Koi Pond

[kiyomivc]

vc-nhm​:

(ﾉ◉‿◉)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

“Yeah…” Haemasu nodded, dragging the syllable on for one too many beats. If this was a test, he was entirely unsure if he was passing or not. It felt like playing a strange sort of puzzle mini game—was he so entirely sure he wasn’t just thrown into a Final Fantasy game? It sure felt like it. But he would make such a shitty Cloud. He was nowhere near as broody as that blond motherfucker. How did anyone like that guy anyway?

But whoever had hired this girl had done a good job. She wasn’t dropping her guard, playing the role of… whatever she was well. It was enough to have Haemasu tripping over his words at least twice already. The Night Bloods didn’t play by the same rules, did they? God, it was almost unfair how good she was at this.

“Sick.” He said. “Super cool. Totally understandable.” The only thing he could do was try and carry on the conversation and just continue to throw in agreements where he could. There was no way this wasn’t a trap. He leaned against the desk, continuing to try and look as casual as possible. If this was, indeed, a trap, he probably looked so stupid trying to fit in in that dusty old room where he wasn’t supposed to be.

Or it…wasn’t a trap…? Her impression made him laugh; she sounded genuinely disgruntled, a little too personal a jab with the affected look in the scrunch of her face.

“Someone got lost in the sauce.” He said with a shrug. He never really knew why everyone had to be so serious all the time. The line of work they did was difficult enough already without all the shitty attitudes. But the girl got it. She was strangely funny, charming despite whatever reason it was that she was here.

“No.” Masu found himself blurting out—wait… no he wasn’t supposed to do that. He was supposed to grab as much as he could and hit the deck. “I think I’m just about done.” MASU, NO. The voice in his head screamed, STICK TO THE PLAN YOU IDIOT. He had taken photos of everything anyways, and had shoved the USB stick down the God Furby’s horrible little beak. He should… be fine… right?

As he spoke, Kiyomi’s head bounced back and forth between tilts, as if she was a bobble head on the dashboard of a terrible driver. Was he speaking in dialect? She understood the words individually but had the sense that he was meaning something else. He didn’t look ill, or particularly cold. Perhaps he was referring to his pet that was incredibly sneaky with it’s ability to blink. She hadn’t seen it move once since entering the room.

“Lost? In sauce?” Kiyomi repeated, her frown becoming a pout as she floated around the phrase in her head, only coming to one conclusion, “You should eat the sauce instead.”

Getting an idea, she tiptoed closer to Haneul, eyes bright as she leaned in as if to tell him a secret, “I made too much mochi earlier, would you like some?”

[kiyomivc]

vc-cdn​:

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He didn’t notice it. Barely out of the woods in his own panic over her to see how her body went completely still. Still like a corpse, somehow standing, but unmoving. All he could think about was the scared look in her eyes, the unseeing sort of stare changing from warm coffee to tepid milk. He wondered if it was his fault, that he was the reason why she had to see such a thing.

The call of his name had him jumping, startled into action. Out of impulse, his hands squeezed at hers, pressing so tight for a moment that his knuckles went white.

“I’m here.” He said, his voice locked in a strange sort of whisper-shout, hoarse. “It’s Doyun, I’m here.” Had something happened again? He was certain now more than ever that her reactions then were linked to… whatever he was doing, but he didn’t know what. His fear of picking the wrong answer and hurting her further had him at a standstill, unmoving and unwilling to let go.

“Can you feel my hands? Can you hear my voice?” His voice sounded foreign to his own ears. Theirs both did. Panic warbled her voice, something scared and hollow, and his was rasping, pleading. Her eyes were open, again unseeing. He stared at them, waiting for her eyes to look at him and not through him, wherever she was. “I’m still here.” He said. “Hey, I got you now, come back to me—please.” 

<º)))><

She tried to nod but every bone in her body was stuck and stiff, refusing to move no matter how much she wanted to. She whimpered as tears fell again, unable to speak, terrified that this was all she would be now. Scraps of herself, only able to be one part of her at a time as the rest of her floated away, lost in some strange current.

There was Doyun again, feeling his hands around hers, pulling her onto the shore with his voice. Whatever was trying to take her away from him would have to try harder. Her eyes closed, reminding herself that whatever power was in the sea was also in her. It started from where their hands were clasped together, a faint shimmer that only glowed brighter, flowing up her arms as the warmth and colour in her skin returned. The smell of salt water swirled around them, snowflakes frozen in the air as the water waited for her permission to fall. Sparkling waves of light rippled over her, washing away the stains of pain and death until all that was left was Kiyomi. The glow dimmed and settled back into her cheeks, the snow drifting around them once she opened her eyes again.

“Doyun,” she breathed before smiling brightly, “there you are!” It felt strange to slip her hands away from him but she couldn’t stop herself from stepping closer and pulling him into a hug.

[kiyomivc]

vc-cdn​:

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“It asked for your heart?” He repeated, dumbfounded that she could say such a thing so nonchalantly. Was she some sort of god? She had to be, to look into the face of a demon and say ‘I’d rather you not’ when it asked for her soul. For a moment, he wondered if he should fear more for the girl or for the demon.

“And it protected you?” That part was the thing that got to him the most. It had never seen it in action, but it felt strangely uncharacteristic of the demon to offer up such a thing.

He almost forgot that his hands were still outstretched, just almost. The first touch of her fingers on his palm was a shock, jolting him. It fried his brain enough for him to stand still, unmoving and barely breathing. So she was real. Not a incorporeal god or anything of the sort. His eyes fell to their hands, silent.

If her touch was shocking, then her words were a full-on thunderstorm. She must have been a fortune-teller or a psychic, tapping into his brain and yanking out all of his desires and reading them aloud.

Even as a small child, all Doyun wanted to do was have a family. And here was this woman, telling her that the lines in his hands said that he would have a wife. He would be married. Even with the demon? Was he allowed to have that with a demon clinging to him?

“I, uh…” Doyun said, his heartbeat racing loudly in his ears. He tried to blink his shock away to no avail, still stumbling over his words in a stupor. “I’m single though.” Was all he managed to choke out for lack of anything better to say to encompass… all of what he was feeling.

<º)))><

“And my soul. Actually it asked for me to give everything. Something about it tasting better?” Kiyomi’s nose scrunched up, visibly pondering the logistics of that type of exchange before giving up with a shrug. Maybe her soul was why people said her cooking tasted so good.

Her attention remained on his palm, squinting as she tried to count any lines attached to the marriage line before sighing, “I can’t see how many children you’ll have in this light. But I bet its a lot! Look at your,” she paused, stuttering over the word so instead she just poked at the meaty part of his palm near his thumb, “here. Very thick means you can make many babies. If it was flat then you’d just have to pray harder.”

Looking up at him, she became confused as he seemed to be stuck, “Well, I guess that means you have something to look forward to, right?” Did he not want a wife? She couldn’t wrap her head around the idea, remembering how she used to check her own palm every day, waiting for her marriage line to appear. Actually, it had been quite some time since she read her own palm, between her time in the harbour and relearning to live on land, the habit had slipped her mind. While she waited for him to reply, her gaze fell to her hand, surprised by just how much the grooves had changed.

[kiyomivc]

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For once in his life, meeting eyes with someone brought him comfort. The strange milky, filmy color that had sputtered in and out before was fully gone, the coffee-warmth of her eyes the only thing left. If his heart started beating a little harder after being confronted with that, he wouldn’t say anything.

Despite the hesitant calm they found themselves in, seeing that the worst of it was hopefully over, he left their hands still on his chest.

Her hand was still cold.

He let her hand go then, only to reach up for his own scarf. He wrapped it around her, doing his best to cover her cheeks from the biting cold. He couldn’t do anything about her hands, neither of them wearing gloves, so he grabbed both of her hands with his own, trying his best to rub some warmth into the freezing digits.

“That’s okay,” Doyun said. “I’ll carry you, if you’re okay with that?” He wasn’t the strongest man—far from it, but the demon’s… activities had made Doyun just a little stronger, enough for him to hold Kiyomi without struggling too much. If this were to have happened months ago, he would not have been able to say the same.

<º)))><

It only took the span of a few seconds, when he let go of her hand, for the tidal wave to break through the dam and drown her. Submerged in the sensations tearing her apart, darkness consumed her senses. She was stuck simultaneously free falling but also no longer tethered by gravity. Acutely aware of her body functioning but feeling, knowing, that it shouldn’t be. How was she hurt again? No, she wasn’t hurt. It just felt like it hurt. But it didn’t anymore. There was only nothing here.

As he took her hands, her breath slipped past her lips in a death rattle. There was a long moment where she remained suspended, unable to react or even register herself as physically existing. As his warmth seeped back into her fingers she remembered to breathe and gasped for it, “Doyun?!” Her eyes searched for him but her vision remained black. “Where are you? I can’t find you.”

[kiyomivc]

vc-cdn​:

(╯°□°)╯

He shook the snow from his hair, adjusting his stance so that he would stop wobbling like a new-born deer. “I don’t think so,” Doyun mumbled, assessing his own hands again carefully, moving his fingers and turning them to and fro, checking for any signs of… anything, really. Just wet still, just the same as they had been a few minutes ago. He looked over Kiyomi, hoping for any sort of clue as to what had happened. He shook his head at Kiyomi’s question.

He shouldn’t have.

Doyun shuddered. The weight of guilt landed heavily down on him, pressing his shoulders in on himself. “I’m so sorry.” He said. Even if she seemed fine, there was not a single chance in hell that he would be able to forgive himself.

She spoke of it so casually, nothing in her eyes giving anything away. The demon had… bargained with her? Or tried to, at least, that much he could tell… but the demon usually never asked for things. It just took—took everything to it’s greedy maw, gluttonous and horrible. “But you’re… you’re not hurt are you?” He asked. “It didn’t do anything to you?”

His mouth snapped shut, watching her eyes on his hands. His hands, which had probably done something horrific—she was just… looking at them, and the only thing she said was… that. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what to make of it, so he apologized again. “I don’t know what that means.”

<º)))><

Still fixated on his hand, Kiyomi gently placed the grocery bag on the ground between her feet, recognizing that she could just pass it to him but the sooner she did that then the sooner he would leave. She wasn’t sure why that bothered her so much. Maybe it was because he actually listened to her, his questions were posed to learn how she felt instead of searching for her to repeat the correct answer back. There were some days she felt more like a parrot than a person.

Worried that he would retreat, her fingers cautiously reached out to trace the patterns of his palm. “No, no,” She replied absently, “Only asked for my heart. But I can’t just give that away.”

Her head tilted, searching along the edge of his palm as she explained, “It means your wife will make you very happy. Since the line ends here,” she pointed to where the groove stretched between his pointer and middle finger, “then you’ll find true love in your life.”

With an excited gasp, she tapped at a single short line near the base of his pinkie finger, “Only one wife too! You’re very lucky, Doyun.”

[kiyomivc]

vc-cdn​:

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They should go—he didn’t think being outside in the cold and panicking was the best combination, probably worsening the situation for Kiyomi. He didn’t even know if she was capable of walking. Would it be weird for him to just… pick her up? It seemed as though that would be only way they were going to be able to leave.

He wiped at her tears still with the hand at her cheek, but watching her and being helpless to do anything was starting to concern Doyun, to the point where he was almost willing to knock back at the demon’s window and ask for any sort of help. A sliver of its strength, some direction, anything. Not that it would be willing to do anything to help, but he was desperate and willing to try anything once.

Doyun found his other hand reaching up to hers, her smaller hand enclosed in his, the only real thing he could do to help her in that moment. He pressed their hands closer to his chest, all but pushing the air out of his lungs. He could feel the pressure of their hands over his heartbeat, thumping so hard he swore he could feel it on the other side of his own hand.

“I won’t.” He agreed, Holding her cheek with one hand and her hand with the other, about as close as either of them could handle. “You can hold onto me as long as you need.” He paused, still debating his earlier plan. “We can still leave,” he said, “are you able to walk? I can carry you if you need…?”

<º)))><

His pulse felt like thunder and she found herself tilting her face ever so slightly upwards, much in the same way she would look to the rumbling clouds and wait for the relief of rain. She loved storms and was always the last inside when one rolled across the island. There was something freeing about being caught in one, the wind swirling around her with an intensity that forced her to dance with the current. Shouting and laughing as loud as she wanted, knowing the voice of the storm would carry her sounds away. It was a storm that saved her.

Kiyomi’s eyes blinked open as wide as she could manage, irises remaining her warm brown hue. Her body wasn’t fully hers still, but she had found a fragment of herself amid Doyun’s hands and latched onto it. The cold that set into her bones somehow grew worse, as if every bit of heat in her was sapped away and her breath no longer puffed out into wisps in the air. Without his hand holding hers, she would’ve slipped away, her other hand dropping to dangle limply at her side.

“I can’t feel my legs.”

[kiyomivc]

vc-cdn​:

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Of course she was alive. Doyun let those words settle in his head, relief a cold shock to his entire system, so cold that even the snow left him unaffected. Watching her laugh, maybe completely unaware of the danger she was in or unbothered by it, made Doyun let out a strange gurgling sort of laugh himself. The sound mostly came from relief, the mindless joy of seeing a real living human person not in any sort of danger even with him around.

And it was definitely that same relief that made her laughter sound so much like magic to him. That made her joy, the tugging of her mouth into a smile all the more lovely to him. “Yeah.” He breathed out in response, both in total agreement and still lacking any sort of real words to say.

His eyes fell from her face as she went to look upon him, landing on the plastic bag in her hands. Oh, she truly was an angel. She had kept all of his ramen and juice safe, even with the demon at her tail. “You’re the one that kept my groceries from flying—” he went to say, grateful for her help. But her words made the relief he’d felt go quicker than it had come.

“What… what do you mean?” He asked. Something in him gave him the power and force to finally stand upright, which he did, scrabbling up out of the snow. “My hands?” Doyun repeated, staring down at his palms. Aside from the snow melting on his skin, there was nothing. No traces of blood or gore anywhere on his fingers, his knuckles. Pristine as they had been before he’d lost control.

<º)))><

With a nod, she took a few cautious steps closer to peer at his hands only to let out a sigh of relief, “Oh good, you’re not hurt.” It had made a terrible sound when handling the monster, but Doyun must be very strong to come out the other side unscathed.

“You don’t remember?” Kiyomi paused, gathering her rather limited vocabulary in preparation, “I was running, a monster was following me. But then you- no the other one said that I’d be safe but he wanted my heart.” She tapped a finger against her chest, the same place he touched before she had her vision, “I didn’t see, but the monster is gone. And now you’re here.”

Satisfied with her summary, her attention fell back to his hands, scanning over the lines of his palms, “You have a very long love line.”

[kiyomivc]

vc-nhm​:

The Usual Morning Line Up ~ with @vc-nhm​

(ﾉ◉‿◉)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Completely catching him off guard was one thing, but the lack of awareness the woman displayed made Haemasu blink. Either she was really good at being deceptive, or she was genuinely under the impression that he was supposed to be there in that room. He didn’t know which was worse. He had for sure thought that this level had been cut short, and that he would have to start over again under more… unsavory circumstances, but then again… maybe there was some hope still.

One of them was out-smarting the other. He just didn’t know who.

“I’m Ha—” he almost had said Haemasu, but immediately bit at his own tongue, hard enough to stop himself. “Haneul.” He said, giving the woman a wide smile as she looked around. Surveying the scene of the crime? Actively curious? He couldn’t let his guard down yet. Looking at her look at the room, he was rather stunned. The Aerith cosplayer was… pretty. Delicate like those expensive figurines he had lined up on his shelves back at home.

“Lost… but on purpose?” He repeated. A riddle? Oh fuck—was there a wrong answer? “Wandering?” He answered, despite his voice raising at the tail end of the last syllable. God, he should have paid better attention when his tutors were around. They would keel over if they saw him acting this ridiculous.

As she wandered in further into the room taking interest in the God Furby, Masu found himself sneakily setting the folders and papers on top of the desk, trying to look busy rather than as though he was trying to conceal his evidence.

“Nah, I’m shit at cleaning. I’d leave it more a mess than it was before. I’m here to get papers for the boss.” He said. Technically, he wasn’t lying—just hiding the fact that the boss he was referring to was Sangje and not the Jeup heir. “Are you here to clean? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

“Yes, wandering!” Kiyomi took a moment to quietly repeat the word, as if the repetition alone would make it stick this time, “thank you.” Her gaze fluttered about the room, simply looking at each object and finding the correct word in Korean to practice. Sick pet, dusty cabinet, dusty desk, dusty Haneul, and finally dusty her.

As he stated his purpose, she nodded, already knowing that he worked for Dragan- no she was supposed to call him Reign with his employees. He was in the castle after all.

“I would like to clean, but Mrs Younghee is so amazing, she does it before I even know something is dirty.” Remembering the maid’s previous visit, Kiyomi made a note to make her some anpan for next time, “So that’s why I had to leave the apartment, I knew there had to be somewhere she had not found yet.”

“I am supposed to stay out of the way,” she held her head a little higher and screwed her features into a tight mildly disgusted look to try and be the scary guardian, “Everyone is much too important and busy to play games, little miss.” With a huff, she dropped the act before looking to him sheepishly, “Am I keeping you from doing work?”

[kiyomivc]

vc-cdn​:

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She was clearly going through something, something outside of the realm of the physical harming her, and Doyun found himself at a loss. He felt helpless in that moment, his brain overloading as he tried to figure out what he could do to be of any use to her, to help her without overwhelming her. But the strained, pinched expression on her face, the sharp exhales of her short breaths had him panicking over her, trying his best to be as stable as he could so that the both of them weren’t panicking.

So he stood there, half-hovering and half-squatting so that he could lessen the height between them and have a better look at her. It was the longest he’d ever looked at Kiyomi, but it wasn’t really proper nor the right time to be thinking of such a thing when her eyes were doing that horrifying little thing it was doing as it changed color with each of her blinks.

For all the internal talk he’d had with himself about not overwhelming her, he found that his hand was still holding her cheek, his thumb smoothing over the rise of her cheekbone in an effort to be as soothing and calm as he could. Was it working? He wasn’t sure, wasn’t really sure of anything in that moment really. Should they get out of there? It wasn’t doing them any good to be standing out in the cold while Kiyomi was clearly panicking.

For a brief, brief moment—maybe less than half of a second, his brain has asked in its hysteria: TRUE LOVE’S KISS??? Because his brain had decided that going the Disney movie route was the right way to go. But he immediately shot that idea down, noting to himself that later he would thoroughly pick apart how truly dumb that idea was. But leaving… leaving seemed like a good idea.

“Okay,” he said, nodding his head even though she probably couldn’t tell. “Okay,” he said again, noting for a brief moment that her cheek and hand were getting cold. He pressed further into her space, hoping that this wasn’t the wrong thing to do as he tried his best to hold her and shield her from the cold.

Her knees buckled, and he was close enough to feel it. “Should we go? I can take you somewhere that’s… not here? Maybe that’ll help.”

<º)))><

Kiyomi nodded, forcing her mouth shut as it felt like a surge of terror thrash through her with enough force she stumbled forward. It was like being stuck in that moment after diving where your body didn’t know which way was up anymore, only stretched out for far too long. She was scared it would be forever. Blindly, she reached for him, finding a handful of fabric, his scarf.

The most terrifying of the waves was when the anger crashed, the emotion unnatural inside her and so she found her footing for only a second among the screams echoing in her head. Her fingers trailed up the edge of the scarf to splay her palm on the center of his chest, pressing harder that she meant to out of desperation. Finding his pulse, she closed her eyes and focused everything into just feeling his heartbeat. It was fast but strong, and eventually it’s rhythm overtook the chaos just enough for her to remember herself.

“Don’t let go, ok?” she croaked, barely able to make out his features swimming through the tears that seemed never ending, “please.”

[kiyomivc]

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“No—no I believe you.” He amended, still reeling at the sight in front of him but caught off-guard at her quivering voice. “How can I not? When you know about..” he waved a hand at the picture she’d drawn in the snow, eyes still wide. “I know you can’t be lying,” he said, quieter still, “I’ve never told anyone about this.”

Not even his father or his mother knew. Even mentioning the demon around them made them both tense, their eyes growing sadder and their mouths becoming tight lines of worry. He knew they worried over him, prayed every night and scoured whatever resources they could to find a way to fix the situation. He knew that they lost many nights of sleep about it, and so, he thought it best to not tell them anything to trouble them further. If they didn’t know, no one would know. And yet Kiyomi did.

He wondered if she was some sort of psychic, a mind-reader like the vampire from Twilight. If she could see into his head and hear all of his thoughts. He found himself just a little bit horrified at the thought, but then amended himself. There was no way she was—she wouldn’t still be standing here with him if she knew he had been looking at her.

“I believe you.” Doyun said again, squeezing at her hand. He didn’t really know what to say about the revelation of a purple sky above him, mostly because he knew he would sound stupid for asking, but he found himself doing it anyways. “Is it like… seeing into the future?” He asked, feeling rather dumb.

“Hey hey hey,” he whispered, pressing his free hand to her face, trying to get her to look at him, “what’s going on?” He watched her face contort in pain, leaning down and trying to see if something had happened to her. “Are you seeing something again? What do you need me to do? Let me help you.”

<º)))><

She was overflowing again, feeling everything at once but it was different still from when she was with Minjun. Tears streamed down her face but they didn’t bubble over from her own sadness, or even the pain. That quickly subsided into a numbing cold that was somehow worse, as if her body gave up registering the ever consuming fire. Leaving her choking on a stranger’s scream lodged in her throat. Lost in the vortex of foreign sensations, Doyun’s touch became a tether.

From the point of contact against her cheek, ripples of light danced across her skin, faint and shimmering only to fade moments later. Kiyomi gasped as if it was her first breath since diving deep underwater, eyes fluttering open to switch between an iridescent milky white and her usual warm brown hues with each blink. Between sifting through the downpour of emotions, searching for the feelings that were truly her own, she struggled with keeping Doyun’s connection to her purely physical. She didn’t want to share this with him and so she simply held onto his lifeline and let everything else wash over her.

“Not seeing. Feeling,” she whispered, voice a fragile quiver growing weaker, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Flashing lights and sirens of emergency vehicles passed by the park in a blur as Kiyomi stumbled forward, knees buckling as the bombardment became too much.

[kiyomivc]

rxignvc​:

“yamato? japan?” dragan asked raising an eyebrow. “you…swam from japan?” he asked her face overwhelmed with shock. 

mismatched eyes watched as she shivered from the cold, dragan rarely, if ever had sympathy for anyone, but he felt pain in his chest to watch her suffer like that. she seemed so…inviting. like she could talk for hours about absolutely nothing, and yet there was a dull to her shine.

“you’ve been…living in the harbor? this whole time? through the winter?” he furrowed snow white brows, trying to figure out why he felt this way, understanding why he felt anything at all. her fingertips were freezing cold against his own, his plush bottom lip between his teeth. 

“not sacred but…it’s not…safe to stay here. not that i care but,” the young master took the keys from her hand, lingering only for a moment before he made the decision, sighing at his own incompentence and inability to leave her stranded. 

“when’s the last time you’ve eaten? or slept in a bed? do you want to get some food or something? i’m sober now, so i can totally drive…without losing my keys.”

<º)))><

He asked so many questions that, in her perspective, had rather obvious answers. Maybe things were different in this land, but she was used to going hungry even before she gained her tail. The high priest said it was a punishment for evil thoughts and only through being truly empty came repentance. Which explained why her days had been filled with small mercies. Every scrap of sustenance or discovery of another safe crevice to sleep in bolstered her resolve, trusting that the meaning of her journey would be revealed in time.

“It was spring when I left the island, mother and I had seen the cherry blossoms together before …” her voice trailed off, gaze drifting to their hands before her eyes squeezed shut, “I had to leave.” With a sniff, she blinked away the heat swimming in her vision and pushed through the claws in her memories. Thankful that the subject was changing, her head tilted watching him seem troubled with something.

“The children brought me a rice ball! Oh, but that got lost before I could eat it. It looked so tasty too,” she lamented, pursing her lips before giving a breathy laugh, “only royalty or the chosen sleep in beds. I’m still in training.” Although it was flattering that he thought she was worthy enough for such an honour. But at the mention of food everything else flew out the window and her eyes practically sparkled in her eagerness and she couldn’t nod fast enough.

“I’d love food! But,” her tail flicked, causing a small splash, “I don’t have legs anymore.”

[boynextdoors]

[kiyomivc]

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Lifting his head weakly, still a little woozy and out of it, with barely a hint of any idea as to what was going on, Doyun found himself staring through bleary eyes at the woman hovering over him. She watched him with a sense of curiosity, somehow completely unfazed despite whatever she had seen come from the demon. He was merely glad that she was alright, that the demon hadn’t had time to harm her before retreating back into his body. Which was… weird—usually the thing never left any witnesses save for himself, but maybe it hadn’t fed enough to last very long. Whatever the case may be, it was the best outcome he could have hoped for.

But his brain stopped, finally looking at the woman in front of him, crouching and staring back at him as his panic settled. His brain tried to churn up a response, both confused and a little helpless and completely taken aback. She was definitely an angel. There was no way that the woman in front of him wasn’t. In the darkness, she was illuminated by the warm light of the streetlamp just above them, specks of dust and snow falling around her like she had dropped straight from the sky.

Maybe it was because he was so hazy and so out of it, or maybe it was the sheer relief that the demon was gone and this innocent bystander was safe, but she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

His mouth gaped, opening and shutting and opening again as he merely blinked up at her, trying to process her question. The… other one? The demon? Had spoken to her? And she lived? Doyun’s mouth once again began flapping, trying to find words—any words really.

“Kiyomi,” he repeated, and he couldn’t help that his tone sounded so reverent around the syllables. Wasn’t that the proper reaction to seeing an angel? “Cho Doyun.” He said, his own name sounding strange in his mouth when hers hadn’t. “I’m Cho Doyun. Thank you for—” he waved a vague hand around limply, still using his other arm to hold himself up in the snow. “For being alive.”

<º)))><

A tide of laughter rolled over her, having her fling her head back and share her joy with the sky. Being as loud as she ever dared to, her hand soon flapped as she struggled to cover her mouth between the fit of giggles. “Of course I’m alive!” Her syllables sputtered until the sound devolved into a short snort.

Finally getting a handle on herself, she hid how her lips refused to uncurl in her mirth behind her hand, small tremors through her shoulders giving her away, “Thanks are not needed for that.” 

Eventually both of her hands found the handle of his grocery bag as she peered down at him, warmed from the inside out. “I should be thanking you, Doyun,” she blew a chunk of hair away from her eyes, “Even with the other one talking, your hands took care of the monster chasing me. So thank you, for keeping me safe.”

[kiyomivc]

rxignvc​:

the hybrid stepped back a moment, taken aback by the way she excitedly swam towards him, the splash of the water wild behind her. her smile was bright and intoxicating, splitting her face with a delight that made it seem like she was startled by her own stunted emotions. he knew that feeling well, not understand the surge of something you hadn’t felt in so long, washing over you to the point where your body didn’t even know how to hold it.

“why, why, why..” he sputtered in shock as she barreled towards him only to stop in his tracks as she exclaimed words that seemed so saddening to hear. it was then that he’d gotten a good look at her, the way her bones pressed against her skin, the sharpness of her jaw had not come from her good looks alone. his stomach tossed at the sight of her, as if she, like him, was too high on a pedestal to withstand inconveniences like the lack of food or shelter, what was she to do when the harbor began to frost over? another and much better thought was why had he cared.

“you don’t know where you are?”  dragan asked her still a bit confused, even still without prompting he squatted down to greet her, his own look of excitement pressing over his handsome features as he reached for his keys, as if every bubbling, pulsating wash of anger had faded away now that he was no longer ‘victimized’ by his own stupidity. 

“akdoek, south korea.” he finally said, having to draw her in just a bit more to grasp his keys completely. “what are you doing out here? it’s so cold.” he began to rattle off in what he assumed was her native language, much more comfortably than before.

something in him felt, disappointed. this is where she ended up if she was adrift in the ocean? a city so tainted by darkness that the sun feared offering up it’s rays, as if shinning a light on it would show the world the evils that lied there.

<º)))><

South Korea? Kiyomi’s head tilted as she struggled to recall if that name was in her memories but found nothing. “Is that close to Yamato?” 

It didn’t take her long to start shivering, her breath puffing away in clouds from her lips. The only place on her body that she didn’t wear the damage from her journey across the sea and subsequent months of scavenging was her eyes, always bright and trusting. Ever since that terrible day the world had shown itself to be so much bigger than she could possibly imagine from the shore of her little island. And so she looked to it with awe as to her everything was as it was meant to be.

“Well, I have no where else to go, so I stay here,” Unable to help it, her fingers lingered on his, greedily latching onto the warmth there. The sensation only reminding her body what a state other than ice felt like, “Am I not supposed to? Is this place sacred?”

[kiyomivc]

vc-cdn​:

(╯°□°)╯

It had all happened too quickly, faster than he could even think to move, he was holding Kiyomi, their faces pressed close, both of them wearing twin expressions of surprise. He couldn’t help it, in his frozen state, when he looked at her for a moment too long before squeezing his eyes shut.

From behind his eyes, he could still see the flush of her cheeks, the delicate slope of her nose the tip of it as well as her lips both pink from the cold. Even if he had been hiding away in his room, as far away from the outside world as he could be, it wasn’t the lack of human interaction that made him realize just how pretty she was. Pretty wasn’t even the right word, barely even scratching the surface of it really, but his head was a jumbled mess, fuzzy even without the demon there. It wouldn’t do him any good to look any closer or any longer, mostly in fear of finding something else to find himself getting lost staring at about her.

He blinked again, eyes opening just as she went to look away, untangling herself from him. It was a weirdly bittersweet feeling, thankful for the space between them but strangely unhappy about it at the same time. He could barely breathe, but what little breath he did have still managed to get caught in his throat when he realized their hands were still linked. As she turned away from him, he found himself trying to scrabble for any sort of air, inhaling as deeply as he could. For a quick moment, he swore he could smell the salt of the ocean air.

Watching Kiyomi, still shaking off the remainder of his stupor, his brow furrowed. Following after her to kneel in the snow, he watched her finger etching lines in the snow, sharp lines dragging in the white expanse.

But then his face was contorting again, shocked again. The window—he hadn’t spoken to anyone about what sat inside his mind, where the demon stayed when Doyun had control over himself. Seeing it etched so plainly in the snow in sharp lines made him stumble backward just a little, almost losing his footing, gaping like a fish.

“You saw it? The window—” He asked, breathless. He looked again, but it wasn’t the same. In his mind, the window was always clean, pristine as though the demon spent countless hours tending to that single pane of glass that separated them. There was never blood or fire, just inky calm, toiling on, sheathing that corner of his mind in darkness.

“I—” Doyun tried, and again, “Why?” He found himself asking, for lack any other words, stunned once and then again in the same few moments.

<º)))><

His first question made her pause, tugged by his movement away from the picture. The panic in his eyes had her frozen, suddenly scared that she was making a mistake. He was going to write her off or worse, walk away. But it was too late, she couldn’t take away her sketch in the snow.

“You- you said you’d believe me, remember? Even if it’s strange or … out there.” Her voice wavered, desperate, as her fingers trembled against his, “I’m not crazy. Or lying. I promise!”

“I see things, usually after people touch me. Pictures like this,” As she spoke it became harder and harder for her to catch her breath, “I don’t know what they mean, but I know they’re true. And I saw something happen to you. A purple sky came in the window, but the other one didn’t like it. So then the sky moved to you. I wanted to stop it but I couldn’t move. Please, please believe me.”

Taking a deep breath, her brows pinched as pain bloomed from her legs, chest, and head and a ringing rang shrill in her ears. Wincing, she closed her eyes tight until it passed, but it refused to, in fact it only became more intense. “What’s happening?” She gasped, her free hand pressing against her chest but only feeling the fabric of her jacket.

[kiyomivc]

vc-cdn​:

(╯°□°)╯

Stunned, Doyun found himself getting pulled down by the corners of his scarf, bending down. Confused, he squeezed his eyes shut, fully not prepared for the kisses she planted gently on his forehead. His eyes opened, if only just to blink once and again, trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened.

“Deal.” He said almost immediately as he nodded.

And after, “I’m sorry, for the demon.” Doyun found himself saying, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in his nervousness. Even if it wasn’t him directly being reprimanded, it still felt like it.

Even after all this time, the most he’d been able to do was be at a standstill with the thing loitering inside his body. He knew the thing was weak for what it was, but Doyun was still human, and far more fragile than the weakest of any demon. Kiyomi, whatever it was that she did, had the demon scared, trying to fight it’s way out of his consciousness for once instead of in.

For a moment, he stood in silence, feeling the demon settling down somewhat, no longer a high-pitched frequency. After a while, the demon’s static hummed again, as far away as it had ever been in his awakened consciousness. It was unnerving, despite how much he hated it, it was strange to barely feel it. Almost quiet, for a moment. And then it came back, just once, sharp and painful, almost a reminder. Fucker.

Looking around, the crowd had dissipated, throwing him off. How long had they been standing there for the place to have emptied? Were the trees about to get lit up? Had they already been lit? Everything was going exactly as he hadn’t wanted it to. But then again, it was hard to dwell on such things when Kiyomi was there with him.

“Everyone’s gone,” he found himself saying rather stupidly, “do you think they lit the tree already?”

<º)))><

Set in motion at the moment of his agreement, she kept hold of his hand as she guided them towards the snow only to look over her shoulder at his apology, “Doyun,” Using the patch of ice under her feet, she wanted to spin to face him but came at the task with too much energy resulting in her twirling too much, winding his arm around her before stumbling. Kiyomi let out a laugh, bright and twinkling, dizzy in the moment once she found her footing, the happy sound catching as his face was suddenly way closer than she expected. 

Any words in her head evaporating, her mind deciding that now would be a good time to notice that he had rather pretty eyelashes. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she felt immense heat settle and spread from her cheeks, turning from her usual peachy glow into a strawberry in a matter of seconds. Gaze fluttering around everywhere except him, she unwound them and pressed her free hand to her face once she had him behind her.

She almost asked what he meant but she was preoccupied with catching the fragments of her thoughts that had been cast aside like ocean spray. Despite her embarrassment, their fingers remained linked even when she crouched to draw in the snow. Her nose wrinkled at the slight sting of cold against her finger as she made a rectangle.

“The first time, when it touched me after we met, I saw this,” Starting at the top left corner, she shakily made the crack in the glass before scooping away the snow on the demon’s edge of the frame, trying to represent the black ooze. Her head tilted as she pondered how to show the violence in the glass before taking 3 of her fingers and making quick scratches in the blank area. “Fire and blood were here,” she said quietly before her attention dropped to the currently untouched bottom of the frame. Her hand hovered over the space before reaching up to press his palm into the snow. As she wiped away the melting snow from his hand, she looked up at him, “That’s you. Both of you. In the same window.”

[kiyomivc]

vc-nhm​:

The Usual Morning Line Up ~ with @vc-nhm​

(ﾉ◉‿◉)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Shit was hitting the fan. Not even the fan, shit was hitting the walls, ceilings, even the fucking floors—there was an indeterminate amount of shit exploding from a singular space and reaching it’s shitty little fingers onto every surface it could find. And usually, it was sort of disgusting, thinking of oneself as excrement, but Masu? Masu was The Shit, capital T and S. The Shit. Because in the midst of all the chaos, while everyone and their mom was trying their best to get their walls cleaned, he was out still getting shit done.

He should find a new word. Shit was getting boring.

How he managed to get up here was, entirely beyond him really. The spirit of Tom Cruise had taken over him, taking him from point A to point B, hopefully with a helicopter being shot out of the sky somewhere between then, and BOOM. He was collecting some sweet, sweet intel to bring home so that Hyunjae could finally cave and build him that Robo-Ass he’d always wanted.

He knew that the Jeups were old in every sense of the word, but damn, the room he was rifling through was a fucking nightmare. Whoever was in charge of the housekeeping here should do a better job. Tohru the dragon maid would never let it get this fucking bad.

Even his beloved God Furby, seated patiently on the giant chair taking up way too much space in the room, was slowly collecting dust. Poor fucking thing.

In the middle of his rummaging, he found himself so lost in his own thoughts that he barely heard the creak of the door opening. And the sound of a… squeaky toy. Fuck. He had known it was too easy getting up here. He’d only seen the guard at the door of another room, slumped over either asleep or somehow dead and standing upright, and thought it was a sign from the universe giving him the green light to keep going. Damn, were the Jeups sneaky, having guards on rotation at random like that. But the squeaky toy was a little random… maybe to draw out people with the element of surprise?

Blinking, he looked up, catching eyes with a woman hovering in the doorway, nose scrunched. Since when did the Jeups keep around an Aerith cosplayer? God, maybe he should have paid attention more. For someone doing super duper secret double agent work, he really was in over his head sometimes.

“Hey,” he said, trying his best to look like he belonged in that dusty room, throwing the woman a smile, “what… what are you doin’?”

The man she found completely belonged in this dusty room, there was no doubt in her mind. Especially with the bubbly melted thing in the chair. There was nothing suspicious or off-putting about this scene at all, to her at least. So she returned his smile as the door clicked shut behind her.

“Hello! My name is Kiyomi,” Cinnamon eyes looked around the room with obvious excitement, like this was a wonderland instead of just a bunch of filing cabinets forgotten among dust, “I’m … lost but on purpose? I forget the word in Korean.”

The bare soles of her feet immediately stained grey as she entered further into the room, approaching the creature that looked rather comfortable in the chair. It was such an unusual texture, it reminded her of okayu. Looking into its objectively unsettling eyes, she also smiled at it and waved, unperturbed by the lack of reaction.

“Are you here to clean too?” Turning to the man, her finger tips fiddled with the ends of her chunky knit sweater that settled on her frame more like a dress.