i look tired, he comments silently to himself as he gazes into the mirror, the reflective glass fogged up ever so slightly from his brief, morning shower. calloused fingers reached up and his index finger and thumb came together to gently draw out the skin underneath his eyelid, a quiet hum of disapproval sounding at his gaunt demeanour. this, however, was not new to him; while he physically looked to be around his early-twenties, it was evident (to him and maybe a select few others) that he was aged beyond his 'years', more emotionally and mentally than anything else (and thank god his body hadn't aged).
guess this is what prolonged mako poisoning and preservation in the lifestream did to you, huh?
scowling again at his image in the mirror, he lazily drug a hand through the jet black strands, only to have them fall right back over his forehead and barely veiling his eyes-- unlike his previous companions, his hair didn't seem to have the same amazing dynamics, the kind that had your hair sticking up in angles and spikes which added a few inches to your height. and for jaebum, that was kind of important-- he was taller than cloud, but was a good six centimetres shorter than zach, and cloud compensated with his ridiculously high hair, and somehow whenever he was with them-- was, because well; zach was long gone and cloud was probably still back in gaia, which brought him to his next predicament, the same one that had been bugging at him for the past two months or so--
what exactly am i doing here?
after the fall of sephiroth and the restoration of geostigma-ridden humans to health, all seemed well within gaia. tifa's bar was running well and cloud ran errands from here and there, and most of the avalanche gang didn't stray too far from midgar-- besides vincent as his occasional brooding (he did end up getting a phone), nanaki returning to cosmo canyon (after all, you couldn't separate a father from his cubs for too long) and yuffie with her princess duties back in wutai. it was only when he was once out on errands-- tifa was sick with the flu and cloud had to stay back to help with the bar, and jaebum offered to help with his delivery routes-- on his way towards the forgotten capital, through the sleeping forest, that he was ambushed and consequently, somehow managed to fall into the lifestream.
he didn't remember how long he was in the lifestream, or what he did there, but the main issue is that he had ended up in a world that was not his own. back in gaia, they always had speculations that other planets and universes and worlds did exist (nanaki and cid had a long argument about this, with nanaki pulling out a whole bunch of logic and calculations and cid claiming that the shera had brought him as far and wide as there ever was and there was no evidence of anything else existing besides gaia) and it was unfortunate enough that he, out of all people, had been the one who had ended up 'testing' out nanaki's theories.
luckily for him, not all was lost-- within a few hours of stumbling through the foreign area (and thankfully he meshed more or less with the natives in the area, with his jet black hair and what they deemed as 'asian' features, the only factor that had people shying away was the unnatural glowing of his mako enhanced eyes), he had caught sight of vivi-- or he should say, vivi caught sight of him, because it seemed as if the black magician had met the same fate as he did, only that when he was transported to this planet in particular, he had taken the form of a human male, with brown bangs falling over his face and a few inches shorter than jaebum himself. through jumbled speech as he tried to recount the prior events to the shorter male (with vivi interrupting every now and then with a few short words), they had come to the conclusion that something had gone wrong in the lifestream, and that they were most likely stuck here for the time being-- unless they were able to find a section of the lifestream to stumble into, which seemed near impossible at the moment. and all of this brought him to here and now.
it was terribly easy for him to pick up the new language-- the years of mako exposure had not only enhanced his physical being, but also his mental state, and it didn't take long for him to have korean flowing from his lips as if it was his mother tongue. as for other things-- while he wasn't particularly proud of this, he managed to pickpocket a businessman-- bingo!-- and ended up being able to find a place to lay low for the time being, until he figured out what to do-- what he could do-- to bring him and vivi (who now called himself mark) back to gaia.
stretching his arms over his head as he made his way out of the tiny (but functional) bathroom, long strides brought him in front of the wide window situated at the front of the small studio he had rented out, toned arms crooking at the elbows to rest his hands at his waist, his simple outfit of a loose beater and a pair of sweatpants deemed good enough for his daily morning brooding. expression blank as he gazes out onto the streets, the skies gray with clouds and hinting at showers and the alleys slowly (but surely) filling (and eventually congesting) with people (who had a purpose to their days), he breathes out another burden-laden sigh through his nostrils, chapped lips pursing slightly as the same question that had been plaguing him for the past 50 days or so resounding through his mind.
what am i even going to do today?
