LIKE AN ANIMAL

&& — ` what did they aim for when they missed your h e a r t ?? “ cause your soul is on fire, a shot in the dark.” ✖ ✖ ✖ ( oh sehun — “ shapeshifter december 2015 champion !! )

[phsehun-blog]

champion’s road

[mariicn]

[ ... ]

[phsehun-blog]

sehun briefly wondered if this was what it truly felt like to be a celebrity, having a manager oversee everything and even make his decisions for him, whether or not it was welcomed. junho had manipulated the conversation and situation to his liking, taking little to no consideration for sehun’s input on anything, even if he needed permission. junho’s crass attitude certainly made for an interesting visit from sehun’s first neighbor, and while the older male was insufferable in his own quirky way, sehun figured he’d take a dramatically senile champion over a chirpy mary-sue in a heartbeat. jerks he could deal with--maybe even feel some mutual hatred for--but the people that genuinely wanted to be his friend were the real hassles.

compared to them, a peeved junho was a godsend. perhaps not a godsend, but sehun was starting to think the other champion was rather eccentric and interesting enough to invite into his own home. after all, he had spent nearly months studying junho’s fighting tactics and had grown “attached” to him in a way a child would feel a nostalgic fondness for his favorite superhero. junho, unfortunately, was a bit too antagonistic to be a superhero but sehun liked villains all the same. hating everybody the way junho did surely would have driven him to the brink of insanity long before anyone could subject him to psychological torture, or whatever junho had warned him about.

“first ally, huh?” his nose twitched in an almost feline manner, tuning in and out of yet another one of junho’s monologues. meanwhile, he fetched the other champion a tray of assorted biscuits and two cups of chamomile tea, pinching a madeline between his own pursed lips. the true welcoming committee had left him quite the stash of food and a gift basket of snacks for his official move-in, and... he supposed they had sent junho on his way to “welcome” him, too. nibbling off a piece of the treat, sehun circled around the sofa and took a seat on the farthest end from the older male. he figured junho would throw another fit about sehun having no respect for personal space if he so much as breathed the same air as him, anyway.

“why are you so against making allies?” he asked curiously, reaching for what looked like a pistachio-flavored cookie. his favorite. he wondered if he had mentioned something that trivial in a post-tournament interview once. “i’ve been alone my entire life. it’s not something i’d recommend someone else to try.” wiping the crumbs from his mouth, sehun then took a sip of his lukewarm tea. 

[phsehun-blog]

dog eat dog

[ravixph-deactivated20160802]

[ ... ]

[phsehun-blog]

the bleeding had gotten better, at least. his wound wasn’t gushing like a hole in a dam with every weakened palpitation of his heart, but still trickling consistently enough for it to be a health concern. every fresh layer of gauze he pressed to it was rapidly staining in crimson as if it was absorbing his life’s essence rather than keeping it all inside the sickly champion.

this was a rather pathetic way to go, wasn’t it? sehun’s feline eyes wandered aimlessly to take in every detail of what could soon be his final resting place. he hadn’t expected to die this dramatically, even if a part of him had always thought he’d die on that tournament field, crushed and mangled horrifically by some other experiment’s ability, then made a token for entertainment. at least his death wouldn’t be desecrated to that extent in this cozy man-cave that wasn’t nearly as foreboding as it had looked on the outside.

accepting his fate, sehun lied back, gaze trained on the ceiling that swirled like it was a giant kaleidoscope. his hand still pressed over the bloody sheet of cotton over his slowly, but surely coagulating wound. he was still on the verge of passing out, though, when ravi approached him with what looked like a first aid kit in his possession. except, sehun knew that specialized kit didn’t contain your everyday bandages and ointment. “well... is the bad news that it’s going to hurt a lot?” he guessed whimsically, shielding his sore eyes with his arm. that, he had figured long ago when he had asked ravi to cauterize him.

even so, that brief jolt of pain couldn’t compare to the days sehun had spent at the mercy of men who literally ripped him into tiny parts and pieced him together again. hundreds of stitched scars covered his torso, just barely holding together the the real horrors that lay beneath his grafted skin. a stab wound was nothing. 

“... and the good news is that i’ll get a lollipop after this?” he dryly humored himself.

[phsehun-blog]

dog eat dog

[ravixph-deactivated20160802]

[ ... ]

[phsehun-blog]

when sehun’s consciousness returned just half an hour later, it and the searing pain throbbing on some random patch of his shoulder crawled back slowly. he barely felt it until he felt the salt of ravi’s fingers and the dry, stringy pads of gauze sting his mangled flesh like he was being licked by a flame. the feeling was dull at first, but intensified the longer his senses had time to come to, magnifying unbearably by the time sehun opened his feline eyes.

a cat-like hiss sounded in the pit of his throat, a sound his modified vocal chords rarely produced unless something triggered his flight-or-fight response. there was something--or someone--causing him this discomfort and in his current state, all he could do to protect himself was sound a verbal warning. his pupils narrowed into slits as they darted left and right, trying to make sense of the bizarre set of translucent arms that grew from the stranger’s backside. naturally, his imagination leaped to the worst possible scenario: had ravi knocked him out, then dragged him into his awfully suspicious-looking van to harvest his organs? had he woken up just in time to see that one of his kidneys was missing?

well, that didn’t quite explain why only his shoulder throbbed nor the reason why ravi’s extra hands held gauze and nothing else. still, he was in a very vulnerable position and couldn’t afford to have the wool pulled over his eyes again. sehun forced a shaky breath through his nostrils, trying to breathe away the dizziness that he felt even if he lied flat against what felt like the other male’s bed. he had lost far too much blood to risk sitting upright with all the vertigo rushing to his head, so he stayed still for his own good, but still, he had questions.

“do you know what you’re doing?” was his first question of many just like it, trying to peer at what the other male was attempting to do. he wasn’t sure if ravi was helping him or just prolonging his inevitable death from blood loss. he leaned on his good shoulder and blinked away the sweat that trickled from his brow. “how long was i...” his shaky gaze wandered to the ephemeral arms. “how long was i out?”

[sebaeked]

sehun needs to stop

[phsehun-blog]

dog eat dog

[ravixph-deactivated20160802]

[ ... ]

[phsehun-blog]

it would have been so easy to utter a false name to match his veiled identity and pull the wool over the stranger’s eyes. it would have been the wiser decision, anyway, considering how a hefty fraction of the void despised tournament champions as the lotus berserkers had already so generously proved. a white lie couldn’t hurt if telling the truth could jeopardize his chance at receiving medical attention, but, at the same time, sehun took ravi to be somewhat of a neutral party. an honest answer wouldn’t screw him over as terribly as the opposite would and ravi came across as the type of person that valued such sentiments like trust and honesty.

“sehun,” he answered curtly, averting his gaze out of habit, and so ravi wouldn’t be able to immediately match his name to an all-too-familiar face on television. he wasn’t too concerned, though. the other male would have identified him much earlier as a champion if he had known. “i’m not intending to stay the night,” he made his intentions clear that he wouldn’t overstay his welcome, nor was he interested in dishing out more information than what ravi already knew better than most. “i’d have to tip you if you take me back to my place.” it was a poorly executed joke, but his attempt at humor covered his trail, at least.

he clutched his coagulating wound, thicker blood seeping through the cracks of his hand and staining the entire left shoulder of his sweater in a deep patch of crimson that resembled black. it really wasn’t the pain that he was concerned about so much as the blood loss, which would most likely cripple his trip back home. sehun had to reserve at least some stamina to morph into a creature that could get from one place to another without exerting so much energy. a hawk, maybe.

sehun huffed, almost wishing he hadn’t asked to spare himself the idle chatter. for every word sehun spoke, ravi returned five sentences, and the time that lapsed during their conversation caused the raven-haired male to sway and lean against the tagged vehicle with a tired exhale. “well, it’s a luxury for now,” he spoke with some trouble. “i might--” 

his head was spinning, slowly, then with nauseating speed, until sehun felt light-headed enough to stagger against ravi with a dry wheeze.

then, everything went black.

[phsehun-blog]

????

Do you ever get tired of yourself? I mean, mentally, does it fatigue you to be so unnecessarily crabby towards everyone you meet?

I wonder if I go down the road I’m going now, I’ll end up being extremely senile like you in a few years?

You called me a kid. How old are you anyway?

Better question: why are you such an ass?

They call this “pulling one’s pigtails” when you bully someone for no reason, don’t they? You must have one fat crush on me, am I right? 

It’s okay, I’m into older guys.

[rpsentencestarters]

Send ⁇⁇ and my muse will blurt out any and all questions they've always wanted to ask yours.

[daenso]

ethereal sehun / bts sehun (céci magazine)

[phsehun-blog]

champion’s road

[mariicn]

[ ... ]

[phsehun-blog]

child? sehun was well-aware that he was the youngest victor of the jindallae tournaments to date, but he didn’t think his age qualified for him to be addressed as a child, especially by someone who looked no older than twenty himself. he was hardly offended, though; there were worse names to be called and certainly more productive things he could be doing than brood over a callous word or two.

“oh, i see you’ve already picked a nickname for me--” he observed with an almost animal-like twitch of his nose. “cute.”

as the other male rambled about self-hatred and whatnot, sehun slid a heavy box filled with his slightly more personal belongings across the mahogany floors. if junho wanted to stay and lecture him, he couldn’t be bothered to remove a guest who had already invited himself in; besides, he still had plenty of work to do! those boxes packed to the brim with the things he wouldn’t feel comfortable without weren’t going to unpack themselves. 

it was only when the other champion dared to step closer did his bestial instincts kick into play, putting him back at least two steps to widen the gap between them. he stood upright to match his uninvited guest’s height, no longer averting his gaze but narrowing the slits of his feline eyes to adjust to the blinding light flooding behind junho.

“i wasn’t aware champion’s road was overseen by a dictator,” he commented dryly. “really, i appreciate the warm welcome.” perhaps “warm” still wasn’t sarcastic enough to describe how utterly ecstatic he was to hear a self-centered champion gabble on his own pedestal. now, how was he supposed to usher the self-indulged old fart out the door without triggering yet another uninterrupted monologue? 

“you were awfully kind to visit someone you don’t care about, hyung,” sehun took the older male’s offered hand in his and gave it a firm squeeze. “but i’ll keep that in mind.” (no, he won’t.) he withdrew his hand, junho’s palm and fingers now slathered with a thin layer of sticky, pulpy tomato residue.

“so, since you invited yourself in, were you going to leave or did you want some tea and biscuits?”

[phsehun-blog]

champion’s road

[mariicn]

[ ... ]

[phsehun-blog]

sehun had already deduced from his first few hours staying at champion’s road that his neighbors were wonderful folks, and junho visiting to relay his uplifting message really did put the cherry on top of that first impression. he hadn’t expected junho of the delightful bunch of champions to pay him a visit and the irony amused him to some level of dry enjoyment.

junho was like a mentor to him; a mentor he had never met in the flesh before, anyway. sehun had studied him the most meticulously out of all previous champions and knew too much about the infamous marion than the other way around. for months, sehun had studied marion’s fighting technique and pinpointed his weaknesses with military precision, then mimicked those skills in his own moment of triumph. in a way, he owed half of his victory to the man standing before him, even if their motives to win were on opposite sides of the spectrum. would he ever admit any of this? no, it seemed junho could skimp on the extra helping of ego for now.

he shrugged off junho’s words with a stoic expression, his gleaming feline eyes pinned elsewhere. it was a habit of his to avoid eye contact, which made ignoring those he found bothersome much easier when he made it obvious he was paying them no attention. he handled the last moving box full of some tattered comic books and shuffled to the door. “ah--” he huffed in annoyance, turning just his head to glance at the overdressed man still standing in his walkway. “so, are you expecting a gracious bow or a--” sehun grunted, kicking his door wide open. “thank you letter?”

honestly, sehun couldn’t think of any reason marion would personally seek him out other than to be a royal pain in the ass, which was the last thing he needed on his agenda of things to handle. with the last box piled on top of some others that needed to be unpacked, he met marion face-to-face, slyly glancing at the guardsmen that had been patrolling their vicinity for a while. it seemed violent altercations between champions were common here, not that sehun found that fact surprising considering the gold zone was only a glorified prison for the government’s best killers. cage a couple of murderers together and they were bound to stir up some trouble.

“here i thought that your dramatics on camera were all a perfectly construed act but now i’m beginning to think you just are dramatic,” he grinned, clapping box dust from his hands. “so, how can i help you, marion?”

[phsehun-blog]

just visiting

more often than not, sehun felt like the pampered child of an affluent family, receiving lavish gifts left and right from “parents” whom rarely visited. it was convenient, to say the least, having his fridge stocked every morning and all the luxuries one could only dream of left at his doorstep. the government never skimped on presents, it seemed, and it always amused sehun how creative they were at times in choosing what to gift their prized champions.

sometimes, the government sent women. beautifully exotic women clad in nothing but a flamboyantly suggestive pair of underwear that clearly labeled the scandalous nature of their purpose. it actually annoyed him more than it was supposed to arouse him walking into a stark naked prostitute--for lack of a better term--reclining on his sheets like she belonged there. maybe other champions enjoyed this type of free service but to sehun it was a hassle more than anything having to dress the woman in decent clothes and escort her out of his house. occasionally, he kept them for the sake of having company but they were, unsurprisingly, bimbos that had nothing but their body to offer sehun, anyway.

the government hadn’t sent presents of this nature for a while after sehun had returned their sixth escort just a few weeks ago. he hoped they were catching on, and he thought they were, before he came home to a note posted on his door. a memo this fancy could only mean the government had stopped by and left something sehun was bound to hate.

he pinched the gold-leafed paper between his lips and entered his booby-trapped home, expecting yet another woman lying spread eagle on his bed. he was close, except this time his escort for the evening was a man and he was, thankfully, not in the nude. 

so, the government had assumed sehun was now homosexual for turning away so many women? well, they weren’t wrong.

“well, this is new,” he commented dryly, tossing the government note into a fruit bowl already filled to the brim with junk mail and written death threats among a few other gold letters. “are you supposed to make my evening better?”

[phsehun-blog]

dog eat dog

[ravixph-deactivated20160802]

[ ... ]

[phsehun-blog]

at least there was his tiny reassurance for the night. knowing that this stranger offering help wasn’t directly associated with the lotus put his mind at ease; at the very least, the rest of his evening could only go uphill or stagnant from here. it was his safest bet being in the company of a neutral party than wandering alone in his current state like walking fodder for the prowling members of the notorious rebellion group.

he planned to steer clear of them, all right. ravi really needn’t tell him twice to be wary of a group he was very well acquainted with. “that’s what i’ve been doing: minding my own business and staying out of everyone’s way,” he muttered bitterly, the sour words directed more to himself than at the other male. those thugs had been fortunate to come across a champion with a masochistic streak. if sehun had been any other champion acknowledged for their aggressive and bloodthirsty demeanor, the altercation would have easily made the front headlines of the morning paper. but, knowing how rapidly word spread on jangmi island, sehun had chosen to take the beating and dissolve the situation. the subordinates in the lotus ranks were not nearly as gutsy as their superiors to finish the job. they were bullies, not murderers.

the man who had saved him simply out of the goodness of his heart was obviously neither of those things and sehun couldn’t have been happier to encounter a citizen of the void who wasn’t crazily passionate about some extremist idea. those sort of people seemed to be the majority of the void’s population nowadays. 

“real pleasant neighborhood,” sehun sighed, almost missing his perfectly cut petunia gardens and even the guardsmen that patrolled his section of the cul-de-sac every hour or so. some order would have been greatly appreciated. instead, that came in the shape of a cargo van tagged with what sehun dubiously called art. he scrunched up his nose at the sight of it, forced to rethink his initial decision to accept help from a man who wanted him in the back of his van, of all things.

“real pleasant... cave,” he mumbled half in awe and half in what he could only describe as disappointment. it wasn’t like he was staying the night, anyway. sehun only planned on getting himself patched up for the trip back. “you live here by yourself?”

[daenso]

osh beauty & aesthetics in color codes 

[phsehun-blog]

star crossed

[phxjongin-deactivated20160725]

@phsehun

jongin recognized him as soon as he walked into the bar. sehun, his name rolled smoothly off his tongue. jongin averted his gaze to the rim of his glass, hoping that he wouldn’t have to say his name ever again. he chuckled slightly, seeing sehun so clean and made up, which were common traits of champions. he was one of them now, pretentious and arrogant, belittling everyone else, as if they had never lived in the void before. shaking his head slowly, jongin chortled softly before taking another sip of the bitter whiskey, which seemed to be more bitter than ever.

sehun was approaching him slowly, jongin could sense it. he hoped he wouldn’t have, but there his old friend was, right next to him. jongin counted down, expecting arrogance to spill out of the other’s mouth—which was also a common trait among champions. there it was, the words of a champion. jongin felt a slight disappointment when he heard sehun speak his words, despite the fact that he had expected him to say something of that matter. he had hoped a bit of the old sehun had been preserved, but it was to no extent.

jongin didn’t know what to say to him immediately. should he be kind to him? should he act bitter? should he treat him as if he were a stranger? running a slim finger along the rim of his glass, jongin slowly picked his head up towards sehun and met eyes with him. the memories of their past flashed before his eyes when he did so, causing him to turn away again.

“why are you here?” jongin decided to say, rather bitterly, after a few moments of shared silence between them. he looked up at sehun again, this time, however, avoiding those forbidden eyes.

[phsehun-blog]

he knew despite harboring some disappointment, that having old ties with jongin meant little when he was now the government’s glorified killing machine. he hardly deserved better treatment so he held no grudge against jongin for the way he acted--in spite and bitter resentment--because sehun deserved it. but would he take everything back to win his friend’s favor again? probably not. he had volunteered for the tournament for an important reason he couldn’t possibly sacrifice for some superficial friendship. his mother’s well-being had been at stake, and for her, he would have killed his own friend.

not that jongin needed to know that part in detail. the older male hated him enough.

“to enjoy a drink,” he lied, but in jest, glancing at the dram of whiskey jongin had in his possession, the powerful kick of alcohol burning his nostrils as he inhaled. even from a foot or two away, the fumes managed to turn him away. “is there really a law forbidding me to have some fun here and there?”

there probably were some that specified that champions stay away from members of any rebellious faction, but what the government goons didn’t know couldn’t possibly hurt them (or him). sehun honestly had no interest in gossiping about politics or rallying a coup d'état. even if jongin had offered an open invitation, sehun would have declined not out of fear for his own life but out of general disinterest. he was a neutral party and, on some occasions, a puppet for the government simply to earn himself a favor or two from them.

his reason for being here with jongin was simple: he wanted to catch up. sehun hardly had friends and seldom kept in contact with the few he had, but jongin was a special exception. “i don’t expect you to understand my reasons for leaving, but i’m sure you missed me regardless.”

[phsehun-blog]

on rainy days

it was uncanny how often it poured whenever he planned to visit changsun, as if the weather was always scheming against his agenda for the evening. on second thought, perhaps it worked to his advantage exaggerating the “drenched kitty” look that would have melted the iciest of hearts, and changsun’s was no exception.

it was at this hour--eight in the evening--that sehun perched on top of the windowsill and waited for changsun to notice his punctual arrival. recently, he hadn’t been visiting every few days like he used to, but he was finally back to his old routine of mewling outside until he’d be allowed inside. at first, his only motive had been to spy for suspicious activity; however, as tuna filled his kitty-belly and calloused fingers offered him head rubs, the true purpose of his random visitations blurred.

now, he reveled in the simple joys of observing his new companion and viewing through the lens of a smaller creature how this particular human he had befriended behaved in the privacy of his home. sehun had kept him company on lonely nights and listened with an almost human-like glint in his eyes when changsun ranted or rambled about his day. 

tonight, he dreaded the cold void of his own home and sought the window he knew was always glowing warmly, even through the curtains of rain that matted his fur. he sat on his haunches, shivering involuntarily from the chill that seeped through his soaked pelt, and raised a pebble-sized paw that rapped impatiently on the glass. once, twice, the grey-speckled kitten clicked his tiny nails against the surface that had been dulled with his previous attempts at entry, and waited for changsun to fetch him out of the dreary weather.

‘what’s taking him so long?’ he questioned with a huff, his frustrations only voiced by meek, but angry mewls. 

[phsehun-blog]

day and night

the past week since his inauguration as the champion of december 2015 hadn’t been the most forgiving, but sehun would have been lying to himself if he said he hadn’t been expecting trouble.

the members of lotus were like mosquitoes--for lack of a better comparison--for the way they swarmed in stealth before attacking their prey aggressively. they were everywhere, most often in hiding and occasionally not, and sehun had been foolish to think residing in the gold zone granted him total immunity from their ambushes. there were always one or two that slipped under the radar of the guards to assault anyone and anything that was even remotely affiliated with the government, and sehun--being the most recently crowned champion of the tournaments--was a walking target on his stroll to the grocery store.

it should have been a brisk ten minute walk to and from the shop but the night had cloaked his assailants and something else--a pressing, invisible force--suppressed his ability to detect the two lotus berserkers before they appeared. he was on the ground in t-minus seconds with two pairs of boots kicking at every vulnerable spot of his body. he tried morphing into something--anything--but nothing happened besides the dull ache that rapidly spread over the entirety of his body.

he knew what was happening. there was only one “experiment” he knew who could manage to put up such a powerful barrier capable of negating all special abilities in his radius. myungsoo. even the lotus berserkers acted confused for a split second as their powers proved worthless, but it didn’t stop them from outnumbering sehun who only prayed his rattled mind would give in faster than his body.

[phsehun-blog]