters keep him on edge as he stands, wringing his hands so hard that his fingers pop. He jumps and flinches harder than he intended to, and nearly trips trying to push the wheelchair out of the room. Ken has been so focused on his own worrying that he hadn’t even realized how painful it would’ve been for Taeyong to see a chair again.
He doesn’t come back right away; he walks to the sink, folds two paper towels into small squares, then dampens them with cold water. Ken sits down on the edge of the bed and doesn’t wait for permission. The boy lightly swipes the cold towel around his best friend’s swollen eyes and over the tear tracks on his cheeks.
“Well, I am,” he says. Ken rubs the back of his neck because no matter how many times someone brings it up, admitting the extent of his wealth always makes him sheepish. In a way, he feels ashamed that he’s never needed to work for the won he spends so freely. There are kids his age working three jobs to pay for groceries, while he could spend that money on a pair of shoes without thinking twice.
“I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a snob,” he says, cheeks blushing. “If you haven’t noticed, my family is rich. This is kinda, uh, their company -- or at least all the japanese liscencing and distribuation and...nevermind that! Anyway, nobody would blink an eye for me to pay for things. I know you don’t like it when I pay for things, but it’s just the beginning of how much I’m going to repay you for, um, kinda saving my life.”
Ever so gently, he pats his best friend on the shoulder.
“I haven’t told you this -- well, I haven’t really mentioned it to anyone because it sounds so arrogant -- but my parents let me choose a division to oversee,” he says. “They kinda wanted to see how I’d do while they, um, supervise. So...so I chose automail!”
Now wasn’t the time to say he chose automail because of what had happened to Taeyong so many years ago. No matter how many smiles and laughs they’ve exchanged overtime, he’ll never forget the dead look in Taeyong’s eyes when he’d been stuck in that chair. Ken wishes he could tell him how much he’d been inspired to help, to become a selfless person like the protaganists in his comic books. But, he doesn’t want to bring up those types of memories in their situation. Instead, he chews on his lower lip and looks at Taeyong with wide, eager eyes.
“You don’t have to fly to Japan for it -- u-unless you wanted to, like a holiday! A holiday could be nice for recovery time anyway...going somewhere really relaxing and stuff,” he says, tripping over his own words. “This is an unnecessarily long way of saying that I’ll pay for it.” His head tilts to the side, ever so slightly, as he smiles.
“I’d do anything for you,” he says. “You’re my best friend.” He knows that his best friend won’t see the weight it carries, but he adds a gentle and softspoken: “I love you.”
He wishes that Taeyong could understand that Ken would give him his heart, his life, and the whole world if he ever asked. It’s not fleeting feelings or the puppy love most people have in their teenage years. It’s a heart that’s been filled with moments where he’s stumbled or fallen behind, Taeyong has always been holding out a hand. No matter what the future holds, he pushes himself to go further. No matter how defeated he is or wants to give up, he closes his eyes and pictures his best friend extending a hand just like he had when they were children. He’ll never get tired of how it feels to have their fingers intertwined.
“Ken?” he says again, turning to stare at his friend’s face through the fog in his brain, as if trying to discern whether or not he’s real, if any of this is real. He struggles to grasp at thoughts, frantically searches for the right ones as his eyes dart over the familiar frame knelt by his bedside.
“You’re crying..Are you…” his words come out heavy, slow, the sedatives injected into his IV still weighing heavily on his tongue and his limbs and his brain, “Are you okay?” He notices the cast holding Ken’s arm in place, the bruises painting skin he’d always known as impossibly blemish-free, frowns groggily, all while letting raw fingers sooth him via a soft path through his hair.
His body is a dull ache everywhere where it should be intense pain: elbows that collided with the jaws of nurses, skin that had been torn by the roughness of cement and hardened wax, stitches in his abdomen where his false brother’s blade had been sheathed, bumps on his skull that he was lucky were just that, cuts and scrapes and bruises everywhere cuts and scrapes and bruises could be. Once the drugs wear off, he’ll feel it all with every move, every blink, every breath. But right now it’s all just that one dull ache.
“Your arm…” the world starts to become more clear around him, little by little, and so do the thoughts, the memories, the reasons he’s here. “You’re hurt.”
Something stabs painfully in his chest as Ken blubbers over words, reassurances, desperate attempts to console Taeyong, something he can’t distinguish between medical, emotional, or magical. But it prompts him to sit up immediately, which he does, too quickly to be safe, causing his head to spin dangerously and his frame to keen toward the edge of the bed as if he might roll off. He disregards the blunder, attempting to steady himself with weak hands, even weaker arms, as he tosses his bed sheets aside, which is surprisingly harder than he expected it to be. That action makes him dizzy too, and the sight that greets him doesn’t help.
It is gone. That much wasn’t a dream.
“It’s gone,” he announces quietly, his face going a frightening mixture of pale green and white as fingertips gingerly reach toward the lower left leg that isn’t there of their own accord. He stops halfway there, his hand clenching into a fist until his fingernails threaten to cut into his palm as memories come flooding back to him at the consistency of molten sludge. The stabbing in his chest gets worse.
Ken swears on his very grave -- before the lord, the angels, and whoever else is watching -- that he’ll find a way to fix this. He mentally recites that mantra over and over again, and soon mutters it under his breath. He swears on his life, his death, and everything he owns that he’ll find a way to help his best friend. He controls his crumpling, tear-stained face long enough to say: “I’m going to make sure you’ll be okay.”
Ken turns around to hide his face as he falls apart once more, guilt and grief shredding him to pieces. He fumbles for the trashcan near the doorway and brings it to the bedside. “You can use this if you have to throw up, okay?” he says. The nineteen year-old pinches the corner of his sleeves and dabs around his eyes; it’s too much of a dainty, elegant movement to match the hurricane force of his tears moments ago. The boy swallows what emotions he can. He needs to be strong. He needs to be brave. He needs to be there for his best friend, the one person who’s always stood by his side through thick and thin. “You saved me,” he says. “You saved me, just like you’ve always done since we’re kids. I’m not going to let you do this alone, okay?”
Ken stands and fluffs up the pillows (they don’t really need fluffing, but he doesn’t know how to make himself useful) with his good hand. “We’ll have you fitted for a prosthetic as soon as you heal. You’re going to be walking and running and b-beating me at XBox in no time,” he says. Ken suddenly stops the obsessive pillow fluffing and his eyes cast downward, right down to the checkered hospital floors. Ken looks up with brown eyes filled with nothing but worry, then gently pushes his friend back against the pillows. He moves his good hand as though to brush back the other’s hair, but he stops himself short. Instead, he keeps a gentle hand pressed against Taeyong’s shoulders to keep him laying on the pillows. “There’s also automail,” he murmurs. “It’s just been released to the public, so maybe you haven’t heard about it yet. The prosthetic connects right to your nerves so you can even wiggle your toes.”
He closes his eyes. He’s already seen Taeyong in so much suffering that he doesn’t know if he can handle him screaming in an operation room. “The only problem is that it...it’s painful to install,” he says. “You have to undergo the operation without anesthetic or painkillers. It’s the best option out there and I’ll handle everything if you want the operation.”
the crave for burgers was strong. it had been like… what? two weeks since he’s had a burger? he was surprised he could even live this long. sure, he usually eats spicy noodles and often times some dick, but he wouldn’t know what to do if he wouldn’t know what to do if he didn’t have a burger for such a long amount of time. so if anyone needed to know the reason why ricky was standing in the line of a fast food restaurant, there was the reason.
he hasn’t waited long. but with the fact that his stomach was growling, he was getting a bit impatient over the fact that the restaurant seemed a bit packed today. he was lucky enough to not usually eat in the restaurant and instead take it to go. he wasn’t exactly comfortable eating alone in public. and by public, he means a place other than his home or his mother’s restaurant. the feeling of having complete strangers look at him while he eats was a bit uncomfortable, so he will not be signing up for that.
while he waited though, he sees someone come up to him. he looks over for a moment to see a boy who looked a little familiar to him. he wasn’t sure at first, but when he introduced himself, he suddenly remembered the time he fought a strange looking monster… was it a monster or familiar? anyways, he fought a monster to help out. it seems like casual talk at first, but once the boy, kento, starts praising him, he feels… surprised?
“uh… what?” he says, a little confused by the sudden flattery. was this kid just praising him? it feels odd. he’s being treated as if he was a celebrity when he knows well that he is far from being one.”i… uh… thank you?” he answers, his voice showing that he was unsure of what to even say to all of this. “i.. uh. see i would give you an autograph but i don’t… i don’t have a pen. i just… i just came here to get some food. so…”
“i have a pen! i have a pen!” he says. “i have a pen right here!” ken throws his backpack to the floor and unzips the front pocket in such haste, it’s as though his life depended on it. it’s where he keeps a leather writing journal filled with the autographs of people he admires. his parents could pay someone to stand in line for autographs from authors and actors so he can spend more time studying, but it’s not the same as meeting his heroes in the flesh.
ken bites his lower lip to prevent his already huge grin from developing into a ginormous one. he also doesn’t like showing off his retainer. that piece of mouth gear ended up being what his weapon, his magnetic shield, disguised itself when not in use.
he flips through the pages to find the perfect spot for ricky’s signature.
“can...can you sign right here?” he asks. “do you know who nightshade’s leader is? ex-special class kim sunggyu! his signature move is diving headfirst through a monster’s jaws and out the other side using his scythe! he’s so cool -- and you’re so cool! -- so is it okay if you sign next to him?”
ken holds out both the journal and the pen, but it’s hard not to have them shake in his excitement. “he spilled a little food there, so you can sign around it,” he says. “i don’t mind! it makes it more memorable that he shared some pizza and gave me life advice.”
a combination of nervous jitters and euphoria radiates from his body and he feels like he can float into the atmosphere any minute.
“do you have any hero tips? i want to be as good as you someday!” he says. ken isn’t a bad hero, but he’s certainly a clumsy one. like an overly excited puppy, he rushes into battle only to trip over his own feet and hit the dirt face first. he never would’ve graduated from the rookie team if sunggyu had been team leader at the time, but the president isn’t going to demote him from team harmony. the kid does his best, even if sometimes...he comes a little short.
“i’m still, uh, working on my technique,” he says. “but one day, i hope i can just as good as you!”
There were a handful of sports teams he’d tried out for, but he never made the cut. He’d give every opportunity his very best, even if he missed every swing and catch. He’d stay late practicing and practicing to no avail. He was better at abandoning a game to help a wounded teammate limp off the field than catching a ball. Unless he was catching the ball with his face; he was the best at that.
So when the opportunity arose to actually learn some real skills, he’d made a jump for it. If there was any chance of him rising to special class like all his idols, then learning fighting techniques was a baby step in the right direction.
Ken has absolutely no fighting stance; he stands there eager and ready to learn, but his knees knock together and he wrings his hands.
“Can you repeat the instructions again?” he asked. “I think I’ve already messed them up. I’m better at studying economics than, uh, fighting.”
hello! i’m hoping to get some plots going for my precious, retainer-wearing baby right here. his romances are closed because he’s hopelessly smitten with taeyong, but there’s plenty of other opportunities for fun! i’ll add more eventually. this is just to get the ball rolling! message me if you see something you like or have ideas of your own. ;D
(i’m also about to sleep, so pls forgive me)
~ Establishing Relationships Plots ~
I’m Shaking Your Hand Way Too Long (m/f league heroes, 0/?) - perhaps he admires your skills from afar or you saved his ass last week, but he gushes over your perfection. like any fanboy, he knows everything from your zodiace sign to your grandmother’s maiden name. what will you do? sign your autograph, let him accompany you in a fight to “learn from the master”, or take advantage of his innocent love?
Geek Out (anyone, 0/1) - his favorite comic book artist is doing a signing and you find yourselves standing in line together! it’s practically a friendship match made in heaven!
Billionaire, Playboy, Philantropist (anyone, 0/?) - when ken realizes you’ve never experienced he – only made possible by unlimited credit cards – does on the regular, he lets you accompany him for the best few hours of your life. you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be the rich, future ceo of the japanese chobotics division.
It Depends on How Hard You Hit Me (TAKEN!) - is it possible to be friends after he smacks you with his shield? how did this boy even graduate from nightshade with such poor aim? he tried to help you fend off a monster in the hot spot, but ended up knocking you out instead.
~ Long term Plots ~
Please Don’t Tell Aunt May (one m, one f heroes or cards 0/2) - you’re aware of his most heavily guarded secret: the matter of his sexuality. his controlling parents plan every waking moment of his life, and having a boyfriend isn’t part of it. he begs you not to tell anyone in case his parents – or worse, taeyong – find out.
Stay Golden, Ponyboy ( m/f preferably lotus or phantom rebellion member 0/1) - the member of team harmony is too naive for his own good. you hound him to seek the truth about his contract, his magical lineage, and turn his back on the league.
Great Responsibility (m/f hero transforming into a familiar 0/1) - kento sees the symptoms happening to you, so he’s determined to purify his own soul to help. in the meantime, you can leech off his magic until he models his heart after steve rogers. you can count he’ll stay up until the early hours of the morning studying up on his comic books.
Ant, Meet Boot (m/f card 0/1) - kento is this annoying pest that won’t leave you alone, no matter how many times you knock him out cold. you can never bring yourself to finish the kid off, but you hope you can scare him into leaving you the fuck alone. doesn’t he know when to quit?
hello! i’m hoping to get some plots going for my precious, retainer-wearing baby right here. his romances are closed because he’s hopelessly smitten with taeyong, but there’s plenty of other opportunities for fun! i’ll add more eventually. this is just to get the ball rolling! message me if you see something you like or have ideas of your own. ;D
(i’m also about to sleep, so pls forgive me)
~ Establishing Relationships Plots ~
I’m Shaking Your Hand Way Too Long (m/f league heroes, 0/?) - perhaps he admires your skills from afar or you saved his ass last week, but he gushes over your perfection. like any fanboy, he knows everything from your zodiace sign to your grandmother’s maiden name. what will you do? sign your autograph, let him accompany you in a fight to “learn from the master”, or take advantage of his innocent love?
Geek Out (anyone, 0/1) - his favorite comic book artist is doing a signing and you find yourselves standing in line together! it’s practically a friendship match made in heaven!
Billionaire, Playboy, Philantropist (anyone, 0/?) - when ken realizes you’ve never experienced he – only made possible by unlimited credit cards – does on the regular, he lets you accompany him for the best few hours of your life. you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be the rich, future ceo of the japanese chobotics division.
It Depends on How Hard You Hit Me (TAKEN!) - is it possible to be friends after he smacks you with his shield? how did this boy even graduate from nightshade with such poor aim? he tried to help you fend off a monster in the hot spot, but ended up knocking you out instead.
~ Long term Plots ~
Please Don’t Tell Aunt May (one m, one f heroes or cards 0/2) - you’re aware of his most heavily guarded secret: the matter of his sexuality. his controlling parents plan every waking moment of his life, and having a boyfriend isn’t part of it. he begs you not to tell anyone in case his parents – or worse, taeyong – find out.
Stay Golden, Ponyboy ( m/f preferably lotus or phantom rebellion member 0/1) - the member of team harmony is too naive for his own good. you hound him to seek the truth about his contract, his magical lineage, and turn his back on the league.
Great Responsibility (m/f hero transforming into a familiar 0/1) - kento sees the symptoms happening to you, so he’s determined to purify his own soul to help. in the meantime, you can leech off his magic until he models his heart after steve rogers. you can count he’ll stay up until the early hours of the morning studying up on his comic books.
Ant, Meet Boot (m/f card 0/1) - kento is this annoying pest that won’t leave you alone, no matter how many times you knock him out cold. you can never bring yourself to finish the kid off, but you hope you can scare him into leaving you the fuck alone. doesn’t he know when to quit?
i’m still greeting all the new members to emo captors, but please like this post if you’d like to plot with this filthy rich, retainer-wearing weeb with a lisp. he is a smol member of team harmony who will ask for your autograph if you’re in special class.
Ken watches his idol stand in cold, red-headed glory. He’s seen heroes shrink from intimidation by simply holding eye contact with the guy. He’s seen him shred monsters apart in minutes with the skill and confidence only the special class could have. Even while standing in line for a burger, he just radiated a special aura. Everything about him was so cool. This was his chance to meet him, and he prays he won’t screw up.
If heroes came in trading cards like baseball players, then Ken would definitely have Ricky’s in a special sleeve (Taeyong would be plastered allover the binder cover, of course). Using every shred of self-confidence he has in his body, he forces himself to walk up to his hero.
“Sp-special Class Kim Taehyung,” he says. “I don’t know if you remember -- or maybe you do because you have a really good memory and all that -- but you helped me last week! Remember? We were fighting that dragon thing and I was the one with the shield! I’m Yamazaki Kento from Team Harmony! Do you remember? Uh...anyway, uh, you’re probably saving a lot of people so you don’t remember me.”
Ken’s face blushes bright red.
“You’re just so cool,” he says. “I’m such a big fan! I love you -- not love-love because I love someone else, but love like an idol. You’re my idol. Oh no, I probably sound like a stalker. I-I-I just wanted to know if I could please have your autograph please, Special Class Kim Taehyung!”
he’s barely feet away from the body of the beast when he glimpses the scene, the familiar frame defending one he doesn’t recognize, losing his shield in the process and becoming suddenly so incredibly vulnerable in a split second. time stops. taeyong didn’t even know he would be here, not when events like this were frivolous in his family’s eyes. but he’s darting in the direction of the vulnerable heroes nonetheless, because they’re hurt and unarmed and even if he’s not an actual hero, he’s sure as hell not letting anyone else die on his watch-
taeyong shouts at him, the only quick warning to brace himself to get out of the way, before he puts himself between kento and the monster, deflecting a pair of pointed wax limbs with the blade of his greatsword. he glances back over his shoulder just barely, opens his mouth to ask if he’s okay, then hears a sound akin to the world preparing to open up and swallow them whole, a sound like the one he was expecting before.
“LOOK OUT!!”
the building collapses from above them and all he thinks to do is shove kento out of the way.
only he doesn’t, he can’t, he can’t move, his feet are glued to the ground, and when he looks down to see how that can possibly be, he sees grotesque wax hands pulling him below the wax surface of the ground, the blurred, distorted faces of his mangled team attached to them. it’s the last thing he sees before he’s pulled further under hot wax, his airways filling with the scalding substance-
he woke with a start, sitting up so quickly it made his head spin. he caught his forehead with the heel of his hand, shutting his eyes against bright white flourescents and letting the steadily slowing beeping of his heart monitor lull him into a clearer state of consciousness. then he realized it was a heart monitor he was hearing, that the blinding lights were not the dimming yellow of his bedroom overhead, that the flimsy feather-light fabric clinging to sweat-dampened skin was not a cotton t-shirt or well-worn sweatpants.
tw: hospitals, blood, ptsd, brief mention of needles just to be on the safe side
Ken remembers days spent standing on the outside, seeing the backs of children who fell into where they belonged like puzzle pieces.
His parents could buy each of those children their own toy store if he took them home, but money can’t buy their acceptance. So, he keeps to himself; always sitting underneath the slides with a sniffling nose, a stick, and scratches in the dirt.
“Whatcha drawing?”
Ken had looked up at that beautiful, smiling face looking down at him. He’d pointed to the doodles he’d made in the sand -- although it was a bit of plagiarizing from a picture he saw someone else draw in class. It’s a happy rainbow, a little house, a simple mom & dad, and a simple son. He shrugs, then swipes a hand across the dirt to clean his playground canvas. He doesn’t speak the language very well, so he’s afraid of what the other boy might say.
“That’s cool! Hey, what’s your favorite food? Was it that thing you were eating at lunch today? That fishy thing?”
The other boy talks a little fast, but Ken picks up the words ‘favorite’ and ‘food’. He takes the stick and draws a little frying pan, then a squiggly oval in the middle. Ken points, says the Japanese word for egg, then looks back up. Taeyong had looked down, gently taken the stick out of his hand, and wrote the Korean word underneath. He says the word once, then another time more slowly, then hands the stick back.
Ken’s eyes are full of delight.
They spend their break with Ken scratching pictures in the sand, Taeyong showing him the Korean word for it, and both giggling until the recess bell rings.
Policeman. Firetruck. Hopscotch. Sandbox. Candy. Friends. Best Friends. Kiss.
Wasn’t it obvious back then? Wasn’t it so painfully obvious? From the very first day they’d met, he has always loved Taeyong.
tw: hospitals, blood, limb loss, survivor guilt
“It’s all my fault. I wasn’t worth losing a leg over,” he cries. “I’m not worth losing anything over.” Ever since they were children, he’s never known how to repay Taeyong for such a strong, loyal friendship. It’s a debt he doesn’t know how to repay. Taeyong is the person that brings life into grey world where the future is bleak, boring, and very lonely. It’s a type of debt that can never be repaid, no matter how long he’s been sitting in the corner of that waiting room.
He wasn’t allowed inside the first time, no matter how much he swore and threatened to ruin their lives if a single hair was hurt on his best friend’s head. He’d tired himself out easily, then did the only thing he could do: dissolve into tears.
His broken arm is encased in a cast and held up with a sling, bandages are wrapped around his head where he’d whacked his skull against fallen debris, and his hands are raw from his desperate attempts to lift the rubble off his best friend’s leg. They’re puffy -- skin peeled, a myriad of colors, one fingernail yanked off completely. Fresh bruises cover the majority of his body. But this is nothing compared to seeing Taeyong on that hospital bed.
His head droops as he fights back sleep. He hasn’t slept since the morning of the fair, something he had insisted on attending. But every time the comfort of sleep threatens to take him over, he jolts awake to stare at the bruised boy laying on the hospital bed.
Taeyong calls his name. He jumps out of his seat, tripping over his own two feet as he scrambles to the boy’s bedside. Ken crouches down, then reaches up to run his fingers -- all blistered and raw -- through his best friend’s hair. “I’m here,” he says. (It comes out more like “I’mb hebre” with all his crying).
“I’m so happy that you’re alive,” he cries. “Everything is going to be okay, I promise. I’m here and I’m not letting anything happen to you.”
Panic alights his face as his eyes flicker from bruise to bruise on his best friend’s face. He’s desperate to help, but he’s not sure what to do. What should he say? What should he do? How can he comfort him without making it worse?
“We’re g-going to make sure you have the best doctors and...and we’ll move you to a bigger room! S-s-something more comfortable! And...and...and we’ll think of something, I promise,” he cries. “Anything you need....I’ll...I’ll make sure you get it.” He doesn’t have the heart to look into Taeyong’s eyes anymore; he looks down at the tiled floors as his body shakes.
Ken rests his forehead against the edge of the bed, then shuts his eyes. The world is crashing down around him and with no regrets, he would’ve taken Taeyong’s place on the hospital bed in a heartbeat. The boy rubs his new hospital shirt sleeve against his nose and he knows he probably sounds disgusting. He’s sobbing harder than a child crying for their mother. His nose is all congested. He can hardly get his nasally words out without them riddled with b’s and d’s between the letters.
“We’re going to be okay,” he says. At this point, he has no choice but to breathe out of his mouth or suffocate. “No matter what’s happened, we always stick together. Y-you’ll be okay, I promise.”
Bean apologizes for making everyone wait so long for im responses & neglecting anyone’s eagerness to play with my Boys Over Flowers TM rip off. I’ll respond to messages & post plots soon! In the meantime, SOME FACTS ABOUT KEN:
- parents invested in chobotics during the early years, then acquired the japanese division.
- they're experts at the stock market & investing in start-up tech companies
- they used to live in a penthouse, but have upgraded to a mansion straight out of heirs.
- his parents keep him, his activities, his studies, and his future under strict control
- he loves making fun of snobs and cliques
- ken hides yaoi underneath the floorboards
- there’s probably tentacle porn under his bed
- he is in love with his childhood best friend, taeyong
- his parents will disown him + he fears people will judge him, so he hasn’t told anyone that he’s gay yet.
- except for his diary
- which has cat stickers in it
- he’s aspires to be a hero like the ones in his manga collection, but cowardice can get the best of him.
- he never feels like he has anything to offer his loved ones except for material things (ie. they gave him the gift of friendship that’s changed his life in so many ways, but he doesn’t know how to express how deeply it’s impacted him so he throws money at it)
- he feels constant pressure to “be the best” or “be perfect”
- he likes Xbox, games like spin the bottle, and probably One Direction
She’s all wild strands of blonde hair, pale limbs curled in on her body as the gentle crashes of the sea-shore not just a few meters away keep her slumbering mind at bay, the faint smell of the ocean sweeping into the room through a slightly ajar window, and her lips play at a smile as it mixes with the fresh scent of vanilla still stuck in the room, persistent to keep memories of the night before in mind.
There could be no doubt she could forget anything that had happened, not with the feeling of Yonghwa’s arm around her in their sweet serenity. Though her eyes are closed, breath even as she faces him, the warmth that pulsates through her body having its source from where their bodies connected, the slight shiver that ran through her was enough to cause smooth skin to wrinkle in annoyance.
Taeyeon had never been much of a morning person, after all.
She resolves herself, not wanting to move and disturb him from sleep, so she chooses to lay there and bear it. Yet, all attempts end for nothing, as she feels herself start to be pushed, covers leaving her body, and her eyes slowly open in confusion.
She just lies there, eyes squinted in an effort to keep the sun from blinding her, and wastes no time crawling the expanses of her bed, back to the giant ball of warmth she happened to love.
“Yong—” She whispers, gently in her approach, but diligent. The covers were already loosening under her fingers, and soon she found her cool body pressed to his much warmer one. She gives a sigh in content, nose pressed to his neck as she closes in on him, and she smiles widely. “…I’m cold too.”
His voice borderlines a childish whine, unheard of among his usual formalities and pleasantries. “Then come closer,” he says. The warm invitation to join him under the covers is accompanied by a sleepy smile, a few bleary blinks of his puppy-dog eyes, and a poorly stifled yawn.
He doesn’t take much space inside their blanket fortress. While the merman was all broad shoulders and strong arms, the rest of him was slim -- lean (read: malnourished) but sturdy like a servant should be. Yonghwa knew that the ideal servant wasn’t an eyesore, but didn’t overpower the upperclassmen in the same room. He was used to getting eyes blackened and lips busted by a party planner the night before important festivities.
But this morning, he’s safe.
“Princess?” he mumbles, “Can we do this again tomorrow?”
He doesn’t just mean the sex. Their night tumbling under the sheets was fantastic, but he wanted...he wanted...
“If it’s not too much to ask, can we do more of this?” he asked, “Just laying here? During the mornings?” A hand slips behind him to rub the princess’ thigh, his movements more sentimental than sensual. “More of you kicking me in the ribs at four in the morning too,” he said, giving a grin, “More of me stealing the covers.”
He closes his eyes and presses against her a little tighter than before.
“More of this.”
He stifles another yawn.
“I want this -- the little things,” he said, “I love those more than anything else in the world.”
Stress seemed to creep its way up into Mark’s face as projects, composition work, and exams all pile up. No, Mark was not even cramming for these. It’s as if all the professors have ganged up and decided it would be fun for students to be flooded with work before the semester ends. Hell Week, the week everyone dreads and hopes to survive. Mark’s survival kit involved multiple cups of coffee, little to no sleep at all, and lots of chocolates but those don’t seem to have worked.
Which explained where he was at the very moment.
The autumn breeze on his skin that smelt of the sea, the sound of the waves crashing softly against the shore as his hands dug lightly through the sand from where he sat – a well needed break indeed.
Mark leaned his head back, closed his eyes and took the moment to take all of it in with a breath before humming out a calm song.
What seemed mundane to humans was absolutely extraordinary in the eyes of the merman. The fillings of a simple, average day of a land-dweller enchanted the young man like fairy tales could captivate a small child. He romanticized the exhausted students surviving on Styrofoam cups of cold coffee jacked up with caffeine pills. The backpacks sagging down the crooked backs of tired twenty-somethings might as well be a knight’s legendary sword. Everything “boring” or “typical” made up his fantasies, made up his own longing for adventure. A crumpled bus puss? A broken umbrella? A handful of spare change? All those items -- mostly taken for granted anyway -- belonged in a treasure chest, in his humble opinion.
As for himself, the servant didn’t see himself as interesting.
But Jung Yonghwa was used to be uninteresting. He’d been uninteresting for many, many years. So uninteresting that he was perfectly happy to spend his free time as nothing more than driftwood -- a hunk of junk just being carried away by the ocean. He drifted with the peacefulness of a newborn baby swaddled in blankets, slowly rocked in his mother’s arms. The waves caressed his body as he bobbled along, his bleary eyes staring into an empty sky. A soft and gentle working song was carried towards the shore.
The words themselves are unlike any language spoken on land; each syllable mimics the peacefulness of a pond, each melodic sentence is as hypnotizing as crashing waves, and its meaning -- the very soul of the song -- overflowed like a waterfall.
Suddenly, he stopped.
He could hear a human voice humming in the distance. Yonghwa rubbed a tired eye with the back of his hand and mumbled: “...makes my F sharps sound like shit...why do I even bother?”
And with no other goals in mind, he simply hummed back an answer to Mark’s tune.
SORRY FOR THE INACTIVITY GUYS. There was a minor emergency and I was harassed at work oh boy caught up in life. I’ll be getting to all owed replies shortly, but I might need to go on semi-hiatus for both yonghwa + haejin. :(
You’re all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.
It felt like a rush of a electricity going through the young wolf’s body. How long has it been since she last hunted or gone out free running in her natural state? A few weeks ago probably- well at least that’s how long she felt it was. Until this morning she had an urge, a desire, a need to go release a lot of the pent up energy she had, she almost felt angry about it for some reason.
Jeongyeon let out a few growls and gruffs as she raced into the forest, near the outskirt of the city. Her boots cracked every leaf and stick, not leaving any earth untouched by her. Her eyes changed from orbs into dark slits as well as the iris changing from dark brown into almost a golden amber tone, her human ears shifted upward into a point, and her fangs growing up a little more prominent. This wasnt even Jeong’s final form yet she felt like she can snap a tree, not a branch, in half.
She reached near the middle of the forest that held a large lake, the water almost clear enough to see through like glass though there were ripples in the water when Jeongyeon looked at it. The girl looked up and noticed someone in the water, seemed like a male with the short hair and wide body structure, though there were other features that seemed really odd to her. Jeong was not afraid to get a closer look though as she brought up her defense.
Their domains were vastly different; one were peoples of the forest while the other were peoples of the sea. Any encounters with werewolves he experienced over the centuries were fleeting. He’s never seen one -- no, he’s never gotten the chance to meet one -- in their beastly forms up close.
Sheer power radiates off the woman’s body. The merman disappears with a splash, then resurfaces a even further away from the shoreline to keep his distance. He has a feeling that if this werewolf wanted to, she could grab one of his twiggy little arms and shatter it to pieces. But if there was one thing he knew about survival, it was to never show hesitation to the enemy. The merman pushed his shoulders down, made a great show of a powerful tailfin lashing against the water’s surface, and lifted his chin.
“Are you friendly?”
His nervous, squeaky voice crack could fool anyone in the vicinity that a twelve year-old had just got kicked in the nuts.
“why yes, i am.” he replied calmly as he lead the way to the large kitchen that was further towards the front of his fairly sized home, he wove a hand dismissively. “ironic, yes, but it is a passion and at the expensive of being narcissistic, i am very, _very _good.”
pulling out the tools he’d need to prep the meal, he pointed to the kitchen table. “sit.” he ordered yonghwa, leaning over the counter to meet eyes with the older man.
_“tell me, what is the greatest meal you’ve had?”· _
proper table manners are lost on him; his shoulders seemed permanently slumped and his head always lowered out of respect for everyone before him. he glanced up from underneath his lashes and a small, nervous smile graces his face. “one time i had enough pocket money to purchase a box of donuts,” he said, “they were the small boxes with those donuts with the white powder on them -- is it sugar dust? and there were six whole donuts in the box!”
