born to be your villain

[caughtinalies-deactivated201811]

kwon jiyong for dazed magazine, 2016. 

[jiyongs]

GD x Elle Korea

[krjiyong]

‘making mistakes’

[krjiyong]

his breathing is haggard, his limp is getting worse, he doesn’t know exactly where he is. all the stars in the sky are dancing and screaming in the heaven above him, a heaven he’ll never know or experience, he’ll never reach. other people he knows will find their way into light, soft places, but nothing like that waits for a monster like kwon jiyong. he is a only slated for the mud, only belonging to the dirt and grime, the disgusting edges of the world that threaten to pull him down with any given wrong move. he can’t trust anything around him.

but still, he stumbles, he trips, he takes a misstep and finds himself crumbled onto the cement gravel. somewhere around him, he can hear music pulsing around him, and people, their breezy conversations, their jewelry, their perfumes—he is getting closer to civilization. he can’t think for a moment, wondering if he should come nearer to them all, or shrink further away. he is covered in filth, not a pretty sight, and when he lifts his head, he can vaguely make out the figure of a person, a girl, standing just a few meters away.

he growls low in his throat and struggles to push the world away, push himself away from the sidewalk. he decides he doesn’t want to be seen like this, he shouldn’t be here. best to leave the troubled masses to their own destruction for one goddamn night. he just needs to find somewhere to hold up for a little while.

[krjiyong]

‘making death-wishes on shooting stars’

[krjiyong]

maybe he’s living his life in denial, but honestly, it would surprise him at all. someone like jiyong has to live with a certain amount of fantasy kept at the base of his brain, in order to function, in order to continue pressing forward—without it he would go insane. there isn’t any hope for ares, fiery and destructive, hungry without end, killer without remorse. but jiyong has remorse, jiyong has ptsd and the only thing at the moment keeping him from tumbling over the edge of which there’s no turning back from, is his delusions.

and alyiah might be one of those. she’s a real person of course, but her relationship with him might be as solid as a puff of smoke, for all the clues she gives him that she actually likes him. to anyone watching them, it might seem like she doesn’t, like maybe she’s just leading him on, but on some level, he likes being her toy, he likes being messed with. it means he can mess with her too, they can be even. it feels grounding for him, it feels concrete enough to let him smile. besides, for all her protests, she still kisses him hard enough to break mountains, and lets him touch her like he owns her, occasionally.

but as much as he enjoys the rough coarseness of alyiah’s tempter, the way her inner hurricane rears to life behind her eyes, right now he is wounded and even her teasing is making the aching worse. he groans tiredly when she brushes her nose against his, his heart stopping for a moment as she pulls away, but he doesn’t move, continues straining himself forward to meet her. “ahh, so i need to be dead to get a kiss? well, why didn’t you say so before, it’ll probably happen in a few minutes.” he’s being overdramatic and she most likely knows it, but he still grins at her anyway, before flinching and cringing at the stinging of the antiseptic.

he waits a few moments for the pain to subside before tilting his head and reestablishing eye-contact. “i really will be okay, baby, i’ll be alright. i just need a bandage, do you have some of those? i just need the pressure and then i’ll lay down on your floor for a minute where i’ll get the least amount of things dirty, and then be on my way, alright? i heal quickly, it’s not a problem. i won’t stick around too long, i promise.”

[krjiyong]

‘making mistakes’

@krxmihyun

everyone is the enemy, that’s what his brain strives to convince him of. trust nothing, trust no one, fight until your knuckles are bloody, bite until your teeth are chipped to the gums, scream until your voice is hoarse. there is no escape because the whole world is a battlefield and whereas he used to know which side he was on, he used to understand where the lines were, he has come to acknowledge that there are no boundaries. there’s nothing between him and the chaos, there’s nothing between good or bad or right or wrong or up or down. all of it is just struggle—the never-ending war to just survive, make it to the top of whatever pile of shit you’re given before you die.

and death is surprisingly imminent, he realizes as he wanders through the midnight streets, holding his side and feeling blood in his clothes. he spends his nights blundering through the city, cracking his rage against men who do nothing to provoke him except breathe at him wrongly, getting them to punch him back. this is pretty much his whole life; killing strangers, drinking at bars, getting into fights, toying with the idea of death finally claiming his sorry ass in some gutter alleyway one of these days. does he have a death-wish? absolutely. it’s also just a part of his nature, he knows that, a very real background noise in his head, like static, constantly blaring and screaming at him to keep fighting some battle that never ends.

he stumbles over his own feet and coughs up the color red onto the cement sidewalk, reminding himself it’s not so bad. he’s had worse. pain is a threshold he can step back and forth over and even though he can only roughly huff air in and out of his lungs, he determined not to fall. he hates looking weak, even on strange, unfamiliar streets, late at night, where very few people were around him. he can deal and take care of himself—despite the amount of times he’s gone to alyiah’s place to collapse—he doesn’t want to garner any fake pity from anyone.

[krjiyong]

‘monsters on the rise’

[krjiyong]

to someone like jiyong, death is simply a means to an end, part of his job and his blood and his life force. he was raised on it, fed it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert; it is no more evil to him that the night sky that hangs over his head, same as anyone else. he uses it to put fear into people but he himself doesn’t fear it, understanding it better than most, knowing the intricacies and the nastiness of it all. it’s not pleasant, it’s not pretty, it’s never smooth and oftentimes, normal people are surprised by that. they watch the movies and think they can handle it, but they don’t anticipate the way a body will twitch and shudder even after the fatality, the nervous system still kicking long after their spirit goes into the light. they don’t expect the urine, the stench of blood, the pure hideousness of a stiff, dead face.

and jiyong lives his life in that dredge, drapes himself in the disgusting mess of it, weaves the edges of his skin to its horror. and revels in it.

she says “of course” as though it is an obvious choice, to save her by getting rid of him, but he doesn’t know if she really understands the magnitude of what she’s giving permission for. her voice is deep and sturdy, reminiscent of the goddess to which ares pays homage to regularly, but her eyes don’t know him. wide and uncertain, if a bit disgusted and uncomfortable, as anyone would be in such a situation. he studies her facial expressions a moment longer, hesitantly careful of any signs of regret for her words, any belated take-backs.

the guy behind her is somehow appalled at jiyong’s question and her answer, yelling that they shouldn’t be talking, yelling that they need to shut the fuck up, there is nothing for them to discuss. he still thinks he has the upper hand here, still thinks he has leverage enough to convince jiyong to let him live. he thinks he’s walking out of this alleyway alive, and jiyong is about ready to put an end to that nonsense.

the man takes a single step backwards, like he’s about to make a run for it, but jiyong is quicker than any other normal human alive and his accuracy is perfect. he throws the left knife hard enough to puncture through the fist wrapped around the gun handle, piercing through his flesh and into the space of the trigger, jamming it so that the gangster can’t fire. while the man is reeling backwards, only a split second between actions, he throws the other knife straight into his head, through his eye socket.

jiyong rights himself and becomes statuesque as the man falls, his eyes bright and pinned to his figure for a moment, before he steps up slowly to the girl, to persephone queen of the underworld, and asks quietly, “are you alright? why are you out here in the middle of the night?” he knows he’s pretty well covered in blood and not at all a comforting sight at the moment, but he’s wondering if she’s going to be able to hold herself together enough to get herself home. he doesn’t touch her, knowing she might not want that, but he does reach a hand out as though he could steady her with simple presence.

[infyuehua-blog]

.at least the dark don’t hide it

[krjiyong]

he sighs as she takes the cigarette out of his hand, watches with disinterest painting on his face as she very obviously considers tossing it. she ought to know by now he might actually hit her if she does, but he doesn’t say anything, a quiet flame burning at his center, a charcoal heart slowly beating the embers throughout his bloodstream. she does things to irritate him, probably not completely understanding the ways in which he and ares have melted together or split apart. jiyong is the type to want to lead a healthier life, working out, staying fit, eating greens. ares is the self-destructive chain-smoker, the one who smiles at the sight of blood, the one who laughs at men with PTSD.

he takes the cig back from her, catching it before she tries to fucking touch him, but he doesn’t let himself get angry at her. he doesn’t smile back at her, repositioning the stick between his lips and side-eying her grin, nodding a bit in acknowledgement, but he doesn’t return the light-heartedness. “true.” he replies in the simplest form, because, well, he is disgusting. no one can slaughter as many people as he has for such awful reasons as he has without bearing the mark of the truly abhorrent.

he can’t change that about himself, not even for her, his daughter, and all her vengeance for justice type ways.

he listens to her story, both their eyes pinned on the same spot, and deep inside him, he feels ares growl. he’s seen things like that before, in jungles of trees and dust and sand—the way men pretend to own women, through sex and pain. he’s been around it far too much, although he can say for himself at least that he hasn’t ever gone that far with another human being. ares is a different matter but most of his most gruesome acts are still fuzzy and indistinguishable from the centuries of simple warfare.

he chuckles and shakes his head a bit as she pulls off a piece of stone and crushes it. he wonders if she’s this gusto about every target she takes on or if she’s just showing off. when she mentions about this target’s entourage through, is when he finally takes a deep breath and nods. “ahh thank the gods, for a moment i worried you’d brought me out here just to kill one guy.” he’d brought way too many knives and bullets just to take out one single asshole. a group of assholes is much better prospects.

“the number of men doesn’t matter,” he tells her, reassuringly—which he’s sure he doesn’t need to say. the two of them together are pretty well unstoppable, and that’s when he does finally look over at her with a slight upwards quirk of his lips, a dark grin reminiscent of every moment preceding a good battle. “i don’t usually try for slow deaths, but for you, i’ll do my best. let’s just go out there and have some fun.”

a trickle of excitement flows through his veins as a couple of cars pull up and a few men step out. jiyong’s never seen them before but jihyo will know which of them is the true target, he’s sure. he’ll follow her lead on this one. “just say when.”

[krjiyong]

‘be careful making wishes in the dark’ past

[krjiyong]

in jiyong’s line of work, he’s more than used to seeing people startle or get scared around him, often being the cause of it and relishing in their off-balance natures. it’s not so much that he himself cannot be scared or surprised, but he can’t ever remember jumping like that in any remotely innocent sort of way, like it’s a joke or an anecdote. he doesn’t like being surprised and as such whenever anyone tries it, he often just falls into a worser mood that he’d been in before

but even though he doesn’t usually find other people unsettled being cute, something about the way this girl flips around, her eyes wide, her cheeks red, the tiny hand just barely covering over her lip—it’s a bit adorable and it just pulls his smirk a little bit wider. him calling her beautiful had just been simply to catch her attention at first but now that he’s face-to-face with her, it’s actually quite accurate. he hardly notices her staring until she spins back around away from him, breaking the eye-contact they’d shared ( since he’d sort of been eyeing her as well ), and now he can’t really help but feel slightly embarrassed for no reason.

he tilts his head at the vending machine in front of them, spotting the problem and mulling over their options. they could go and get someone with a key to open it up, or bang on the glass more than she already has been, but that doesn’t seem to be working and it’ll take up too much time. and there’s something in the air at the moment that he doesn’t want to crush with the presence of another person; he’s got to fix this himself.

he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a few coins, stepping around her although he doesn’t try to obstruct her view on what he’s doing. he pays the meter and presses the same numbers she had to get the drink, causing another soda to fall on top of hers, letting it loose and both drinks clattered into the opening. he retrieves them, the smile still adorning his lips and straightens up again to hand over the prize. “just a drink, no food? if you’re hungry, there’s better joints than this..” he leans back against the machine a little bit. “there’s a restaurant just downstairs, you know.” it might be a little too subtle of him to be saying when he really means to ask her to eat with him, but maybe the look in his eyes will be enough to insinuate his intentions.

[krxseunghoon-blog]

» sweeter bitter.

[krjiyong]

a wasteful night. the world spins on its axis, atlas’s shoulders heavy and brooding, and the stars in the sky are brighter than any hope or dream jiyong has ever had in his entire life. the sight of them makes him despair, but he has nothing to quell it with, not enough money to pay for rent and drowning himself in alcohol at the same time, so he has to make a choice, and he has to do it without thinking about what the ares part of him would want, because that answer is clear. the temptation is so real that even now on his night off, when he should be at home nursing his wounds, he’s here, prowling the streets like a lone wolf, a monster with pretty teeth and a slight frame.

he doesn’t know what he’s searching for, but he thinks of jihyo and how she wanders through the city trying to save people. he doesn’t want to be like that, he’s no one’s savior, but it’s so easy to find the corrupt in this town, it’s so casual with its torture. sex dens on any street corner, yells and shouts and lewd remarks from the alleyways, drunk groups of stupid kids making their way from club to club. he passes all of them by, not giving anyone the time it would take to even just look up from the ground. he’s not interested. he’s empty. he’s a wasteland.

but then the sound of fists on skin fill up his hearing, the pressure of boots against someone’s gut, coughing up blood, cringing at the sudden pain—all of these things jiyong knows too well to not recognize instantly. he finally looks up, looks around, hunt around the corner for the sight of two guys in the middle of a mugging, and jiyong grits his teeth. he’s no hero, he doesn’t like standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves, but in the heat of the moment, ares is always ready for a fight. he growls and rushes at the kid doing the kicking, who sees him in time and takes off running. jiyong can’t tell if he got the wallet or not, but once he hears the small, weakened pleas behind him, the familiar voice broken and damaged, all of that ceases to matter.

he turns back to the boy on the ground and his eyes widen. he hadn’t been searching for anything this night, but here he is, standing in front of one of the softest spots in jiyong’s soul. seeing him down like that, crumpled up and bleeding and gasping for breath, twists something inside jiyong like a knife, and he drops to the ground in front of him. “seunghoon..?” shit shit shit—he fumbles a bit and feels around the boy’s chest and torso, checking for broken ribs or punctures or anything, his hands frantic and nervous. nothing, thankfully.

ares rears his fury for a moment, burning jiyong’s eyes into glowing red, and all he wants to do is follow that sonovabitch, track him down, and murder him in the most gruesome way possible, very bloody, very painfully, and in several severed pieces. he growls and grits his teeth, looking over his shoulder after the assailant. but he knows if he leaves seunghoon here, worse could happen to him.

he turns back to him and comes in very close, pulling his arm around jiyong’s shoulders. “can you stand? come on, i’m getting you out of here…” he tries to be gentle, tries to be careful, but he’s never been able to handle delicate things ( always the bull in the china shop ) and seunghoon is human—human, human, so breakable, so fragile, so pliable and good and sweet, and he doesn’t deserve this shit. jiyong deserves this shit. he almost unconsciously puts a hand on seunghoon’s cheek, getting him to look at him. “can you stay awake? seunghoon…”

[krhanbyul]

♢ savagery.

[krjiyong]

this is exactly the reason why jiyong never does the hero thing. shit never turns out the way one would expect it to, the way one would hope it would. you’d think if you’re going out of your way to help someone in a crisis, they would at least be civil enough to give a simple thank you or a grunt or something, even if you had wildly misunderstood the situation, but a few times now jiyong has done something for someone and it’s just completely backfired on him with no warning or recompense.

at the moment she comes up to him, he is a bit busy with the drunken scoundrel, his singular goal for a whole ten seconds being to beat the life right out of him. what’s the world without one more scumbag in it right? jihyo would be so proud of him right now maybe—perhaps she’s actually rubbing off on him a little bit. is that sort of thing even possible though? he’s older than her. well, sort of, in spirit, which is really the only bit that matters to him in this particular case ( that and the fact that his ares side of him is absolutely never going to forgive that her host was born before jiyong was and ergo, he’s younger than his own daughter; talk about a shit show ).

he’s in the middle of a strike though when she grabs him and punches him hard enough to push him off balance into the grimy alleyway floor, effectively off the other man, still unconscious. with anyone else, that might have knocked them the fuck out, or broken something, but ares is burning under the surface of jiyong’s skin, bringing him power and density and strength. he raises a hand up to his jaw and turns up to look at her, his eyes shining red and furious, and for a dangerous moment, ares wants to attack her too. how dare she hit him? who the fuck does she think she is?

but then he takes a closer look, jiyong’s mind working even when ares doesn’t want to, and he sees something else festering inside her. she’s stronger than she ought to be. it means something, doesn’t it? all the same though, she hit him, which puts him right out of the helpful mood he’d been in. “what the fuck, bitch?” he growls, pushing himself up off the gravel. “fine then, my mistake. i didn’t realize you liked it rough in an alley like this, sorry to interrupt you and your boyfriend here. i’m sure if you get him to the hospital soon, he won’t die from cranial damage. or maybe he will. i don’t really give a fuck.” he raises his hand to his jaw again, knowing it’ll probably bruise. he should ought to hit her back for that, he’s angry enough, but why waste his time here any longer? he turns to leave.

[jiyongs]

권지용 Making Film

[krjiyong]

‘irrational irritation’

[krjiyong]

telling seunghoon about jiyong’s life, his real life, his real job, what he actually does during the days and nights away, had been a mistake. he had slipped up, stumbled all over himself in his pursuit of happiness, desperate hands reaching for any sort of bliss he could grasp, and he had thought relieving himself of the burdens that haunt him by confessing to the only angel who would even look at him, would be the way to go. jiyong had been stressing and prying himself apart in front of the other, and when seunghoon’s soft hands had come up around jiyong’s face, his lips against jiyong’s eyelids, gentle words, silken kisses, comfort and warmth and beauty, jiyong just came undone. he’d told seunghoon everything, with tears streaming down his face and fear gripping his heart.

because who could ever love someone like this? who could ever imagine spending the rest of their life with a guy who murders people he doesn’t even know? haunted by their spirits in his dreams, in his thoughts, in his daily cup of morning coffee? why would seunghoon ever stay? why is he still staying even now? jiyong can’t quite be sure if he had told him to scare him away on purpose or give him a reason to dump him… or if he really had been seeking something the god of war would never let him achieve?

either way, it doesn’t matter now—the boy knows now and has stayed anyway. seunghoon is still here, is still standing there, looking at him, smooth cheeks, concerned eyes, teeth over his bottom lip in worry, as though jiyong is the one that needs to be worried over. it’s not him though, it’s everyone else—jiyong is nothing but a weapon, a killer, engorged in his own mess, entrenched in his own bloodlust. the world should be kept away from him, small children with terror in their faces, beautiful boys with nothing but love in their hearts. just stay away.

jiyong wants to die, wants to vomit, wants to cut himself open and pull out this disease, this acidic tumor of a god inside him, find some way to be clean—but even as he thinks that, he knows, he knows, he knows… he never would. he enjoys it too much, and that’s the awful truth. he likes who he is and what he does, it gives him power and control and the fury is as much a part of him as it ever was for ares. and releasing that fury is not like something else taking over him, it’s more like stepping into who he actually is, beneath all the skin and hair and fingernails; some beast, some monster, all claws and steel and maddening hatred.

and seunghoon doesn’t deserve to be chained to something like this. he looks up at the other, the water running from the faucet, soap still on his hands as he leans against the sink in the bathroom. for a moment, meeting the other’s gaze, all he wants to do is lean over and kiss him, fuck all these emotions, fuck the suds and the water and the time of evening, and just make love to him in the hallway, bury himself in the feeling of seunghoon’s sighs and moans. but then he blinks and hears the wailing of that little girl’s mother.

he shuts the water off and growls. “i don’t want a fucking therapist, seunghoon. you shouldn’t have stayed up for me, okay?” he glares up at his boyfriend. “this isn’t a bedtime story, stupid. do you see this?” he tugs gently on his shirt, the blood splatter across it. “why the fuck do you want me to talk about it? what’s wrong with you?” he pushes past the boy, furrowing his eyebrows into a dark scowl and heads into the bedroom to start taking off his clothes. “it’s not going to help okay, nothing ever helps, ever.” his hands are shaking.

[krjiyong]

poseidon: is something burning?

ares, leaning seductively against the counter: only my desire for you.

poseidon: ares, the toaster is on fire.

[krjiyong]

‘making death-wishes on shooting stars’

[krjiyong]

as expected, she is growly at him for trying to order her around, poseidon never one to take a command, even by the ultimate general of heaven, but he supposes, sure, he might be a little out of line with it. not that rankings matter here very much anymore, not when their relationship has changed so drastically from what it had once been. he can still vaguely recall the mild irritation he’d always had for the godking of the sea, their familial ties meaning almost nothing when it came to ego or bravado. ares had always tried to be reverent to his uncle figure though, at least showing him more respect than his own sire, zeus, but ares had never really given much of a deferential attitude to any of the gods, period.

one can only imagine his surprise and shock at his first sight of her, of the sea lord, stuck in the body of a blonde, gorgeous woman—definitely not the shell he would have assumed someone as proud as Poseidon would pick, but then after getting to know her, he’d realized real quick just how perfect she fit the criteria. and somehow it’s a lot sexier coming from her than it had ever been from her god counterpart. beforehand, he’d always wanted to fall asleep whenever poseidon opened his mouth, but now he just wants to get alyiah out of her pajamas and into the bedroom.

he chuckles at her response though, never denying him his wish for a drowning. she’s obviously thought about killing him a few times now, but she never would, even though he’d probably let her if she accompanied it with a kiss. he practically falls against the toilet seat, a white-knuckled grip on the wall to steady himself as his face contorts in pain and sweat for a moment, his lungs heaving painfully shallow breaths. he feels better sitting down, but only just barely, and for a moment, he just shuts his eyes and holds onto the wound with his other hand, pressing into it to stop the bleeding.

at her request, he peeks up at her and lets the shit-eating grin pull at his lips again. time for another diversion. “trying to get me out of my clothes already? i’m starting to wonder if this whole nurse’s office thing is a turn-on for you—it definitely is for me.” he grunts but leans forward a bit, reaching out for her again, his limbs moving by instinct at this point. “if i do, can i have a kiss? for my last dying wish?” eventually he does finally relent to her insistence, but he can’t lift his arm to pull the shirt up, so he ends up just ripping it open down the front. he looks like a horror movie, all scars and tattoos, sticky red and black from his blood mixing with mud and dirty outside.

honestly, he’s had worse.

[krjiyong]

‘to my favorite scar’

[krjiyong]

the intensity of her gaze manages to pin him to the spot like a bug and even with all his strength and otherworldly understanding of struggle and battle and fighting, he is helpless in the light of her eyes, the way the sunbeams reach out and caress the blonde strands in her hair, the way she stands there in the light, a perfect image completely frozen, same as him. she is beautiful but in the way that statues are beautiful, impossible to communicate with or feel any warmth from. she stands there in the light, her eyes wide and questioning, just like his and the only thing he can think of for sure is; is that really you?

he wants to say something, mouth something at her, but what? he can’t just tell her to wait or stop or meet him somewhere, that would be too awkward wouldn’t it? he presses his lips together in an effort to keep all his words inside, all the things he knows he wants to say to her that don’t make any sense like “i broke us and i wish i hadn’t” but he’s not even sure if that’s true. he’s not sure of anything at the moment, because even this might be some sort of mirage, some hallucination from working out too hard? or maybe it’s not her, it’s just someone who looks a lot like her.

but then she jolts away, turning and heading into the locker room, and jiyong is certain, absolutely positive—it is her. why would anyone else look at him like that, like they could remember him and live to regret it. he watches her rush away and for a moment, the panic doesn’t let him react or move, not until she disappears and the driving need to see her again bangs inside his chest, like an addict, already hooked on her spell. he rushes across the gym, running around people and almost running into them, before approaching the girl’s locker room.

he wants to knock on it, he wants to go inside—but if he does, he’ll probably be kicked out of the building and never allowed back in. he pants and paces a little bit in front of the door, his thumbnail stuck between his teeth as he bites down and tries to think up a way around this, a way to talk to her. is there a backdoor to that room? doesn’t she have to come out sometime? maybe he should just wait?

or maybe membership to this goddamn gym is proving to be not as important as the urge to see her and speak to her. even though he doesn’t even know what to say. he doesn’t even know how to formulate his thoughts coherently—at this point it’s all gut inertia. her face, her eyes, the way she’s all grown up now mix inside his head with the memories of her laughter, her sighs, the way she used to run her fingers through his hair to help him sleep. shit, they’d only been around each other for a summer, back when they were both softer and brighter souls, but jiyong had never fallen so hard for someone before, and she had been so pure.

he’d been forced to leave her—it hadn’t been his idea, but he didn’t have a choice and he hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. fuck, she probably hates him by now ( he would hate himself by now ) but maybe if he could explain himself, explain what happened… what? what’s the point? think, jiyong, it’s not like she’s going to say she forgives and forgets and now they can be jolly good friends again or something. except they had never been friends in the first place, he’s pretty sure he waited a grand total of six hours after meeting her before kissing her, and he was fairly certain he couldn’t really be friends with her again now either.

still though, he can’t just go up and knock on the door. he goes over to a table with some sign up papers and writes a little note on the backside of it, before going up to one of the ladies about to head inside. “i’m sorry to bother you, but um… there’s a girl in there with blonde hair, named jin. can you please hand this note to her?” he gives it to the lady, who hesitantly accepts the task but only after reading it herself and approving of it.

the note is short and to the point: “jin, i know you’re in there and maybe you don’t want to talk to me, but please? i can’t believe it to see you again, i need to talk to you. please. i’m begging, from my heart to yours.”

[s-tttop]

Untitled, 2014

[infyuehua-blog]

.at least the dark don’t hide it

Death’s gonna hold us up in the mirror, say: we look so much alike, we must be brothers. See, I had a job to do, but people like you have been doing it to one another. || @krjiyong

Jihyo is no longer the fragile girl she once was. Within her sleeps the soul of a warrior, of a queen, and she clawed her way through the ages to find her, to find solace within the hollow of her bones. Jihyo would not negate that honor, would not treat it lightly. This wisp of an ancient being, this glimpse of power, of might, she would see it live.

Jihyo knew she was unlike many, that this power reigning within her veins was a privilege. A responsibility. A queen took care of her own always and her kingdom would be safe. So she learned the names of men, of the enemy, and then she made those names go away.

That was when she met him.

Her first instinct, of course, had been to make his name disappear from time too, to let his memory fade before it could settle within her mind. But the voice inside her had stirred and stopped her. Trust him, she had spoken, and Jihyo would not disobey orders. She knew that whatever this voice inside her was, it would not hurt her. It was like a mother, and a mother doesn’t hurt her child.

She must admit, that by now, watching him light a cigarette in the darkness of night as they waited for their target, there was something like… understanding between them. She would not say friendship, not truly, but perhaps something like it. At least he didn’t hide it. He was clear, exactly what you would expect. Rude and gruff and tough as nails, all sharp edges and cigarette ashes. Jihyo liked that, the clearness of it, the acceptance of it, the fight in him.

Crude, of course, but what was to be expected of a man?

[krjiyong]

it’s not something jiyong likes talking about very often, but having ares dwell inside his soul is a massive pain in the ass most of the time. the being is like a fire kindling just beneath the layers of his skin, a never-ending cackling of heat and motion, an anxiousness that won’t ever simmer down. he feels like the embodiment of a flame, constantly burning, constantly needing movement to survive, needing something to destroy and feed upon. it drives him mildly insane sometimes but since the god of war chose him to live through, he supposes he is the only human around that could be capable of handling such intensity.

he wants to be flattered, but it’s more simply irritating, same as everything being irritating to him honestly—although not usually so much as right this moment. under the pressure of needing to be silent and calm, still as death and twice as stealthy, ares tends to get even more troublesome. while it may be jiyong’s job to kill people from afar, distanced and removed, ares despises such means. ares would much rather go for the blunt-force murder, raging and terrifying his prey, every centimeter of him aching for a bloodlust that jiyong rarely indulges. he’s not a good guy, by any means, but he can’t just let himself go slaughtering people whenever the urge hits.

it’s difficult to quell, however, when he’s in the presence of jihyo, not because she angers him ( although there is that sometimes ) but more because whenever they contact each other for jobs, it’s either because he has need of her skills for a task, or she has need of his. and whenever she has need of him, it’s because of a particularly nasty target. jihyo is more than capable of handling herself, housing the spirit of one of the greatest warrior queen history has ever documented, and his own spirit’s daughter, but she doesn’t necessarily have the same type of weapons training as he does. not yet anyway, he’s still training her as often as they can both get together at the gym.

there is a certain, small swell of pride that jiyong gets whenever he looks at her, ares blooming from the idea that his girl is out here on the streets murdering men she dislikes. ares may be a masculine deity, but gods do not actually have genders, and as such, he’s %100 in favor of her taking out however many men she wants to. he’s less inclined to be so picky about his targets sexual identity, but he certainly cannot blame her.

although even so, she and jiyong do not necessarily get along well. he doesn’t have similar feelings towards her as ares does. the uneasiness of having to sit there for so long finally gets to him and he pulls out and lights up a cigarette, breathing in on it for a moment as he stares out at nothing. target hasn’t arrived yet.

“shake your head, kid, your eyes are stuck,” he whispers around the stick, loud enough for only her to hear. he knows she’s physically older than he is, but that really never computes for him, being somehow millennia older than her. he doesn’t say it rudely though, instead tilting his head towards her a bit to give her a side-eyed look with a gleam in them, the corners of his lips curling upwards. “wanna remind me again who this guy is that we’re hunting? he maimed his own daughter or something?”