Someone sold these fruit smoothies from a small stand at the corner, at the same time in the afternoons, and when that standâs particular purple-and-yellow striped umbrella went up over the frozen treats in the container, with fruit in buckets and an overall colourful setup, there was one regular customer who arrived at exactly thirteen minutes after opening. It was to the point where they both knew one anotherâs names ( one was real, the other false ) and the order was expected, although always posed in a question. You still want the sorbet today? Yes. Ritualistic and ebbing outward from patterns, and it was comfortable on some kind of strange human level and therefore, the goal of blending in was accomplished.
She nodded in answer to the question. Once sheâd tasted blueberries, she hadnât been able to change out her tastebuds for something different, although at first, she had tried everything that the cart had to offer, because that seemed like a proper human thing to do. She smelt the blood in them starting to boil a little in the summerâs spreading-out heat, and the scrawl of bodies in their goings and comings didnât help matters. Each of them alive and vibrating and as if she was something vampiric, she knew them all better than they knew themselves.
Which, in a sense, she did. Humans did not think twice about the blood pumping through their veins except of it as a liquid that helped and even then, it was not thought of; not until, at least, it was lost, until transfusions were needed. Until they laid eyes upon someone who made the walls of their arteries collapse and their heart lurch and felt in dire need of a description for how their entire body came alive. ( As if my blood was burning! ) Things of poetry and notebooks with heart-shaped doodles on the inserts.Â
She had never had that sort of thing. And she didnât want it. What was the point? There wasnât one. So she took the blueberry sorbet and she exchanged dollar bills for it and she stared at the human faces on the green money and frowned.Â
âThank you for coming again,â they said to her, and her response was to nod. The proper one would be responding in kind, with some kind of exchange of gratitude, but they had somehow gotten into this pattern ( again with the patterns ) of her saying nothing, merely nodding, and then she would walk down the street and disappear from view.Â
âAlright, Jayoung, time to focus,â she told herself, and the buzzing currents of everyone around her proved to make it harder. She glared as she sipped, all softened lines which could have been gentle bunching up and becoming harsher, and the chill of the blueberry flowed down her throat and she sighed into it. âFocus, and look around, and get something today.âÂ
They wouldnât be too happy if she came back empty-handed. Someone had gone rogue and disappeared into oblivion, so it seemed, and it was no laughing matter.Â
When Jayoung ducked her head to cross the street, she passed on through the large firm of a skyscraper stretching high into the never-ending ceiling of the world, and as was part of her own established pattern ( routines were comfortable, long and short ) she gazed up at it as she walked past it, neat bone-hued blouse tucked into dark-grey skirt resting at her waistline, the hem of it flaring as she spun a little, as the heat settled into her pores and made her happier that she had decided to wear sandals as opposed to sneakers. Her toenails, matching her fingers, glistened an opaque mauve, almost blending in with the colour of her smoothie.Â
Who lived there? Who worked there? She saw people in business suits coming in and out, but she never recognised them. She also hadnât bothered to ask, because she was the one who was supposed to gather up information, not ask for it. It looked like a government building, but if it was, she would see familiar faces, and she never did.Â
Her shoulder knocked into one of them coming out, and her flesh reacted on impulse, reflex, an automatic strain of muscles. Her blood boiled; her irritation flooded her, and she reached out for the red cords to vibrate them, to warn the person off. It was simple with humans, because they oftentimes merely flinched and looked at her strangely and then moved out of her way. And all she had to do â well, it was very little. Like flicking off a switch.Â
But she locked gazes with him and her mouth fell open and she gripped her smoothie so that she wouldnât lose it. She snapped her jaw shut as quick as it had gaped. She inhaled. Used as a bloodhound, hunting down mutants, she recognised one when she smelt one; and in the midst of all these human-kinds, she knew a mutant when she smelt one.Â
       It wasnât the one whoâd gone rogue. But she didnât recognise him, either. And this was a disruption to her pattern she had not anticipated.
Quick. Apologise. Act normal or something. âOh ââ Her voice didnât squeak like she expected it to. âI mean, uh â sorry.â ( Real normal. ) Human or not, social awkwardness was never a trait she had worked through. And apologies didnât come easy, whether or not she meant them. And she moved another pace backward, to distance herself; if she knew him to be a mutant, then it would be a dead giveaway that she was one too. Especially since she had just made his whole body vibrate. âSorry, I didnât mean to run into you.âÂ
Third tryâs the charm, right?
There was one thing that Julian absolutely despised â even more so than he despised incompetence. It was the act of boxing him into definitions that he didnât choose for himself, of using words to define him as if he were an object for people to understand. If he was anything in this world, he was the one who had the role of defining things. He was not one to be the defined. There was no universe in which Julian would accept his role as such. And this one was no exception.Â
Mutant. Powerful. Super human.
The connotation didnât matter. Not even super was considered a flattering compliment. Those were not words he had chosen for himself. Those were merely words chosen by people who were scared of what they didnât understand. It was weak â to box people into definitions just because they desperately needed something their minds could grasp. Julian had never could settle into being just another object for someone else to comprehend. He wasnât about to bend to their weak minds just to help them understand. It was their fault that they couldnât understand. Let them suffer in it.
His mind always seethed at the thought of being a categorized object that was to be understood. Julian Kang was born to be more than that, and he knew he still was more than that. He always would be.
Being a superhuman mutation was not meant to something for people to pick apart about him. He was not going to let himself be a subject of study.
The term did not define him.
And to prove that, here he was standing in the elevator of a high-rise office building instead of being a puppet the government wished for him to be.
The elevator dinged, its doors sliding open as it came to a stop at the ground floor. This wasnât the first time this week that Julian had business in this building. Plenty of times before had he been sent by his father â or made a decision to visit on his own account â to speak with their business partners in this very building. Ezra Kang might be a born politician, but the Kangs thrived on business investments just like many others did. And what use were political skill if only kept in their field? The entire world was a chess board, â a game of calculated moves where only the strongest and smartest could survive â and he, like the queen of the board, was going to conquer without exception. The field of politics wasnât where it ended.
He shrugged his blazer higher onto his shoulders, laptop then tucked under one arm while the other fell to his side as he confidently strode out of the elevator. His business here was finished for the day. Julianâs eyes didnât flit around the buildingâs lobby as he headed straight for the revolving doors upfront. There was nothing more to see here today.
Until he found himself at the centre of a buzzing noise. He looked up to search for the source â expression remaining indifferent still.
The noise was in his mind, he knew. There was no one but him in the vicinity that could hear it. And he also was used to the white noise that so often rushed into his brain, â a perk of being a telepath, that one â but this one was even louder than the usual sea of noises. It accentuated one emotion from the rest; panic. And it was coming from two separate parties who seemed to be at a tense stand-off of emotions, though one immediately switched off as if someone had snapped their fingers to cleanse the panic.Â
The other, however, was not so subtle. It was still loud and roaring in Julianâs head. His mind followed it, determined to trace it to the source and probe open the panicked mind. If it wasnât going to subdue on its own, he would as well dissect it as part of his self-study. What good were powers if not used, after all?
It didnât prove to be difficult. The mind was as open as it could be, frozen from the panic and unaware of a mind reader amidst the crowd. Untrained, too, most likely. No trained mind ( at least, not ones with proper training ) would be as easy to probe. Most human beings out there had untrained minds, so the fact that this one was not trained didnât surprise Julian. What surprised him, however, was how much this mind had to hide. A mutant unassociated with the government. One that didnât seem to want to be found. He was not in their radar yet, but with the clear panic fuddling his mind, it was quite a wonder that he had made it this far. This one wouldnât last too long before someone wanted him and found him.
Not that he had any business worrying about an untrained mutant mind. There was nothing for him here. But the other mind â she was an interesting one. There was a solid block. Most trained minds had a shield protecting their deepest, darkest secrets, but this one had a wall â one that seemed rather impenetrable. Julian wondered what her business with the untrained mutant could have been ( if there was any to begin with ).
It was the curiosity that drove him to step in between the two minds. He regarded the male with arched brows. âShouldnât you be hurrying for lunch now? You have a meeting in exactly twenty minutes from now,â Julian smoothly butted in, nodding at the male to beckon him to get going. It was easy when he could manipulate the mind to make the mutant male that he did indeed have a meeting in twenty minutes. The man nodded, before hurriedly turning on his heels and slipping off into the other direction.
That left him with the female. The one with the interesting mind. Julian waved off her stumbles of apologies at the other man. âHeâd live,â he nonchalantly responded. âHe just has to hurry even faster back into the building now.â Then, curiously, he cocked his head to the side. âDo I know you? I donât believe Iâve ever seen you inside the building.â
