PENUMBRA

The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last. Liu Zhixin. Hunter. 22.

[moonsjun-archive]

giggly dance trainer minghao 🥰

[feyxzhixin]

Ipomoea;

yohanfey

[...]

it makes him feel a little fuzzy, having someone to support him when he’s too used to being the one doing all the support. it makes him feel all weird and warm and ridiculously emotional. it’s weird because he doesn’t know what to do with it, if he should just accept it, how he accepts it. he doesn’t know how many times he should say thank you, how he pays it back, if it’s really ok to accept it, how much he’s supposed to rely on zhixin before it’s too much, how much he can make it about himself before it burdens the other too, wouldn’t it already be burdening zhixin anyway. is it really ok to— “thank you.” he finally clears his throat, afraid that the emotional lump on his chest moved to his throat, but his tone is till sincere, still filled with a little more emotion than yohan wanted to go for. “you know you don’t have to, right?” the familiar throws in there just to be sure. “i c-can handle it, you don’t have— it’s ok if it becomes too much for you.” yohan’s voice cracks again on his lie. he tries to sound certain so zhixin won’t feel pressured to be there for him just because he took pity on yohan, but then yohan is already a mess, wouldn’t surprise him if that isn’t very convincing.

but then the mood lightens up again, even if just a bit, and yohan laughs, that laugh that makes his eyes crinkle and form two half moons, because they’re back to a more familiar territory. “i’ll let you have that one.” he says, going back a little more to his teasing self. “although i admit that you’re getting a little faster, maybe you can catch me in five years instead of ten if you keep that up.”

That’s a good question, honestly, and not one he hasn’t thought about at least a handful of times every single week up until now. What does happen next, when every part of him has run dry and nothing has changed? It’s just weird hearing the words come from another person’s mouth instead of somewhere filed inside of his thoughts, frantic voice cracks and strained emotions included. Was this a fight he was willing to take with him for the rest of his life or was there going to be a definite point during all of this where he could decide to throw in the towel and move on? Would his friend want him to spend the prime years of his life chasing ghosts and letting the search for resolve? Probably not, but he’s still in Seoul and he still flinches when he hears noises behind him at night, and he still sits in a hospital room talking to someone who physically can’t answer him anymore. The exhaustion sometimes is in the forefront, sometimes is the last thing he thinks about. Compartmentalizing it is easy, but when there’s nothing dragging him along by the heels and his thoughts have room to roam free, the vast list of outcomes and the time he’s spent bleeding himself into the pavement for answers hits him like bricks. It’s funny in a pathetic sort of way, but he really does think this is easily the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. The rock stops just a few inches from Yohan’s feet and he waits for it to be kicked back, staring and readying himself to catch it with the sole of his shoes again, but it never moves. Zhixin looks back out at the river, trying valiantly not to show how occupied he is with the idea of the rock being a symbol for himself, of knowing when to stop, of just stopping, but then maybe it’s just a rock and he’s just a hunter and it’s not that serious. Maybe sometimes endings just happen and no one has control of when or why.  But then Yohan is thanking him and he almost forgets that he did just offer himself up to be a security net when he isn’t very secure in the first place. He does really have to stop doing that, although he can sincerely say he doesn’t regret it. That’s something he has going for him, at least; he’s never been the type to give empty promises so when he promises Yohan a place in himself to fall from grace, he takes pride in knowing that even if it’s not perfect, even if he’s not perfect, he’ll still be there. Sure, they haven’t done much together besides run laps around the same park around the same time but it’s been a constant that Zhixin has relied on for stability more than he’s willing to let the younger man know. There’s never a simple way to tell someone that you depend on them, regardless of how much or what for, and he doesn’t want to ruin the moment by possibly making Yohan feel responsible for yet another thing so he smiles and pretends that the whole conversation is smaller than it actually is.  “The only thing that’s too much for me is your ego, right now,” he says through a veil of fake annoyance, even though it’s very obviously hilarious to him. Nothing is really ever a competition even if they make it out to be. Just the company is enough, and he thinks Yohan probably feels the same way. One day they were just two runners on the same path and then one day they were side by side, shoulder to shoulder ( on the off chance Yohan didn’t want to run literal laps around him). One day Zhixin went from solitude to something that feels like friendship and it still makes his head spin and his stomach feel like it’s filled with helium when he thinks about how fast it happened without him calculating every step of the way. Before he realizes he’s doing it, he has a hand in Yohan’s hair, messing it up like that’s just supposed to happen and he does his best not to overthink it like how it’s the very first time he’s gone out of his way to use his hands for anything other than being a hunter or for serving tea. Don’t be awkward. Please don’t point out how awkward it is.

[feyxzhixin]

CRITICAL KISMET;

taehyunfey

[...]

“What the hell’s your problem?”

Surely it can’t be another werewolf territory dispute. He hasn’t even (knowingly) been around werewolves for at least a month. A hunter, maybe? But since when do hunters go after young witches in broad summer daylight? Taehyun’s fingers twitch at the thought of the hunter from weeks ago taking advantage of him at his most vulnerable for an attempt at garroting him with his bare hands. Not again.

“You have about ten seconds to back up off of me before you come out of this with some very nasty scars,” he declares lowly, voice seemingly level despite the dangerous promise behind his words.

A lot can happen in ten seconds and Zhixin isn’t counting, really, but he does take into consideration that he has roughly ten seconds to make a point or ready himself to fight someone in broad daylight in front of basically everyone on campus. Not that many students even pay attention to what’s going on outside of their own little worlds anyway, but were they to decide to for once, he would certainly be to blame. It’s the hefty weight of two choices that sit on his shoulders, one completely opposing to the next, that eats away the majority of the passing time between them, with each second feeling shorter than the next. There’s so much residual anger in him that the thought of just doing something to pacify it is tempting. Even if the target gets placed on the wrong back, it’s still a target and he hasn’t ever taken pleasure in the concept of violence before, but then he thinks of fairness and justice and it almost feels right to be ignorant if it meant he could just get that sentiment off of his chest; the one that keeps chanting an eye for an eye, the one that just wants someone to hurt like he did.  Then, humorlessly, he looks at the spilled coffee on the ground and snorts because the logical part of him knows better, knows that answers aren’t hidden in fists or blood, only endings. No matter how good it would feel to just punish something — for the suffering, for the sleepless nights, for all of this — other than himself, it wouldn’t get him anywhere closer to finding honest solutions to those problems and what good was momentary relief when it wouldn’t mean anything in the end. He can’t wake up his friend or forgive a family ( or himself for that matter) with savagery.  “I need names.” He says, making eye contact again, without letting go of the other’s shirt, because he can’t risk someone running off with the information he desperately needs. The man could tear his arms off, for all he cares, he wasn’t letting go any time soon. “The people you were with, I need their names and, if you’re feeling generous, I need to know where I could find them.” He thinks back to the smile that curled on the lips of the one individual in particular he was hoping for information on, thinks about how it only took that one gesture and zero words to confirm intentions and to fill in a good ninety-seven percent of the blanks in his head. Subconsciously, his grip tightens. He’s so locked in place with the rush of anger, Zhixin nearly forgets to breathe, studying the far from pleased expression staring back at him and forcing himself to really notice who’s staring back. If he had a more in depth grasp of the language he knows he would say something equally as witty and threatening, but he’s stuck with what he has and at the very moment all he can muster is an ugly sounding “You wouldn’t be giving me something I don’t already have.” He realizes he doesn’t have much, and the feeling grips his throat without mercy. Distance happens between them but it isn’t much, just enough to wedge away from the wall at least. 

[feyxzhixin]

Roundhouse;

When Zhixin woke up this morning he didn’t realize he would be overriding his daily schedule of school work and listless wandering with borderline obsessive physical conditioning but maybe that’s what happens when he doesn’t put the effort into actually addressing the underlying cause. Truthfully, he would rather go through hundreds of days punishing himself with extended periods of testing his endurance and stretching himself as thin as humanly possible than admitting that he’s lost his emotional footing and the people he loved, and it all happened in such an alarmingly short amount of time that he’s sort of spinning out in this mental whiplash hell he can’t seem to escape unless he’s hyper-fixating on something.  The sandbag swings back and forth like a pendulum, echoing in the small facility as if to emphasize how quiet it’s been since he walked in.  It’s been months since his best friend’s parents picked up the pieces of him that trailed in with the news of their fallen child, months since the Jin clan made sense of the rest, and he’s still very notably avoided when using the spaces meant for him, but not really him. They were made for the hunter he failed, and if he were more optimistic he would take comfort in the idea of following in the same steps of the friend he lost, but he’s never been so blindly self-soothing. He was never supposed to be here and he knows it just as well as all of the other hunters who eye him on their way out. Skepticism is a universal language. He doesn’t blame them for feeling that way, knows that if he were in their shoes he would probably feel the same. That doesn’t make it sting any less when he hears the latch of the facility doors close again, and the first thought that crosses his mind is that it’s yet another hunter on their way out, probably far too ready to avoid the awkwardness of training next to someone they hardly know. 

But his eyes are closed and he’s on his palms when it happens, suspending his weight over his head, so it’s really hard to distinguish if he’s hearing footsteps after or his own heartbeat in his ears, while trying to fight against the sway of gravity.  @feyhyeseong

[feyxzhixin]

Ipomoea;

@yohanfey

it’s always about the people around him, isn’t it?

yohan looks at the han river, how peaceful it looks during the day even with how busy it can get in a weekend especially when it’s as sunny as it is today. he wished he felt that sort of peace too.

“maybe.” he finally replies. “but that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?” then yohan looks back at the boy by his side. “because in the end we’re always looking for acceptance or assurance that the people we love are happy, that we’re making them happy and if that means changing ourselves then we do just that. even when getting their acceptance or making them happy after we change isn’t a definitive guarantee.”

yohan looks down again, kicks a rock that is close to his feet. “i wish i was a little braver,” he admits shyly, his voice small. “that i was a little more selfish. that i could be a little more selfish.”

It never stops being about the people we love, he thinks, kicking the rock back in Yohan’s direction when it rolls his way. If it were about himself then he’s more than certain he would have fled half way across the world to escape his problems again, but instead he stays because he loved and continues to love, and love is this immeasurable force that’s strong enough to convince him to shoulder titles again despite how much he didn’t want them in the first place. The realization stings enough to make him press his lips together in an attempt to hold a grimace below the surface of his face. He’s gotten far too good at the hiding part of people pleasing, pressing mute on the pieces that would raise concern or questions because he’s not sure how he would answer them and quite frankly he doesn’t have faith in his own self preservation skills the moment he opens his mouth. 

Even that action in itself, if he’s being frivolously self analytical, is for the comfort of Yohan more than himself. He can assume neither of them would want to take a sharp turn into the less than desirable details of their lives. The sun over the river looks beautiful and in the distance he can hear other admirers giggle and bicker about taking photos. He doesn’t want to ruin this with a debate. “You’re right,” he offers, sighing softly. “It’s hard to walk that fine line of making sure other people are happy without neglecting your own happiness in the process. I guess, in some ways, making sure other people are content does bring me contentment too, but I can admit sometimes it just doesn’t feel as good as I wish it would. Sometimes it feels like giving pieces of myself away that I can’t get back.” Each piece just looks a little bit like the person his parents wanted him to be and not the person he tried so hard to become instead. Each piece is a part of a puzzle he’s trying so hard to solve, and sometimes it feels like the picture is blank and the edges don’t fit correctly.  “But I think it’s far more selfish to want someone else to change if you know it’s not going to make them happy.” His own convoluted situation aside, he feels unfortunately versed in yearning for the courage to grasp independence. The tone of Yohan’s voice makes him feel whiplash and sympathy and he doubts either of those things could help him in the way Zhixin wishes it could. It was his own decision, after all, to swallow his insecurities and veer off the predetermined path initially, but he does know things probably could have been a hell of a lot easier if he weren’t so alone in that leap initially. “If you’re going to be brave, then I’ll be there for you if you stumble.” He offers a delicate sounding scoff. “You may run faster, but I can almost guarantee my balance is better.”  

[hqsvt]

beautiful

[feyxzhixin]

HEATHER

Send A Flower: Closed

…protect your muse. You count how many times you’ve had a best friend on one hand. You keep wavering on if you need to a put a finger down or not because technically you haven’t lost the last one but it still feels like you did and it feels like your fault so you bend one finger at the second knuckle because that seems accurate, half down, half up, half heartbroken over the concept of considering someone as anything other than their full selves anymore, half just heartbroken in general. It starts to all feel the same so you don’t think about that even though you understand you can’t, that even when you’re not actively thinking about them you are.  But then you look at your hand and think about raising another finger because Noel pulled you from the wreckage of everything going on with his kind eyes and soft voice and he doesn’t judge you for how you flinch when something good finally comes into your life. Noel is warm and polite and it terrifies you because the impermanence of your existence makes it hard to ignore the idea that he could disappear one day and you would be left there waiting for him to put his hand on your spine like he always does in the wake of all of the difficulty and that reassurance would never come. It terrifies you because you think about all of the things he’s done so far to nurture all of your disjointedness and wonder how you could ever return the favor, but then again it’s Noel and you know he would never expect any form repayment from you. It terrifies you because you look at your fingers, all scarred and calloused and that one you raised in question somehow holds so much hope and so much risk. “What are you doing?” You vaguely collect from the mumble into your shoulder, one eye open to you staring stupidly at your hands in your lap. The breath stops short of your lips, going back to hiding them in your sweater pocket. “Nothing. I’m sorry if I woke you.” 

[feyxzhixin]

PIVOTAL;

feykijung​:

[...]

“sometimes they’ll just be upset with you. that’s just how it is,” and he can only imagine kyuhwan’s parents’ reactions when they find out kyuhwan is a vampire– if they ever find out why. he doesn’t think they’ll ever forgive him, and their forgiveness isn’t something he needs. ultimately, he cares about kyu, not them. the hunter should feel the same. “they’re what’s most important, no? so the rest of it doesn’t matter.”

That is just how it is, isn’t it? The world turns and stops for no one and he can uproot himself, decide to parade around as a normal, unassuming citizen and escape the clutches momentarily of being anything more than that. All he has right now is the hunter in his arms and a heavy heart and if the parents he’s only ever met in passing blame him for what could have been done then that’s just how it’s going to be because that’s just how it is. The vampire was right and despite all of his preconceived notions of them as a species, Zhixin easily comes to terms with the advice, spoken from possibly centuries of life lived compared to his measly twenty-something years. It’s a very diminutive resignation at best, saline lines drying onto flushed skin, a silence that punctuates contemplation where he glances over his friend’s face and then off somewhere past the streetlights.  “I need help carrying them. If you could shoulder their other arm, that would help. Their family’s house is only a few blocks away,” he finally says while tucking a foot back under himself and proceeding to lift both his weight and the other’s upright, but not without hobbling to the side enough to give away his lack of stability even in the physical sense. Spending a few seconds once he catches his footing, he wraps one limp arm around his shoulders and shifts his own frame to one side to compensate for the distribution of mass. A month ago, he remembers they drank too much and they were in this same situation, illuminated by moonlight and laughing whenever they missed a step on the sidewalk, stumbling foolishly because they were just two kids living carelessly, two kids who thought they would see another morning and sure, they knew they weren’t entirely invincible but Zhixin can’t help but believe they felt close to it then. 

His eyes close and he shoves that memory deep, smothered by equally beautiful recollections that he’s too scared to file through. The lump in his throat doesn’t yield. “I don’t know enough on my own to make the best decision for them while I figure this all out, but...but I wish did. I just know that if this were me, my family ⁠— ” Another deep, pacifying breath. If it were years ago, if he had just shut up and listened like the son his father always wanted him to be. If he didn’t break his mother’s heart or leave no trace of himself other than a sticky-note on their kitchen counter. “My family would want to help. I think. I know their parents love them. At least that home is still a home.” 

[feyxzhixin]

THE LIVES WE LIVE;

feykiha

[...] “isn’t this a first? a hunter who feels bad about hunting down a vampire? did you know him? or does he just wear the face of someone who you used to know?“

Nothing about what he does is ever elegant or pretty or rewarding. At the end, it’s always silence and blood, two distinct parts of reality that never get easier to stomach despite all of the times he’s found himself there. He supposes it’s a self preservation instinct that keeps him from diving further into his own actions because he knows were he to treat this as something larger than what it actually is, he wouldn’t be able to stand so collected after all is said and done, or go home and sleep as if it were just another moment in his day. Honestly, he doubts the majority of hunters could stand to function were they not desensitized to violence in the first place; at any given moment it could become you and you it and that’s just life for them whether they wanted it or not, whether he wanted it or not. Death mars the very core of their purpose and has done so since the very first second they came to be. 

And for a few moments the world falls quiet like it’s paying its respects to the loss of a life for the second time. Zhixin doesn’t breathe for what feels like minutes before he gathers the courage to pull his staff back, watching as the mass of the vampire in front of him slumps into the pavement. Now would be the appropriate time to discard the evidence pointing towards any altercation, to preserve the false humanity of this godforsaken city, but he takes too damn long standing there in the aftermath. Apparently long enough that he gathered a spectator, and the whole idea of quietly going back into society after this is too easily destroyed by a single laugh. He closes his eyes for a second, inhaling deeply through his nose. The air carries the scent of blood, sweat and now a very faint, sweet cologne that makes him feel so much worse.  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” He retorts and turns on his heel, expecting to see someone behind him only to be met with an empty stretch of street. Old fliers catch a breeze and rustle along the grime stained walls of shelled apartment buildings. He goes through a state of confusion between two, calculative blinks and then sinks into his defenses because if he’s anything now, it’s careful, thoughtful even. He’s stupid for staying, he thinks, one hand wavering over his weapon. This is actually so stupid.   “It could be your face he wears if you don’t watch your step.”  It’s then that he understands he wasn’t meant to give threats. He hardly had the heart to withstand them let alone speak them into existence and he is only one hunter dangling dangerously along the precipice of defeat. If existence and safety were tangled into the shape of a building, Zhixin was positive he’d be walking the ledge like a professional.

[lifeinpoetry]

if I’ve failed, through artifice or image, in conjure and by light,                let me apologize.

       I only wanted to chase            the end of day

                to the hem of night                 and sit there                 among the new stars                 in a body of spun grass                    until language                    abandons me

                and I turn back,                 reluctant and confused,                     to life.

— Gwen Benaway, from day/break

[feyxzhixin]

PLOTS

AKA: different flavors of crying

I’m ceo of being late to the game.

::WANTED HUNTER :: [ Pressing Play ] ** Plot needs further discussion

What day is it? What has time done to unravel your delicately spun world of silken lies? When you wake there’s an empty room and wilted flowers. The get well cards collect the months you were smothered out of existence, a struck match and when you remember, because there’s no way you wouldn’t: Zhixin was the casualty, the canvas of misshapen art that swept up in flames with your memory. You can’t help, as you stumble into reality, what destruction was wrought from the secrets you both held behind your teeth, what blood was spilled in your name.  You wonder if his smile would be there to greet you, or if that too would be tarnished. ::WANTED WITCH:: [ Kill Switch ] ** Plot needs further discussion You know what you’ve done will echo through history; the fall of a young soul who brought torment to those like you. You think you’ve done a service, really, but how unfortunate there were loose ends when it happened. The plan was not constructed for two headed beasts, for the hydra that was a hunter’s vendetta. Although, it’s been a cheap thrill ever since he laid his eyes on you, to know that no death would ever hold as much satisfaction as your own. In some ways, it serves as a reminder of your own mortality, in others, it feeds the gluttony of your self worth. 

One day, you think he’ll get what he deserves: although you’re not sure yet if that plays in your favor. 

::WANTED HUNTER:: [ Fire & Brimstone ] In every possible way Zhixin as a hunter contradicts you. Your viewpoints and your morals collide multiple times when you are expected to work together, and you’re practically hellbent on getting rid of this thorn in your side who you’ve heard isn’t even wanting to be a hunter in the first place. You find it infuriating. He finds you insufferable. It’s a shame that fate always seems to have you tethered to him. ::WANTED VAMPIRE:: [ A Love Like Winter ] He reminds you of home, of a feeling you never thought you would be able revere again. Each mannerism is a tinge of nostalgia and you only wonder what it would be like were he to look at you with the same admiration. But you know he weaves his life with silver and vervain and your taste for blood puts a target on your head, still you hold on to a hope that one day he will see that maybe fate is bigger than the roles you both play, maybe if you play your cards right he’ll drop his defenses and open his arms.  ::WANTED VAMPIRE:: [ Eyes Closed ] You knew something was off about the boy in your economics class who paid too close attention to detail. You knew that when all of the signs started to show that you were detaching from humanity he would be there to witness it in the quiet and evasive way he seemed to intake everything else, but what you didn’t know was that he would be the one to catch your fall from grace, that he would stumble around his own instincts as you stumbled around your newfound power and together you would be thrown into a tangle of ignited morals. ::WANTED WEREWOLF:: [ Mistakes & Missteps ] There’s always a risk and you think you’ve calculated it well enough that the new friendship you’ve formed with the kind boy from a local tea shop would remain untouched, but unfortunately a full moon catches you off guard and he meets your chaos with different eyes, calculative and cold. How do you let him know you’re more than the beast he thinks you are, that beyond this unfortunate night you’ve shared so much more than this.  ::WANTED FAMILIAR:: [ Afterthought ] For a few months now you’ve been scoring leftovers from Zhixin when he gets off of work, alongside a lot of attention and bits and pieces of his life through one sided conversations. You don’t quite realize it until he’s actively searching you out one day and you’re not there to meet him — at least not in the way he’s familiar with — that you’ve grown quite attached to the soft spoken stranger.  ::WANTED HUMAN:: [ Fooled Me Once ] You were never supposed to know him like this, lying again like it was so easy to do, like he didn’t learn anything in the first place. At least this time he moves before he thinks. The only problem is that you witnessed every terrifying second, knowing all too well that it was not your reality to see. So what now that the veil has been lifted, that his mask has fractured? :: FUEL FOR THOUGHTS :: Just a collection of a few tidbits that I would really be interested in turning into something bigger. + [  !3 missed calls ] [sms] You know I didn’t mean it, please pick up...

+ “I had a dream you killed me.” + “I guess I just feel safe with you.” “Well you shouldn’t.” + “This is the last time I’m going to tell you, don’t carry that weapon into a grocery store.” + “What makes you think I would believe you after what you did before.”  + Accidental Kiss Accidental Kiss Accidental Kiss Accidental Ki — + “You’re an idiot” “Yes and?”

[moonsjun-archive]

you’re my pick, mentor xu minghao (1/∞)

[feyxzhixin]

feykiha​:

the lives we live.

[...]

chewing on his lips while he weighs his options, he’s drawn out of his thoughts by the noise coming below him. he leans forward expecting to see the sight of humans fighting. but kiha finds himself surprised to see the sight of another vampire, much younger than him, and covered in blood. he stumbles on his feet, knocking into a few trash cans. it takes him a moment to realize that he’s not intoxicated but seems to be in pain from the way he holds his lower stomach. he doesn’t get far before there’s the sound of footsteps approaching from the other end of the alleyway, catching the vampires attention and causing him to panic. interested, kiha drops to the balcony below him to catch a closer look, pulling the shadows closer to hide him from view.

Rarely, Zhixin is put in a situation where he has to use the combat his father beat into him. Truthfully, he avoids having to, and not necessarily because he’s not enthused about being violent, but mostly because he doesn’t care to remember the feeling of a grown man knocking the air from his chest and calling it a lesson nor does he want to become the grown man in that equation. Every step backwards from the collective fever dream that was his childhood is a win in his book. Tonight however, he’s losing, in whatever way he can possibly lose.

There’s blood in his mouth, ripe with iron and sweet in the dizzying way that tells him his body is pumping him full of adrenaline to cover how much the damage he’s taken would realistically hurt. A gash, the size of his index finger drags from the corner of his mouth to the ledge of his chin, throbbing as if to remind him it will take approximately fourteen days to heal and that he doesn’t remember the last time he’s had to properly use gauze except to prevent nose bleeds in the middle of a particularly dry winter. Mental note: to stop by the convenience store on the way home if he ever makes it to that point. He knows that making a move on the target in question was necessary for the safety of others, likely a fledgling left to their own devices, which wouldn’t lead to much other than quenching a thirst that never ends. Zhixin grimaces at the unfortunate concept of having to die twice and how neither of those deaths will likely be peaceful.  He tries hard to avoid the idea that he is the second death and follows the sound of stumbling feet and a rolling trashcan. The street he traces it down to feels uncharacteristically quiet for somewhere in Seoul, apartment windows are darkened with curtains; no one has been alerted by the erratic path of the vampire below — or at least from what he can see. Blood speckles the pavement up to the collapsed form of a man about his own age, gasping around the feeling of vervain eating its way into their system from the tennis-ball sized wound in their abdomen.  For a few seconds, Zhixin figures they’re too incapacitated and in pain to notice him standing only a few feet away, weapon at his side.  In the right light, he wonders if the sadness he feels ever breaches the surface of his features, wonders if he should say something like “I’m sorry” or “I don’t want to do this,” but he knows that wouldn’t ease the sobering fact that he has to. So he takes a long, heavy breath of the summer evening into his lungs. Tightens his grip. And drives the staff forward until it hits the brick wall of the building. 

[feyxzhixin]

PROTEA

Send A Flower: Closed

…dare your muse to do something.

First there’s a sweet smile behind his americano, and then he’s convinced he’s never consumed so much coffee in his life than he has this year alone. Sometimes it makes his stomach even more of a bundle of knots. Sometimes he vaguely questions if he’s having a heart attack from all of the accumulative stress or the caffeine or both. Really he just wants to hear the sound of someone recognizing him through a smile whether the gesture is genuine or not. It sounds sad when he thinks about it, but he can’t really say he cares all too much if the act is just another form of emotional labor; he’s selfish enough to lie to himself for now.  First, Zhixin is ordering the same one part espresso three part water beverage over ice, biting the inside of his cheek and waiting at the end of the counter for it to be handed to him with the usual send off. But now he’s hesitating with his hand around the cup and the barista is playing guessing games with what went wrong like if he needs an extra straw or if he accidentally meant cappuccino or drip coffee, because for a whole twenty agonizing seconds it feels like Zhixin says absolutely nothing. He hasn’t even taken a sip yet and he can hear his pulse in his ears. “Truth or dare” he nearly blurts, finally fixating his eyes on a head of pink hair and then the widened eyes staring back it him.  It doesn’t really matter what answer came next because before he can eloquently pause himself he’s already sliding into another embarrassing jumble of words. Every sentence is an avalanche and he swears he feels like he’s been running for miles to get to this point. “I dare you to have a cup of tea with me, at uh,” he blinks slowly, forgetting words in both Korean and his native language and he swears he would be dead under a pile of snow were this an actual natural danger. That isn’t to say this doesn’t already feel like a danger in and of itself. “ At my work I uh, I work at a tea shop in the historical district.” 

[feyxzhixin]

PIVOTAL.

feykijung 

[...] it hits him like a wave threatening to pull him under, the feeling, the understanding, so unfamiliar when he is usually so full of apathy. he has mei, and all of the times he felt he lost everything. now he has mei, and he has kyuhwan, and it still feels too good to be true, and yet the weight of it all is so heavy– the responsibility. there is still the blood on kyuhwan’s hands, and the murder that kijung could not prevent, and kyuhwan’s tears and belief that he is a monster. failing. kijung is so afraid of failing his best friend too. “i can smell the magic,” he says at last. the hunter’s words still grip his heart; he is willing to take the risk. if this person really is all he has, killing him for his vampirism should be the last thing on his mind, and thus, “well, not really. their heartbeat sounds different. it’s like a coma, but it feels different than that.” “i’m a vampire,” he adds, not particularly forgetting to say it; the other information just seemed more important to say first. “you can tell me what happened, but you don’t have to. i’ll tell you anything i know that might help.”

With each passing second, Zhixin feels himself nearing an unidentified precipice in which he’s certain he’d fall from given the chance. Anything, he thinks, would be better than this reality where he’s talking to a stranger on an empty street about how he ended up here in the first place. There’s no elegant or even quick way to summarize it and he wishes there was, but time has never been a friend of his so he just stands there. In the moment, it almost feels like the only thing he can manage to do right.  And it’s not that he’s forgetting to pay attention but he only manages to tune back in around the mention of a coma, which he mulls over like anyone faced with a double-edged sword like that would: He exhales all of the remaining air in his lungs, and surrenders to the buckling of his knees.  When he finally looks up at the stranger, his eyes are glossed over, lashes wet. He wants to ask why a vampire would ever want to help someone like them instead of taking the opportune moment this presents. He wants to recoil and reach for the silver in his jacket pocket in case that thought hasn’t crossed the other’s mind just yet. He wants to, but he knows he cant. Just like how he couldn’t react fast enough to the magic, or make it all the way to their house on his own.  The weight of all that he’s incapable of makes it so much harder to get up, because he can’t ignore it like he’s ignored everything else until now. “We were just walking home together and when they — when the witch appeared — my friend tried to get between us but,” he glances down again, shakily brushing the hair out of the unconscious hunter’s eyes. “The witch kept saying something, like a mantra, and when the witch finally got a hold of them it was like all of the life just drained.” Zhixin hiccups around the recollection, thumbing the serene looking cheek of the fallen individual he held so dear.  “I should have paid more attention to them,” he says weakly while continuing to study their unmoved features. In some ways, the sentiments felt more for them than for the inquirer.  “Because I didn’t know. I didn’t know they were like me until it was too late and look where that got us.”  Truthfully speaking, he felt helpless for the first time in a long time and being in the sympathetic shadow of a being who had all of the power to take his life, only amplified the feeling within him.  “How do I face their family and the people who love them, when I lied for so long about who I am? Do I even have the right to ask for their help when I couldn’t even do anything to prevent this, as a hunter or their friend.” 

[feyxzhixin]

GOLDENROD

Send A Flower: Closed

…give your muse encouragement.

There are a handful of ways to make someone feel seen. Zhixin grew up on the approving nods of his father, translating them into cheap serotonin rushes to keep him afloat in the plethora of lessons that attempted to drown him. Some individuals learn to get their fix on surface level compliments and others need the deep seeded knowledge of their worth actually being of any value. The way she looks out into the street, crosswalk numbers flashing red in the glass of her eyes makes him painfully aware of the emptiness inside of him that wants affirmation, that the color red, when it’s not speckled over his skin or coppery on his aching mouth, can be such a lonely color. It’s a loud, ugly hue demanding of attention. She wears it like it’s what carved her into being and he wears it like a noose. In the end: it’s just a color, it’s just a stranger at a crosswalk. In the moment: he’s playing connect the dots with his feelings. He’s walking faster to catch up to her in a crowd but when he finally catches her he’s silent. When she looks at him he still sees red, her lips, her eyes. “Hey,” he chokes on the word, feels it burn like a lit match behind his teeth.  “You are going to be okay.”  The crowd thins around them and they’re left standing there like two pawns on opposite sides of a chess board. No one really knows who’s winning the game, but it doesn’t really matter.  “I just wanted to tell you that.” 

[feyxzhixin]