x.

[prettypeppermint]

‎

02/28/26 - spring tide.

12/19/25 - last.

12/17/25 - comfort care.

12/15/25 - liaison.

12/14/25 - cost of living.

12/07/25 - still life.

09/02/25 - joyride.

08/17/25 - blood diamond.

08/05/25 - citrus season.

07/26/25 - bruit.

07/22/25 - inertia.

07/22/25 - feynman's trick.

07/13/25 - name of the game.

07/10/25 - slapkiss.

04/01/25 - in the bleak midwinter.

5/22/24 - homage to the square.

11/21/23 - swan song.

09/19/23 - crane's paradox.

09/04/23 - the gift of silence (how sweet the sound).

08/28/23 - amazing grace.

08/22/23 - complicatedly breathtaking.

08/15/23 - jonathan.

08/13/23 - grottos.

08/11/23 - the unchosen one.

08/05/23 - earth & ocean.

09/25/22 - actions speak louder than words.

05/02/22 - kissing your way out of arguments.

07/07/21 - fools.

06/30/21 - just one.

05/15/21 - sometimes.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

spring tide.

for f. toji.

i.

The day has not yet broken when you step out onto the beach, still clad in your undergarments from sleep.

The duvet had pulled at you, beckoning you to return to its warmth as the waves do now, fighting for reprieve against the shallow.

The sky fits like a latch against the horizon, sealed in ashen blue. Your hair billows like halyards in the wind, towing your body like a mast to where the wind calls. The shallow shore bites your ankles.

You've stared at this foaming, roaring body longer than you've looked anyone in the eye. Each time, it's a completely different beast.

The tide beats your calves and shifts the sand beneath your soles, alive enough to sway you off course as you tread through the current. You feel the weight of the world against your bare feet. Eventually, all resistance slips, and you sink.

A vice clamps down on your forearm, hauling you back with enough force to sling an anchor. The tide clings to your skin as you cut through the spray, and the ground comes beneath your feet once more.

Upon turning your head, you face Toji's piercing stare. He lugs you back into the shallow, and the thin current sweeps you to shore. You look up at him as he pins you to the sand--his skin slick with the sea, a knee between your shivering legs.

You squint against the salt and spray, your wet locks piled like kelp in a crown around your head, a violet blossoming in your lip. He heaves above you, and you swear he looks at you like you're already gone.

His hand finds a home around your throat. "Is this what you want? You wanna die that bad?" He squeezes so tight your lungs stutter, and you can't decipher why he's so angry. You feel the cool metal of his ring against your skin.

Your hands reach up, heavy with shock, and find his face to confirm he's real. Your fingers brush across his cheeks, his nose, his scar worn duller by the years. He's changed, somehow.

From this angle, he looks like an angel.

You close your eyes and feel the undulation of the shore beneath your back, your spine slowly sinking into the slush.

~~~

Twelve years ago, at the Zenin estate, your world was pale and eternal.

He was a statue in the snow, collecting dust in the center of the courtyard. It was the first time you saw him: a fearful man sealed in stone.

There was something magnetic about the picture--a man almost inhuman amid nature, forged in a crucible that was his home.

He scowled at you--a little girl swathed in pink robes, with sandals that hung loose on her small feet, as if she were not yet prepared for the bitterness of the world. He hated the fresh face you wore despite the stone already taking shape in your features. You were something between naive and hardened--a look he knew all too well.

He was a flashpoint in the frost, an ember in the snow. He was the impossible heat of winter. And he remained still, you came to understand, because he could not afford to move a muscle that wouldn't kill.

~~~

ii.

You don't know much about him.

After leaving the clan, he retreated into a life of seclusion, seeking asylum on the shore. He doesn't talk much. Sometimes, you forget what his voice even sounds like.

You'll go days without making conversation, but you prefer it that way. There's never much to say, save for the occasional 'Don't touch that' and 'What do you want?' to which you'll reply with something like 'I wasn't' or 'Nothing.' Anything else you can think of saying will only make you cry, anyway.

He didn't warm up to you straight away--it took some time for him to even acknowledge you. You may as well have been invisible for the first month you lived in the house.

He always makes enough breakfast for the two of you, always keeps you in the corner of his eye, even if he'll never admit it. Occasionally, he'll even buy you a magazine on a run to the store.

Sometimes, he leaves and won't return for a few days. He'll get in his salt-rusted truck and drive off quietly. He never tells you when he's leaving, or how long he'll be gone, but he always comes back. A wave in the sea--reckless but forever returning.

~~~

One day, you caught yourself looking at a small framed photo on his mantle. A quarter of the picture was missing, torn in the outline of a person, leaving only the landscape of cherry trees in half-bloom.

You picked it up to get a closer look when a large hand ripped it from your hands in one swift motion, setting it face down back on the mantle.

You turned your head to look up at him, looming above without sparing a downward glance at you. You barely heard him come up behind you. He never made a sound when he moved; he was a ghost in his own home.

~~~

iii.

The shore is frosted with fresh snow, a layer of dust on the stitch between two worlds.

You sit by the window, staring out at the ocean as it laps at the sleet, your palm pressed to your mouth and elbow resting on your knee. You see your breath on the glass.

You start at the sound of a boot creaking against wood, whipping your head towards the source.

He emerges from his room, his pin-straight hair in his eyes. It looks like he hasn't had a haircut in ages. He swipes his keys from the table and makes for the door.

"Where are you going?" It's the first time you've asked.

Without so much as a glance in your direction, he walks out and lets the door shut behind him. You watch him get into his truck and drive off, until he's just a speck of rust in the distance.

~~~

Days pass.

~~~

Then a week.

~~~

You've cleared out the entire fridge.

You sit by the window every day, staring at the horizon and waiting for a speck of rust.

Today, you see it. He floats in from a distance, like cedar against the pines. You're gone before it transforms, before he can come any closer, and before you see him get out of his truck.

You disappear into your bedroom, shut the door, and twist the lock.

It isn't long before the front door creaks open. The jingle of his keys against his belt grows louder, then stops just outside your door. Before it opens all the way, you're already on your feet to shut him out. Your back presses into the door, trying to slam it flush against the frame, but his fingers grip the side with ease and force it open with a prompt shove.

Your hip hits the floor before the rest of your body. He darkens the room as he steps inside. You've been here before--pressed against the wooden panels, looking up at a man who towers above you. Your chest squeezes around the memory of a shadow, of a bamboo stick against your naked back, your bleeding knees in the snow.

Before it can linger, you're on your feet and shoving him away. You strike his chest, beating into him everything you thought you had left buried beneath the floorboards of that estate--a splinter in your sole, a dry hand slipping under your robes, the wet cold of the shed with nothing but the blood on your back to keep you warm.

He's on you in an instant, squeezing your wrists as you kick and shove. Your nails catch on his skin, scoring claw marks into his cheek. Before your heart can fall, he throws you onto the bed and pins you down.

"Stop it," he hisses, his weight sinking into you.

"You left me."

You sound like a stranger. Your nose stings as tears spring from your eyes, blurring your view of him. You taste salt, and suddenly you're back on the shore with him above you, his skin dripping onto yours.

"I'm not your damn babysitter. You're not a kid."

"Then why did you take me in? Why didn't you just let me die that day in the ocean?"

His fists tighten around your wrists, and the vein in his neck threatens to burst as he looks down at you.

Then he kisses you.

It crashes into you. Your lips fit like the horizon--the seal between sea and sky, splitting your world in two. In this moment, it holds you together.

You taste his tobacco on your tongue, and a part of you clenches around the thought of him slipping away. You swallow thickly to force a choke back into your chest.

He pulls away just enough to see you--the hair stuck to your mouth, your wet skin, the flush of your nose. Something about it makes his mouth go bitter. You're no longer the girl in the snow.

"I hate when you look at me like that," he spits.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm supposed to care about you."

There's a silence that seems impossible. He pushes off the bed, but you grab the hem of his shirt before he can walk away. The look on your face is so earnest that it makes him grimace.

He catches your hand in his and clenches, as if he's deciding whether to push you away or pull you close. Without another second to think, he's dragging you away from the deep, kissing you in the shallow. Your spine sinks into the springs below, and you feel warm all over.

His knee plunges the mattress between your thighs. The sky cracks above you, and his back holds the weight of the world before it can fall. You feel everything on his lips--the way he presses into you like he's trying to make you whole. You think you see stars.

When he pulls back, his scar glistens. You feel for his face, refamiliarizing yourself with the planes of his features, the textures of his skin.

A vestigial tear slides down your face. His thumb catches it before pressing the residue to the corner of your lip. Your mouth opens, and his finger slips inside, probing the edge of your tongue. And all he can do is watch, and it takes everything not to pull you apart thread by thread--unravel what has been so tightly wound.

His large palms glide up your waist, pushing your shirt up with them, and it feels like he's holding everything you're worth between his hands. He touches the parts of you he has never seen bare.

His teeth nip at the skin of your ribs, fingers splayed out like wings against your sides. Something aches in your belly, and your back arches to aid the sensation. The metal of his ring grows hot against your skin.

He stops right as his fingertips reach the underside of your breasts, and you feel his breath suddenly go cold. His muscles tense, his body turning to stone.

Then, he laughs. It's dry and tasteless, but it's the closest thing to a smile you've ever seen from him.

He draws back like the receding tide before he's on his feet again. He can't look at you.

Something bubbles up in your throat, but you swallow the thought. You think of the way he looked at you in the snow, then in the sand. You think of the torn photo with the cherry trees and the dust on his mantle. For a short time, at least, he must have been happy.

There is a comfort in the shape of his past that you can't give back to him.

Your eyes dart to his ring, a dull platinum band bound loosely to his finger.

You want to dig it out of his worn skin.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

last.

for f. toji.

A cigarette kisses your lips, and it's the first light touch you've felt in weeks.

You sit on the steps of his apartment building, a dilapidated thing of brick and steel sheets, tucked away in the alleys of Tokyo and hidden from the rest of the city. No one sets foot here.

When the sounds of a woman's shrieking stop and you hear the last bottle of liquor shatter against the wall, you drop your smoke on the concrete and snuff it out with your heel.

The door flies from its hinges, and Toji storms out. His face is devoid of any anger, and it’s how you know he's seething.

You're already holding out your lighter for him as he fishes out a cigarette. Your finger produces a spark, then a flame, then a moment of relief as he inhales.

The wind is quiet tonight, the evening soft against his skin. You don’t speak for a long time.

"I'm not going back this time," Toji says, cutting through the still. He looks down the road that slopes toward the finer parts of town.

There's another moment of quiet, a span of time left untouched as the stars begin to show.

"You should at least sleep at home," you say.

"I'll sleep where I want."

"You're not coming back to my place."

He exhales a thought you won't ever know, a sigh through the smoke. It lingers in your hair.

"You're kicking me out, too, huh?" he says dryly, flicking his cigarette to the ground. His gaze follows a stray dog as it scurries through the alley.

You finally look at him. Three red claw marks stretch from his cheek to his jaw. You wonder if they will scar like the one she cut into his lip with a stray shard of glass.

"How long?" you ask flatly.

"A week."

You immediately turn on your heel and start walking. He grabs your wrist and squeezes so tight it pops.

"Three days," he pushes.

You twist your arm in an attempt to wrench it free. He tugs on it as if lazily pulling back on a leash, and you're right by his side again.

"Fine. One night. Last time," he finalizes.

You look up at him through a piercing glare--cold and unforgiving, but the heat that simmers under your skin boils you alive. You hate yourself for letting him win every time. And he knows it.

He leans in and kisses you. Every time he does, it's like it's his last. Every look, every touch, every word, is final.

He holds you like you're something to be pieced together, his fists clenched around your wrists like you'll run away, which you very well might. But it's this feeling--in this moment--that always makes you stay.

~~~

The world is a beautiful container for small miseries.

He traces the ink on your back, each word a delicate landmark along your spine.

You sit on your bed with your back hunched, hair cascading over your shoulders in thin strands. The night air comes through the window in hushed quells.

Toji pushes your shirt farther up your back. You feel his callused fingers brush the cluster of bruises on your neck, and you immediately reach behind you to stop him.

Your boyfriend's hands aren't like Toji's. They're weaker but brutal. They hit to hurt, and the marks they leave last.

"Sensitive, are we?" Toji says, letting your shirt fall down your back as his hand leaves your skin. It's smug despite the exhaustion behind it.

You light a cigarette. It seems to be all you do these days.

Your head finds his lap as you lean back on an exhale. He props himself up with his arms behind him, rooted firmly to the mattress.

The ceiling stares back at you.

He jerks his knee suddenly, and your head undulates. When you don't respond, he does it again.

Without a word, you get up and put your cigarette out in the ashtray on your bedside before turning to face him. The springs creak under your knees as you position yourself in a straddle over his hips.

He looks up at you with that same look he has whenever he ends up getting what he wants.

"Last time," you affirm, and you make sure it doesn't waver on the way out.

"I keep my promises."

"You broke the one you made to your wife two years ago." Your eyes flick to the ring on his finger. Tonight marks their second anniversary.

He smirks, and the scar on his lip taunts you. "That's why I'm here, isn’t it?" His large hand meets your waist, sliding under your shirt and up your torso.

You look down at him. Even from this angle, he seems larger than life.

His fingers wrap around your ribs before he traces a thin line down your spine with his nail, making you shiver.

"The world is a beautiful container for small miseries, right?" he recites, scratching circles across your tattooed back. "Then I'll be one more thing to make you miserable."

Your lips part before they meet his. The hand beneath your shirt trails upward to your nape before pressing down on the bruises embedded there. It rips a breath from your lungs. Like a stencil, he places his own fingers over the contusions shaped like a lesser man's hand.

You pull your shirt over your head and toss it on the floor. His hands grow greedier, roaming under and over your breasts and traversing the line of your hips.

He maneuvers your shorts down your legs, and you kick them off to the side. He reaches under your hip and runs his palm along the underside of your thigh, pinching the flesh. You wince against his mouth, and you feel his scar smile against yours.

You let yourself take him in. His fingers dig into your waist as you brace against him, and he moves upward without warning. You cry out, and it settles the sting. You fight his rhythm before setting an ebb to his flow, and the reprieve washes over you like the tide.

He rests his weight on his hands as they press into the sheets behind him. You let one hand latch onto his shoulder, leaning back as the other grips the muscle in his leg.

With him, time is slow. It lingers on every movement, trails behind every word. But moments like these, where neither of you talks about your realities--your worlds and your miseries--are moments that fly.

You press into him, and he hisses. Something snaps through you like lightning, and you chase it like thunder. A heat like fire spreads below--as if you're made of it yourself. It ignites something in you that you thought had died.

He leans into it, and you choke back a cry. A breath you can't afford rips you open, and somewhere in the heat, you find air.

You collapse into each other.

The world is a beautiful container for small miseries.

But when it comes to miseries like you and Toji, even the world can't contain them.

You pick yourself back up and meet reality once more, only to fall back into a world where nothing has changed--where everything remains. And nothing lasts.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

comfort care.

for k. shiu. f. toji.

Your feet are rooted to the straw mat. The smell of fresh lilies invades your senses. There seem to be hundreds of them. They all lose their shape next to each other.

Spring sticks to you like something you can't shake. The air cools your thoughts, the leafy shade paints your skin in fleeting patterns from the window. Something in the season sharpens with the muddle in your mind. You hate the feeling--a fresh start that can't cut through your ache.

He leans against the doorframe behind you, watching. The straight path of your spine gives you away--brittle, fixed. He never cares what you're thinking, only that you think too much.

After some time, you turn your back on the altar and walk through the doorway. Toji looks at you as you pass him, his eyes sharp despite the dark circles weighing them down.

Outside the funeral home, you pull out a cigarette. The filter sits between your teeth, your head dipped to the weak spark of your lighter. You watch it fail to ignite over and over, betraying its only purpose.

A lighter and a callused fist materialize before your lips, and a flame meets the end of your cigarette. You don't look up until you take a deep inhale. The paper crackles as it disappears.

Toji stands before you with the same smug look enshrined on his features, but his black suit renders him almost unrecognizable. He looks like Shiu. You look away.

There's a stretch of silence--a mutual agreement--before it breaks.

"Did you get hold of the new handler?" you ask on a thin exhale of smoke.

"He cut us off," he responds, flippant as ever. You stare at the outline of a pistol against his belt.

You return to the silence. There isn't much else to say.

"Then I guess we'll have to find someone else," you add, finally.

The scar on his lip contorts slightly as he smirks, but he doesn't respond. You use it as an opportunity to walk away.

~~~

"Hello?"

"I got us a guy."

"You there?"

"Yeah."

"I sent his info over. Take a look and get back to me."

The line disconnects. You keep the phone to your ear for a long time afterward.

You sit on Shiu's bed in his apartment. It's pristine--everything is where it's supposed to be, not a single piece of clutter on any surface.

Not even a trace of you.

Even his bed is made, his pillows aligned against the headboard. There's barely anything to clean, to sort through.

You start with the closet---nothing but perfectly pressed designer suit after designer suit, each zipped up in a garment bag on a hanger. You almost laugh at the irony; Shiu died in one of these suits before being zipped up in a body bag, and here are hundreds more of him, all zipped up the same.

His leather shoes sit in a straight line below the row of suits, each pair meticulously shined as though they've never been worn, like he was never here--no proof that he took a single step in them, that he walked on this earth or lived at all.

You find a ring in one of the suit pockets. Put it back.

You look down at the shoes until the edge of your vision closes in on itself.

After fifteen minutes, you walk out of the closet, then out of his bedroom, then out the door. There's nothing to collect--nothing with any remnant of him, anyway.

You leave his apartment--leave it exactly as it was.

~~~

You continued with your life. You didn't grieve, you didn't cry, you didn't ever think about it.

He shoves your head into the pillow, and you feel the mattress compress your lungs. His hand envelops almost the entirety of your skull.

You suffocate beneath him as he brutalizes you from behind. You groan into the pillow, and it comes out in spurts with each thrust.

His fingers dig into your scalp, gripping your hair by the roots as he punctuates each second of your silence with an impossibly deep hit to your core. Your face contorts, and you squeeze the sheets until your knuckles turn pale. You can sense his growing disinterest.

"You gonna cum or what?" Toji mutters from behind.

You bite your lip to keep from screaming, and you start to taste blood. Your muscles tense, your shoulder blades expanding like wings. Your entire body seems to shrink into itself before it cracks open, and a million sounds and tremors shoot through you like electricity.

He quickens his pace without a hitch, as if he were activating some kind of mechanism, before he pulls out and releases. You feel a familiar filth drip down your spine.

You don't move for a long time, even after he returns from the shower, wet black hair dripping onto the lacquered hardwood.

The mattress squeals under his weight as he leans against the headboard beside you. You hear the flick of a lighter and the soft crackle of paper, smell smoke alleviate the room.

He allows a moment to pass before nudging you with his knuckle.

"Shower."

You force yourself up with enough effort to move a mountain, peeling your chest from the bed with trembling arms.

~~~

The shower is the one place where escaping yourself becomes impossible.

You look down at your feet as the water runs in streamlets along your body. It slips from your skin, fleeting, then forever gone.

You don't know how much time has passed, or how much water you've wasted, but it's enough for the door to crack open. You don't look up.

Toji watches you from the threshold. Your spine is curved in a way that makes each vertebra protrude from your skin like little islands on your back.

A minute passes, where the only thing that moves is the water as it hits your back.

From your downcast gaze, you see another pair of feet join yours on the wet tile. The shallow water ripples and makes way for him as he steps in front of you.

You barely feel it when his hand wraps around the back of your head, firm and tender and like nothing before. He cradles your skull in his palm, leaning it against his rigid chest. Your temple meets his clavicle as your face settles into the crook of his elbow.

The water rains down on his back, blocking you from the spray. From here, you watch the door to the bedroom--neither completely shut nor wide open, but ajar enough to go either way. You shiver.

You never claimed to have moved on, but you thought you were at least moving.

You continue with your life. You don't grieve, you don't cry, you don't ever think about it.

But in this moment, you're grieving. You're crying. And everything is all you can think about. In this moment, you can't move at all.

Toji lifts your head and kisses you, his fingers tangled in the hair above your nape. He doesn't kiss like Shiu--his lips are all rough and his grip is too tight and the tobacco on his breath tastes different. But right now, you don't need him to. You need something that feels alive.

You need him to be alive.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

liaison.

for f. toji.

You sigh when your cell phone buzzes against the nightstand, lifting your head from the pillow. Your body rams into the mattress over and over. You slap a palm against the headboard to keep your crown from bumping into it, trying to manage the continuous plowing coming from behind.

The phone vibrates across the surface, and you catch it just as it tips over the edge.

"Hello?" you answer, your voice steady despite the repeated thrusts into your core. The squeaking of the springs carries through the line, anyway.

"You're late."

"I'm busy."

"I told you to take care of him."

"Shiu, the time I waste listening to you tell me what I already know on every mission is starting to add up."

The man behind you grabs the phone from your hand and tosses it aside. You almost thank him for it.

You feel your ribs protrude against your skin as your waist bends at an impossible angle. Your brow furrows as your patience thins.

Toji never shows up when you need him to, but when you finally get some peace and quiet, you can't seem to shake him off.

Just when you're about to take matters into your own hands, a piercing noise cuts through the air. You hear the sound of bursting flesh and splitting skull before a warm weight collapses onto your back.

You throw the body off and sit up before kicking his shoulder away from you. You shoot a sharp glance up at the source of the bullet. A scarred smirk glints at you from the dark.

"You could at least show up on time if you're going to be bad at your job," you deadpan.

"I was enjoying the show," Toji says with a smugness only he’s capable of. His seedy eyes roll down your body. You're in nothing but a black, lacy excuse for a bra.

You ignore him, your eyes dull as you pull on your underwear and redress yourself.

"We were supposed to meet Shiu an hour ago. He's probably moved locations by now," you state plainly as you step into your last heel.

"Calm down. He's probably still waiting around like an ass."

"So that's where you get it from."

You move before you can think.

~~~

You sit with the two of them at a hole-in-the-wall noodle shop, tucked into a Chinatown alley. Neon lights flicker and emit a low din that almost overpowers the rotating fans.

You pick at your bowl. You haven't had much appetite recently.

"I managed to get hold of our guy. He said he'll have the money wired by midnight," Shiu says, one hand on his phone and the other haphazardly holding his chopsticks. You never noticed he was left-handed.

Toji slurps like there's no tomorrow. You take a sip of your beer. It's the only thing you can stomach recently.

"Pretty girls don’t drink," Toji says, all but inhaling another mouthful of noodles. "Why aren't you eating?" He barely looks at you but still manages to notice your waning fullness.

"I'm not hungry," you respond, blunt as the spine of a knife. Your eyelids grow heavy, and your blinks become labored.

"Not after all that exercise?" he quips.

"Show up on time next time, or I'm bailing."

"I was on time. You're the one who jumped the gun back there, don’t you think?"

You decide there's nothing more to add. You down the last of your beer and set the glass down with a loud clatter.

You look at Shiu, who is waiting for a call to connect over the phone.

"I want better assignments," you state.

He barely looks at you. "You're young. You're pretty. It's efficient," he responds plainly.

"Why can't I get targets like Riko?"

"Because you’d have to get through targets like Gojo Satoru first," Toji says, unimpressed. "Could you manage that, princess?“

You stand. Your plastic stool screeches against the tile. "Put me behind a trigger, or I quit."

Not that you can afford to, and they know it.

You walk out.

You pull out a cigarette and light up once you're outside. The feeling of the filter between your teeth alone puts you at ease.

The night is stagnant, the summer air suffocating. The cheap material of your tight, black dress is adhesive on your skin.

You hear footsteps approach from behind and spin on your heel to land a strike instinctively, your eyes shot with a sudden surge of adrenaline.

Toji grabs your wrist mid-swing, as if catching a lame pitch.

You settle, taking the cigarette from your lips. "What do you want?" you ask through a line of smoke.

"A quickie," he responds tactlessly. His large hand finds the familiar bend in your waist. A callused finger teases the seam around your chest and pulls the fabric down.

You take another drag, your distant gaze cast to the side, entranced by the flickering neon signs--burning out and dying by their own light.

His scarred lip twitches downward only slightly. "What's got you all twisted? It's not like it's your first rodeo."

"I hate being used," you respond dryly, bringing the filter back to your lips without thinking. It lacks all the emotion anyone with more to lose would have.

He laughs, and it's all charming and wry and grating at the same time. "That's your job, kid."

Get used to it.

You don't respond. His palm travels to your ass and settles into the curve.

"Whatever. I'm tired." You swat his arm away and flick your cigarette to the ground dismissively.

As soon as you begin to turn away, you feel yourself getting pulled back, your wrist locked in his grip. He tugs you to him like an anchor sticking a drifting vessel.

"You know what your problem is?" He looks down at you like you're something small in his hand. "You always want to have it your way, and when you don't get what you want, you bitch and moan about it."

You barely hide the unamused scowl behind your eyes. Your wrist throbs in his fist. A warmth spreads from where your pulses meet.

"You grew up rich, but now daddy’s in debt and you’re broke as dirt, so you gotta offer the one thing you can offer," he says, as if he’s commenting on the weather.

"I'm the only one on the team with cursed energy,” you retort. “Why is that never a point of consideration?"

"Because you can barely use it."

"But I can."

"Not well."

You drop it. He's right. It may as well be useless.

You may as well be, too.

Toji's palm envelops the side of your head. He leans in and places a kiss on your forehead, right below your hairline.

"Everyone’s got a price to pay, princess." His hand snakes to the back of your neck, and his other slips below the bottom of your dress. He hooks a finger through your thong and toys with the cheap lace. Your dress rides up your hips, exposing your ass. You couldn't look more unimpressed.

You hate how he makes you feel--like you're his favorite thing in the world and simultaneously not valuable enough to protect you from it.

Your relationship with Toji is confusing and muddled in more ways than you care to describe, but you stick with him despite the thick of it all. You're much younger than him--by at least a decade--and it shows when he wins every argument and overpowers you in every sense. You've never felt more alone while planted so fervently to someone's side.

You wonder if he's any different than the man whose skull he put a bullet through just a few hours ago. You wonder if he sees you the same way--a beautiful nothing.

Deep down, you know you can only make peace with what you can no longer change.

You see Shiu emerge from the restaurant, sparks flying from his hand as he lights a cigarette tucked between his lips. He approaches you and places a smoke in your mouth from over Toji's shoulder. You rest your chin on the muscle as he lights your smoke for you.

Shiu pets your head, smoothing your hair down. He stops at your nape to give it a light squeeze before walking to the car--an old habit of his.

"I have work back at the office. Get in or go home," he says as he steps into the driver's seat. He sounds exhausted.

You walk to the sleek black sedan with Toji's hand wrapped around the back of your neck, guiding you.

You both slide into the back row. As soon as Shiu steps on the gas, Toji slips a hand up your thigh and into your panties. He's on top of you in an instant, pushing you against the corner. Your back presses up against the window as he slips your shirt off.

He unbuckles his belt and bites down on your neck. You let out a noise you wish you had held back.

Shiu barely contains an eye roll when he glances in the rearview mirror.

You feel his heat fill you up in one sudden, swift motion, and you barely adjust before he begins thrusting into you like an animal. You let out a sharp moan as your fingernails dig into his back and biceps, clawing for leverage.

Shiu ignores you as he takes a sharp turn, dark bags weighing his eyes down.

Toji presses the heels of his palms into your hipbones as his pelvis snaps into you, pinning you to the leather that sticks to your skin. One of your hands grips Shiu's seathead, the other tangled in Toji's hair.

You throw your head back as a breath whips from your throat. He reaches for your neck and squeezes until you're gasping for air. His lips crash against yours, and he swallows each of your shallow breaths.

His tongue runs along your teeth. Your lip catches on his canine, and you feel his scar brush against your gums. You shiver.

Shiu yawns behind the wheel.

The sex is always good. He drains you in a way that has you aching for more, in a way that makes you want to fill yourself back up just to be sucked dry again.

It really could be anyone, but for now, it's just you.

~~~

The only time you can get him to shut up is when you probe about his past. You couldn't scratch the surface with what you know about him. Perhaps it's better that way.

"Are you actually single? You don't have a wife hidden away somewhere while you mess around with younger women?"

He doesn't respond as he pours himself a cup of coffee. His apartment is a shoebox, but you've learned to live with it. It's not like you pay rent, anyway, though you're going to be in debt to him for a long time after you move out.

"Do you have kids?"

He ignores you completely, like you don't exist.

"You never tell me anything," you mutter under your breath.

"You don't need to know." His voice is abraded, worn with fatigue.

"So now you want to be professional.”

He gives you a sharp look that cuts deep. You drop it.

When you look at him like this, you're struck by your own age, and the fear of growing old punctures something that was holding you together.

You know more than anyone that your youth doesn't mean anything anymore, and it hasn't for a long time. You wonder how much longer until your body betrays you, until it is no longer useful. You wonder if you can be made again.

You crave him more than you like to admit.

In this moment, you think about dying. You've fantasized about it countless times--how it should happen, the ideal location, what you'll be wearing. You can't think of anything more immortalizing--dying new, dying beautiful, dying to stay young forever.

He lights a cigarette and leans against the kitchen counter. He gestures for you to come closer. You do.

As soon as you're within arm's length, he loops a finger into the waistband of your sleep shorts and pulls you close, the rest of you sporting nothing but an old bra. He stretches the elastic before letting it snap back against your skin.

"You ask too many questions," he says, looking directly into your eyes. "Are you that interested in me, princess?"

You almost grow cold, but the way he looks at you makes you melt back into him. You deny yourself the warmth immediately. "I can't be curious?"

His warm fingers sprawl across your bare abdomen before slipping under your waistband once more to cup your ass.

"No, you can't." It comes out like a blunt edge, with no room for argument or antics.

You stare into his eyes, fixated on the way his pupils shrink and expand like they're breathing. In your world, hiding a secret is as good as announcing it.

He tucks your hair behind your ears. “Worry about your own problems," he says, and it's all rough edges.

You harden around his words and retreat back into your usual, forbidden self. Every time you allow yourself a little room for lightness, he crushes it with a single sentence. You tell yourself to never ask for more again, that Toji is a being that functions on scarcity and survives off scraps. The less you give, the better.

You click your tongue against your gums and slip out of his hold, barely suppressing an eye roll.

"Don't be cute," he adds.

"I'll shoot your brains out."

~~~

People like Toji don't get proper funerals.

A cigar hangs from Shiu's lip as he drives. You sit in the back seat.

He brakes at the top of the cliff, at an outlook point that cascades into jagged rock below. The waves beat against the terrain, trying to reach the top and failing repeatedly.

You step out of the sedan. You're in the same black dress you wore the night of your last mission as a trio. The same heels dig into the packed earth as you circle around to the trunk.

Shiu swings the car door shut. He buttons the front of his back suit jacket as he makes his way to you. You unlock the trunk and open the decklid like a casket.

He lies in a bundle of white tarp, a chrysalis. Seeing him like this, you wish you believed in God.

You help Shiu carry the body to the edge of the cliff in silence. Without so much as a fleeting second for a last look, the two of you swing the corpse over the ledge unceremoniously. It cuts through the foamy spray below and disappears into the tide. You don't hear the impact.

You stare at the waves until the pattern of the ebb becomes unrecognizable. Shiu hands you a cigarette, his eyes squinting against the blinding overcast and sharp wind. The horizon blends into the gray ahead. He doesn't look at you.

You accept the smoke, pinching it between your slender fingers before connecting it with the tip of his burning cigar. You inhale, and it's like a breath of fresh air.

The gale pushes time in every direction. You stand side by side, long enough for your calves to swell and your toes to go numb in your heels.

He smooths down your hair with his palm, stopping at your nape to give it a light squeeze, before walking back to the car.

It really could be anyone. Now, it's just you.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

cost of living.

for g. suguru.

You knew a man who didn't know himself.

It made things easy after some time--you could hold conversations without expectation, offend without having to apologize.

One year ago, when he asked you to join him on his last mission, you couldn't think of a reason not to.

You remember the embers in his eyes, drowning in pools of black ink, the orange glow casting shadows of himself against his skin. You remember the wailing and the thunderous splintering of wood.

You stood next to him, not knowing what he was thinking, and not needing to.

~~~

After Riko died, his eyes always lingered.

He didn't care if you felt it, which you always did.

The first thing he noticed was the white ribbon in your hair--how similar it was to hers, how he could have sworn you had ripped it from her dead body.

He latched onto it like a magnet. It was the only thing he cared about when it came to you.

When you stopped wearing it, he stopped looking. You kept it on after that.

~~~

The first time you truly took note of him was on the train.

There was a fog behind his eyes. His face was downcast, his eyes hollow and cheeks sunken. His skin clung to his jaw like a lifeline.

You saw his reflection in the window against the green. It's all you needed to see through him.

You had forgotten your ribbon that day. He didn't notice.

~~~

The next time you saw him was after Haibara died.

His presence was undeniable, as if he had reached some sort of enlightenment. He looked like an anchor being untethered, a dead weight lifted by a riptide.

He was glowing. He was the sun.

~~~

You feel the heat of an unyielding stare on the back of your neck, as if you're in the sights of an imminent attack. You ignore it and focus on your task--the metal in your hand, and turning its imbued cursed energy into flame.

The steel rod sits loosely in your fist, occasionally twirling around your thumb and forefinger. Your grip tightens ever so slightly, and it ignites into flames, embalming the steel in blistering red heat. You loosen your fist, where fresh burn marks paint over old ones along the creases in your palm. You look down, unamused.

You hate training. You never wanted to be a sorcerer, but the world needs more of them than you need to have other dreams.

You're trapped in this heat every day--the beating sun on your nape, the eyes on your every move, the fire in your hands.

You're not particularly attached to the politics of jujutsu, nor do you care about your place amidst it all. You're here to get in and get out, and hopefully live a somewhat comfortable life once you've accumulated enough money from missions.

Get in. Get out.

~~~

Get in. Get out.

You look at the steel rod in your hand, now the length of a staff. It glows red in your fist. Wood splits like the crack of a whip, shrinking to charcoal in seconds. Fire licks the straw-edge of each roof and collapses into the rooms below them. Flames engulf screams, smoke suffocates cries.

He stands amidst the destruction like something reborn, his eyes absorbing the light and killing it.

Ash falls from the sky like gray snow, landing on your hair and uniform. Your hand gently tugs at the white ribbon in your hair, now smeared in soot. You don't need it for him to look at you anymore. Now, you're all he has left.

You let the fabric sift through your fingers. The sweeping gale carries it into the inferno, where it becomes another piece of ruin.

"Did you know the cost of freedom can be freedom itself?” you ask, your voice steady like a secret in the wind--a rustle through the foliage, "Are we free by choice? Or are we made free, and made to pay for it later?"

You look at him, and you see something take shape and solidify in the stillness before your eyes.

"Gojo Satoru will never be free as long as he's alive," you say, your eyes sharpening as they land on him. "What's the point in being the strongest if you're not free?"

You watch his unblinking eyes trained on the village below, and that same heat rises in your nape. You miss his gaze on it.

"But you're different," you continue--it's almost a whisper as it leaves your lips, like the final breath of a dying cinder before it turns to ash--

"You can be strong and free."

~~~

After, you were back on the train.

You stood next to each other, each holding onto a hanging handle as the city dissipated into the flat green, and your lives slipped farther and farther away from your present.

You watched your reflections in the window in front of you, light as a feather and still as stone--two ghosts trapped in a mirror.

You didn't ask for a reason. You didn't say much of anything. You agreed to do a favor, and in return, you gained an escape.

Get in. Get out.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

still life.

for g. seongje.

00:31

Geum Seongje's apartment is exactly as it always is--a mess that never moves.

You've memorized every misplaced ashtray and dirty dish and empty beer can. You've memorized the pattern of the cigarette burns on the carpet. You know his filth like it's your own.

You sit on that carpet now, still ashen and fraying, like another discarded piece of clutter--still and sacred. You stare at the picture taped lazily to the wall ahead: you on SX-70 film. 

You wear a frown in the photo, eyes catching the lens just in time for it to capture your glare. The tips of your eyelashes prick your brow as you look up at the man behind the camera:

A bruise blossoms from your left temple to your eye, traveling to the crest of your cheekbone. You remember the blue lesions and yellow welts, but the film captures them in purples and greens.

The top buttons of your school uniform are missing, revealing the beginnings of nude lace over your chest. The material at your collar is wrinkled, as if having just been released from a fist. Your skirt is awry around your hips, the fabric torn at the pleated seams.

A split runs through the side of your lower lip, where the flesh begins to taper into a shallow dimple that only appears when you're holding back a curse.

~~~

“You look prettier like this,” he mused, plucking the film from the slot and blowing on it, “Right after a beating.” 

It was on your walk home; a group of Ganghak students had stopped you in the underpass. There was a moment when everything was still--barely enough time for a hitch in your breath--before you heard the sound of buttons scattering to the floor. A snap of fabric and cold air. A pinch in your hip from a dragging zipper.

Yet, somehow, the zipper stopped, caught dead in the cheap cloth, and your limbs swung--fingers clawing and nails scratching.

His hand flew, and your head snapped to the side at the sudden backhand like a jolt of electricity. You tasted copper. What felt like a cluster of supernovae shot through your temple where his knuckles met skin.

Your feet moved ahead of your thoughts. You don't remember the run home, only that the last thing you saw was blood on an earlobe and a loose piercing, and the moment after, you were in your room.

~~~

He looked down at the photo, then at you, even further below. He smirked, a slight, upward twitch of his lip.

“Next time, I'll protect you. That’s what you want to hear, right?”

~~~

The next day, he made you watch as he broke their legs one by one in the underpass. You memorized the way he snapped each ligament out of place, the way his arm would twist and constrict around the muscle, how his elbow came down again and again at a leg pulled taut against his ribs.

You stood and watched, leaning against his motorcycle in your school uniform, still missing its top four buttons.

He pulled out his cell phone and snapped a picture of his fine work, got on his motorcycle, and drove off with you.

The sounds of splintering bone, of crunching marrow and gutted yells, echoed off the walls and followed you home.

~~~

00:40

You stare at yourself now, taped to the wall, for just a moment longer before the glass ashtray on the coffee table flies from your fist and shatters against the photo.

Warm stick gathers between your fingers and in the creases of your palms.

He left behind his mess, his apartment. He left behind his favorite picture of you--all that remains of you.

He left you a life without him.

~~~

Your first time with Geum Seongje was in that same underpass you now avoid. You can’t stand the sound of your footsteps following you as they echo off the tile. 

He stood in front of you, the light from the end of the tunnel illuminating his frame, casting a shadow over you as he often does. His hand sifted through a lock of your hair, then tugged on it to bring you close. Something in his eyes told you this was the end of the road.

A snap of fabric and cold air. A pinch in your hip from a moving zipper. This time, it slid all the way down, a laceration in what once held you together.

This time, you didn't run. You remembered it all--felt every little thing--clear as day.

The tiles were all you could see, becoming an optical illusion as you were pushed against them over and over; your hands kept slipping from the surface. Something punctured your palm as you gripped the surrounding junk for support, but you only tightened your fist. A breath ripped from your windpipe, forcing your chin up.

A hitch in your breath--you squeezed and shivered and shut the world out for a fraction of a second. You felt his hands leave your hips, the blood that rushed through the constrictions they left.

As you were pulling up your skirt and straightening your blouse, ready to pick up your pieces and light a cigarette on the walk home, long fingers locked around your neck and pulled you into a kiss.

You weren't sure what it was at first--perhaps a punishment for doing something wrong, or the beginnings of another fight. One of his fights--the ones that left you hollow for days afterward. You learned how to fill yourself back up with cigarettes and starving and other guys. You learned how to hide it.

His tongue fought past your teeth; that was all it took for you to give in and give up another small piece of yourself.

You liked it. You really did.

~~~

You remember the corner of his desk in your peripheral--that same ashen carpet against your cheek the moment after.

You remember the way the calluses on his palm cut through your skin on impact, and the heat of the sun in your eye afterwards. Your lip brushed the butt of a forgotten cigarette buried in the fibers of the floor.

He was above you in an instant, his hand buried in the roots of your hair. You felt your skirt ride up as he twisted and dragged and threw you at the wall. His knee met the ground between your thighs, his hand gripped the sides of your face, and an easy laugh left his lips.

"You know, I may have seriously underestimated you"--he sent another slap to your temple--"Going behind my back, selling us out to those Eunjang freaks, getting me kicked out of the Union."

The easy look in his eyes made your sternum collapse in on itself. You had seen him like this before, a million times over, with a million different people. You saw him like this with the Ganghak boys in the underpass. You saw him like this on the rooftop with the Eunjang kids. You saw him like this whenever someone, anyone, took the wrong steps and crossed the wrong paths with him.

Yet, the sour feeling of not being an exception racked you to the core. You hated yourself for it.

"I took a nasty beating for it"--another blow to your cheek--"But shouldn't it be you getting the beating? You're the one who did it, after all."

Normally, he would have smiled in that lax sort of way he always did, right before he got bored with something. But when you met his gaze, his eyes were made of glass. His mouth was hard set above his Adam's apple, which bobbed in his throat as he swallowed words you would never hear.

In that moment, you knew that he loved you.

He struck you again. This time, you felt it in your teeth. The force sent you keeling to the side.

Your shoulder hit the floor, and all you could think was how grateful you were for that dirty carpet to soften the impact.

"Was it fun for you?"

You slept on the carpet that night.

You should have known better.

~~~

When he woke you the next day with a lazy kick to your side, you saw a man you could have loved if you had less to lose.

You sat hugging your knees, tender under his touch as he pressed an ice pack to your temple.

When you lifted your eyes, you saw him for the first time.

"What are you thinking about?" you asked when you saw the vein in his forehead.

He pressed the ice into your skin with enough pressure to make you squeeze an eye shut.

"How you're going to make it up to me," he replied.

There was a long silence before you spoke again.

"You're not going to leave me?"

He spared you a dull glance, like he was irritated you would even mention the idea.

"When have I ever left you?"

You stopped talking. He was right, and you knew it.

You couldn't escape him if you tried.

~~~

00:58

You should have known better.

Blood seeps into the carpet, matts the fibers next to the cigarette butt, still in the exact same spot.

Twenty-four hours have passed since your anniversary, since he said those words, since you sat under his gaze and his ice.

The girl in the photo stares back at you--black and blue and eternal.

This was your life.

It was still life, even if that was all it would ever be.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

joyride.

for g. seongje.

He brings the cigarette to his lips and inhales like it's his last breath. The smoke leaves his mouth reluctantly, wanting to cling to his throat and make a home in it.

He lies naked on the spring mattress in your Chinatown motel room, staring up at the ceiling and trying to find something interesting in the dull yellow. His glasses are forgotten on the nightstand.

You're between his legs, your mouth to his groin as your breath catches around him.

It pushes against your throat, sealed flush in your mouth. A wet choke tries to squeeze past your lungs, and you betray your own body as you drag your mouth up and down. The bed springs squeal in rhythm.

Smoke escapes a sigh as he glances down at you, clearly unamused. He likes that you never pretend to enjoy it.

After observing you like this for a moment longer, he grasps your hair by the roots and pulls your head up and off him. You find your breath as he forces you to meet his eyes.

"Had enough?" he asks, his tone as disinterested as his gaze.

You nod.

On cue, he drags you away from him and sits up. You push yourself up and join him at his side, leaning against the wooden headboard and staring at the wall. You're still in your uniform from earlier today. It's a size too big on you--not that you’ll ever need to wear it again.

You grab your pack of cigarettes from the nightstand and light up. You never share cigarettes--he hates the menthol flavor in yours. They’re the first ones you’ve ever tried, and you haven’t bought a different pack since.

In this moment, the only thing you share is silence.

You're the one who breaks it first: "Do you think anyone's looking for us?" You both know it's a throwaway question.

He laughs at the word 'us.'

"Were the cops not enough?" he responds wryly, lighting up again and taking a long draw.

You stare straight ahead at the singular poster taped against the motel wall: Fallen Angels (1995). Michelle Reis clings to Takeshi Kaneshiro as they zip through an empty tunnel, a cigarette clenched in his jaw reduced to a dying ember in the wind. There's an abandoned look in her eye.

"I don't know if you know this, but not many people like you,” he adds. It's flippant coming from his voice, but it's the truth nonetheless.

When you don’t respond, he turns his head to you and laughs through a scoff. “What--did you think he cared about you or something?” he muses. His shoulders shake with each shallow laugh that wheezes in his chest. "Is that why you killed him?" The concept alone entertains him.

"It's not like it matters. He's dead now," you say, plain as day. Your fingers shake, and you lift the slim cigarette to your lips to remedy it. "Dead people can't feel."

You almost bring yourself to miss him. You would, if you got anything out of missing someone who can't miss you back.

You've always believed that once you die, you stop existing.

The fights were always ugly, the bruises the next day uglier. You never played nice, and Na Baekjin never let up.

You both shared something of the other: a scar over his left eye from your nails, another along your palm from a glass he threw at you. It was violent and predictable--it was all you needed, even if it was all you could have.

He only gave you his all.

But there was always Seongje.

He felt your life fall apart in his hands, and he let it. He watched it like a movie, and sometimes, he would make you the star.

He would press his thumb into your bruises--crack jokes about them. He would take you somewhere unromantic and give you what you wanted, then drop you off at your place on his motorcycle like it didn't happen. You would never look back as you shut the door.

He likes this view--your dirty school blouse, the dried blood beneath your fingernails, your bare face and dull skin.

He taps ash onto the graying carpet. “No one's looking for you," he answers finally--definitively--stubbing his cigarette out directly on the wooden nightstand. "You wouldn’t make a difference dead or alive."

He sniffs, then chucks the cigarette butt at Kaneshiro like a dart. It hits him on the forehead and drops pathetically to the carpet, leaving an ashy mark on the glossed paper.

Geum Seongje is nothing like Na Baekjin. He doesn't need consistent care to thrive. He doesn't need to know his environment to invade it, drain it of life--a weed in the night.

Neglect has become his survival. Baekjin knew that best of all.

You never believed they were truly friends, though you sometimes wonder if Seongje sees it the way you do.

You do know that if he wanted to, Geum Seongje could have swept the entire Union from under Na Baekjin's feet.

If he wanted to, Geum Seongje could have killed Na Baekjin.

And he would have done it better than you.

There’s nothing left to say, so you take another drag. The crackle fills the quiet.

He looks at you, and every time he does, it's like you're seeing him for the first time.

"If you run now," he states, "I'll kill you."

It's casual and quick and--in this moment--it's everything.

You feel his thumb dig into the bruises on your nape--a reminder.

When you turn your head, your noses almost touch. There's a charged current between your gazes--a live wire waiting to be tread on. You kiss him, and it electrifies you.

~~~

Geum Seongje has an affinity for people like you--you're wild and contained all at once, an open flame in a forest. You're endless and inviolable, with unending grounds to cover.

There are parts of you someone like Geum Seongje will never discover--parts of you he can't set foot in without being eaten alive. He couldn't drain you if he tried.

You know you'll never love him, and it fills you with relief--the first pull of mint from a freshly lit cigarette.

He won’t fight with you--or fight for you. He won’t throw glass at your head or lock you in his office for days. All he needs is to be along for the ride as you drive yourself into a wall.

And he hopes you will never change.

It's a tunnel with no end, but you'll cling to him forever.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

blood diamond.

for g. seongje.

It's too hot for anything.

Too hot for sex. Too hot to eat. Too hot to breathe.

But you do it all, anyway.

His naked back is to you as he leans against the stove with a flexed arm. The muscles between his shoulder blades writhe as his neck dips to accommodate the tiny space.

You watch the sweat roll down his tanned skin, waiting at the square table with a leg up on the chair. He's stirring something in a pot that smells like food. You're not really sure. He's fine at cooking--maybe even good--but you don't eat much of anything he touches.

The steam makes the walls sweat, and the wallpaper starts to peel. You're in nothing but an old bra and the underwear you slept in last night. He's in his navy boxers. There's no need to get dressed in the morning--you'll just sweat right through it. You hunch over the table, like the heat weighs you down.

He turns around with two bowls in his hands and a cigarette between his teeth. He slides one to you across the table--the one with the egg on top--and sits down.

He puts his cigarette out on the ashtray between you and--without so much as a look in your direction--picks up his chopsticks and starts slurping noodles from his bowl.

You eat even though you have no appetite. He doesn't seem to care all that much. After getting a few small bites in, you sink all the way back in your chair, your body sliding down the seat as your bare legs sprawl to the side. Your arms hang straight down, dangling by your sides as your thighs stick to the plastic.

He pays no mind to it as he continues eating. Your wet hair is glued to your forehead. Your sweat tickles your chin and drips onto your chest. The only thing keeping you from going insane is the oscillating fan that cools your skin as it turns, though the constant clanking of the blades practically drives you insane anyway.

You sigh through your nose as you stare up at the ceiling. The white light flickers above you--the only cold thing in the room. A mosquito casts a shadow on your face, and you smack your cheek as it lands on you.

Rarely does any sunlight creep into your suite. Only a few slivers make it past the bedroom blinds at certain hours.

"Did you pay rent?" you ask, your voice bland with exhaustion.

"No."

He slurps loudly, his head lowered to the bowl.

Since there's nothing left to say, you close your eyes and pretend it's spring again, when everything starts over.

You stand up when you feel yourself dozing off. "I'm taking a bath," you say, already walking to the bathroom.

He finally looks up, and it's his turn to stare at your back as you leave. "It's your third one today," he calls through a mouthful of noodles, his voice rough from the sex earlier.

"I pay the water bill anyway," you reply halfheartedly right before closing the door.

You can't stand the feeling of suffocating in your own skin. You can't breathe--can't think--in this weather. It seeps from the city into your walls and traps you in an airless prison.

You remove the little clothes you have on and run the bath. You sit on the edge of the tub and stare at the stream of cold water. It sputters occasionally as it leaves the faucet. You lose yourself in it.

When it fills a third of the way, you step in and sit down, letting the cold shock your body. If you bathe three times today, and only fill a third of the tub every time, that's technically only one bath.

You hug your knees and stare at the dripping faucet, like it's leaking tears.

Not long after, you let yourself cry, too.

It's not ugly, like your mother when she cried. You’ve always hated it when she did--her face contorted in strange ways that made her seem like an entirely different person. You would wonder where she went and get angry when she wouldn’t return. Nothing you did would make her stop. She would sputter, only to continue, and the tub would overflow.

You make the bath your home, imagining the foot of the tub is the horizon on a setting sun. You lick your tears to taste salt and turn the silence into a seascape.

You hate this city. You hate what it does to you. You hate how the summer traps you inside it.

You think about dying and what it's like. You wonder if you really do return to your birthplace in death. Fallen leaves return to their roots. You heard the phrase somewhere growing up. You wonder if you'll return to the sea--maybe because you've never had a religion or anything to believe in other than yourself. You wonder if that makes you selfish or smart.

You think you'll die if you stay here. Clusters of skyscrapers, an urban hellscape of people and filth--people who can't afford a big city with big opportunities. It costs a life to spend one here.

After some time, you hear the door creak open. You smell him before he even enters--sweat and smoke and your shampoo.

Days are slow when it's hot, and it might be the only thing you like about summer in the city. You haven't moved since you sat down. Your bones begin to hurt.

He sits on the closed toilet lid and lights a cigarette between his teeth--elbows on his knees, hair spiked with sweat. Only when he exhales do his muscles relax.

You both pretend it doesn't happen--this ritual where you stow away to the bathroom and cry in the tub. You think it's childish--like you're playing pretend in an ocean that's really a bathtub. He lets you.

Once, you fell asleep in the water and almost died of dehydration. He came in to fish you out and carry you back to reality. In the kitchen, he mixed salt with water and watched as you drank. You laughed at the irony. It was the first time he heard you laugh since moving in together, and it was when you were closest to death.

You're about to doze off again when his voice brings you back.

"Fuck this," he mumbles lazily, his hand scratching his nape. You're not sure if he means the heat or this life in general.

Part of you aches for the person he was that you never got to see. You think it's a waste--a wild card turned bad beat. He was never really the same after the military. You don’t ask about it.

He rarely talks about his past. You know what high school he went to--saw a few photos of him in his uniform with some other kids that seemed like some sort of gang. He looked different back then.

Years ago, your brother tested into some private high school in Seoul, and you didn't hear from him much after that. He loved basketball, you think. You haven't talked to him in years.

He came back to visit one time during the summer on crutches--said he injured his knee while playing. You weren't buying it, but you kept quiet.

You looked at him, and you still remember the way he looked at you.

It was the moment he knew you had changed.

~~~

One night, it was particularly humid--the kind of weather that could make anyone boil over.

Seongje was drunk and had gotten into a fight in the alleyway behind a bar. It had been a month since his discharge. You waited against a wall, smoking a cigarette as he threw punch after punch.

When you glanced over to see if it was almost over so you could go home, he grabbed onto the man's leg mid-roundhouse kick. He brought his elbow down to his knee, over and over. You watched his tight shoulder wind up his beatings, his face contorted as he seethed.

The man shouted, then fell to the ground from the repeated blows--right into a warm puddle. But the hits kept raining down, beating a relentless rhythm into his bone. You saw his blood mix with water. You heard cartilage crunch.

You blew smoke from your teeth and walked away.

~~~

You yawn, and it alleviates you enough to move again. He passes you a cigarette, and you nip it between your lips. Resting your arms on the edge of the tub, you lean forward so he can light it for you.

There's not much to talk about these days. It's more comfortable this way.

You take a drag and sink back. This time, you look at the ceiling. The white paint peels from the wood, leaving islands of brown underneath, each one surrounded by yellowing ripples and years of stain. You blow smoke at them in jealousy.

"If you need to piss, just piss," you say, your gaze still locked on the ceiling.

He doesn't respond--only brings the cigarette back to his lips.

After a moment, you place your hands on the sides of the tub to lift yourself up, ready to get out and return to your reality. Before you can, he grips your wrist so tightly you think he's in pain.

You look down and see the archipelago of his spine, the weight of his neck as it bends like a bough, letting his head hang low. You like the way his bones look when they peek out from under his skin--like skipped stones on the water.

He doesn't say anything, just squeezes your wrist until you think it'll break. That's when you know to sit back down.

He has odd ways of showing when he wants you to stay, but you know what they mean each time. He likes how you don't expect him to talk to you.

Sometimes, you still see bits of who he was--when he throws things abruptly, when he breaks his silence with a loud curse. He rarely yells, but when he does, it's sharp and gone as soon as it punctures the air.

~~~

You learned about thunder back in high school; lightning heats the air in a fraction of a second, expanding it rapidly, which sends a loud shockwave through it. You wonder if you're like lightning--always striking where there's least resistance. And he's the shockwave that follows.

In high school, you wanted to be an environmental scientist. The city dries up that dream with each passing, impossible day.

~~~

"Are you leaving me?" you ask, the words evaporating as soon as they leave, like the smoke from your mouth. You're predictably calm.

Storms over the coast always scared you awake as a kid. Now, you find yourself seeking them in him.

He doesn't move. "No."

"Then why is half our savings gone?"

~~~

There's a shoebox on the very top shelf of the closet, with all the important things: your passports, the matching thread bracelets you never wear, bank statements, diplomas, and a stack of cash you've both been contributing to since moving in together.

You had a feeling ever since he started leaving for work an hour earlier. You assumed he was cheating, so you didn't bother asking about it. When you saw a duffel bag with his clothes stuffed inside under the bed, you checked the box.

~~~

The chair waddles as you stand on it. You fish out the shoebox from the back of the top shelf. Rummaging through it, you find an old photo of the two of you: you're sitting next to each other on a weathered porch, looking out in different directions at the sea in front of you, right behind the camera. You remember exactly what you were seeing--what it smelled like.

You're both barefoot, soles in the packed soil below, eyes squinting against the sun. It reflects a sheen of sweat on your foreheads. There's a cigarette tucked in the shell of his ear. His white, sleeveless shirt sticks to his skin as he leans back on his palms, his tanned biceps tense. It's the darkest you've ever seen him.

You're resting your chin on your fist, hunching over your spread knees. Your brows furrow at the salty wind. Your hair is tied back in a lazy bun.

It's the happiest you've ever seen yourself.

~~~

Every summer, the two of you packed your bags and drove to Busan to visit his grandmother. She lived in a fishing village right off the port.

The road trips were mainly silent as he drove lazily and you stared out the window, your bare feet resting on the dashboard. You haven’t returned since she passed two years ago.

She never liked you all that much, anyway, but she showed you kindness through her disapproval--swatting you back in the house with a slipper when you wore too little, making you peel corn with her on the porch, forcing you to finish the food she made.

Seongje knows you miss your home. It's where you were born and where your mother died, and where he thinks you’ll die, too. Though you don't act much different when you're there, he sees it in your eyes when you stand on the shore--high tide lapping at your knees, hair caught in the wind, eyes somewhere far off. You become unreachable.

He knows being in the city with him has killed you.

~~

You place the photo back in the box before noticing the wad of cash, noticeably smaller in size. It's bound by a thin, loose rubber band that's losing its snap. You flip through it with your fingers, counting what's left and ignoring the fact that he took the money but left the picture.

~~~

He doesn't respond to your question--doesn't even act like you said anything at all. He just runs his palm through his hair, still hunched over and looking at the tiled floor.

"Are you running away with someone?" you ask, more curious than accusatory as you put your cigarette out on the tub's edge.

He finally lifts his head, then looks at you slowly. Even now, in his state of sweat and exhaustion, his eyes are electric.

"What do you think?" His voice is low and rumbles on the way out, his cigarette forgotten between his fingers.

You can only look at him--straight into those eyes that make you want to run from them--your face relaxed but unreadable. His irises flicker back and forth as they lose their focus on your face.

After a moment of this, he stands up and leaves, his hand ruffling the back of his head on the way out.

You lay your head back on the rim of the tub and close your eyes, allowing fatigue to seep back into your body. You wonder if dying feels like this--a sinking sleep that brings you home.

Right as you begin to dream, the door opens again. Though you're awake, you keep your eyes closed. Even when you feel the water ripple around you when he steps into the bath, you remain blind.

The water sings when he sits opposite you. You hear the spark of a lighter, smell the familiar puffs as they sift through his teeth. It's only then that you open your eyes.

His legs extend on either side of you, hugging the curve of the small tub. One hand brings a cigarette to his lips while the other pinches something small that glistens when you blink. He holds it out to you--a silver ring, with a princess diamond embedded right on its shank.

He knows you're slipping away, and he knows he still needs you--right where he is, wherever that may be.

Your eyes glance down at it, then back up to him. His face is just as unreadable, like he has no room for expectations. A very still second passes before you take the ring and slip it onto your finger.

"You didn't buy this with our money," you note simply, holding your hand out so it catches the light. Not even five times the amount could afford something like this.

He taps ash over the tub. "I got a side gig."

When he looks at you, you feel like ice under salt--cold and scalding all at once. You see something that could be his past glint in his eyes, and you know you won't be staying here for long.

There's a brewing storm inside him that you want to throw yourself into--a quelled madness you've seen only in him, like he alone has the right to be this way.

The faintest shadow of a smile sits on your face as he looks at you. It's all he needs. He comes closer, the water dragging on his skin like it doesn't want to let him go. He kisses you where it hurts.

You hope he continues to corrode like this--until you feel at home again.

You're like lightning.

You strike first, but he hits harder.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

citrus season.

for g. seongje.

It's citrus season on the island.

You squint through the leaves as you reach up to snap the golden fruit from its stem. The branch dips, then bounces, shaking itself of its powdery coat as snow lands on your cheeks. The movement shifts the dappled shadows against your skin. The brighter the sun, the more sour the lemon.

It's an unusually sunny winter, though the rays offer no warmth.

You turn at the sound of a sole on wet snow. You're met with a stranger--and strange he is. Something in his face leaks of a city larger than life.

He tosses you a lemon as soon as you turn, and you wonder if he meant to hit you with it. You catch.

"Are these lemons yours?" he asks through a smirk, his words a steam trail in the cold. You can tell he's the flippant kind, and it immediately rubs you in all the wrong ways.

You tilt your head as you study him--his half-rimmed glasses, his salt-licked hair, his eyes that reveal less than they notice. You don't respond for a long time, and he grows more amused as the frost fills the silence.

Your hand clutches your basket of lemons, knuckles raw from the corrosive chill. "Why does it matter? The trees will just grow more."

A wry breath slips through his teeth, and the wind musses his hair. It looks something like seaweed. "And what will you do with all those lemons?"

"Why do I have to do anything with them? I want to have them."

"Do you always respond to questions with questions?"

You want to say something, but you swallow the thought before it can leave your lips. It kills you on the way down.

Seeming to be at a standstill, he laughs. It's drier than the cold.

Turning back to your lemons, you snap off another. You feel his eyes on your back. It’s shielded by a red coat that seems to swallow you. Your legs are bare and raw against the snow, piles of which have hardened into ice caps as they seep into the black soil below.

"Geum Seongje!" a woman's voice calls from through the trees. It travels like a blade and curdles in the air. A few leaves rustle.

You hear his feet move, and he strolls past you, through the orchard, and into a white beach house that stings your eyes when you look directly at it. It's brighter than the sun. You feel sour all over.

~~~

You return the next day, perhaps out of spite.

"Back so soon?"

He's tossing a lemon up and down, up and down. It lands perfectly in his large palm every time. You give him a look that betrays no emotion. "Are all these lemons yours?" you ask, your wicker basket empty.

He smiles like he's holding in a secret. “This whole orchard is mine. Technically, you're trespassing into my backyard."

You look into his eyes as you snap a particularly large lemon off a wiry bough. You don't miss the bruise peeking out from under a bandage on his cheekbone.

"Then why don't you tell me to leave, if all this is yours?" you ask with disinterest, dropping the fruit into your basket.

"Maybe I have a thing for thieves," he quips, and you hold back a glare with great effort. You continue collecting.

At your nonresponse, he takes it upon himself to keep testing you. "Why do you need all these lemons, anyway?"

When you ignore him once more, he smirks and shoots a breath through his nose, clearly entertaining himself with you. “Okay. You don't have to tell me. Just save me a few." He strolls past you with his hands in his thin, gray cardigan. "My mom’s going to kill me when she finds out I'm playing with a thief."

He whistles, and you're not sure if it's at you or the prospect of a berating.

You give him a look when he passes, your hand clamped around another ripe lemon. You snap its stem, and the sound scares the birds from their sleep.

~~~

You've been stealing the same lemons from your neighbor every winter on the island since you were a kid. You've never seen anyone come out of that blinding, white house, so you assumed no one lived there--at least not in the winter. The sound of waves battering the jagged shore drowned out the sounds of their stay.

It's a particularly quiet noon, one that only comes with a bone-dry chill--even the bugs go silent, numb beneath the freeze. The water draws farther from shore and hides in its basin, allowing no reprieve.

Though the steel sky is relentless, the sea is kind today, its foam blanketing the shore like a returning embrace.

That's when you hear the blows, the crashing of furniture, a woman's hollering voice. It penetrates the walls, making it hard not to listen.

The next day, you trek into his orchard once more, your boots sinking into the blackened snow with each step. A scowl sits on your face unknowingly as you wait under your usual tree. The whetted wind picks up again, and the tide beats the rocks raw as if yesterday's embrace meant nothing.

You stand facing the sea, from which he emerges every time your back is turned to it. You watch the waves as you wait, their beautiful commotion always returning to the same calm ebb--a volatile magnet.

You squint against the blinding creases illuminated by the white sun on the water’s surface, the mist teasing your hair into your eyes. The sea is sharp in the winter, and its enticement becomes a warning.

A pair of eyes watches you through the trees. He thinks you look better from behind, where your eyes can't betray your thoughts. He likes the way the water looks on you--how the horizon cuts through your waist. He likes how you forget what you're waiting for and get lost in something farther off.

"Are you a stalker now, too?" he muses, emerging from the leafy shade. "Was stealing not doing it for you anymore?"

You give the water one last look before turning around, and when you do, a large wave beats a spray of white foam into the air, crowning your silhouette with its splash. Your powder blue dress hangs loosely from your body like a sheet in the breeze, the rest of you swathed in that same red coat.

He doesn't bother trying to hide the evidence on his body, and you don't bother trying to hide the fact you're looking; he’s littered with fingernail marks and yellowing bruises--like rotting fruit. He sports a lonely white T-shirt and black sweatpants, his hands buried in their pockets.

He glances down at his arm--four long, red lines scratched into his skin, like he's been ripped at the seams.

“They're pretty ugly, right?" he notes casually before returning his gaze to you. He smiles. "Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"Why don't you hit back?" you ask, still as stone. Your warm breath hugs your lips.

"Why don't you grow your own lemons?" he parries.

You want to scoff, wishing he would be serious for once, until you notice the dead glint in his eyes.

You settle for a solid answer this time.

"I think I've given enough in this lifetime." You look up at the plump fruit drooping under their weight, burdening their stems. A sparse canopy of ice-capped leaves shrouds them in a wet sheen, as if they're melting.

You continue: "Every winter, these lemons ripen after a year of growing, just to fall into snow and rot when spring comes.” You revert your gaze, and it sticks to him. “You have a whole orchard, and you never make use of any of it."

He lets his eyes linger on you a bit longer before he cuts the thin air with a humorless laugh.

"A thief thinks I'm not taking enough of what's mine, and says she gives too much." He scans you up and down, his tongue playing with his canine.

Then, he sighs up at the foliage, watching as his breath turns to mist. "Why would someone need a bunch of lemons, anyway--"

He's cut off by the sight of you plucking one from a low-hanging branch and biting into it--skin and all. The acrid flesh stings your tongue, but your mouth waters like it's relishing a delicacy. Some of the juice spritzes onto his cheek. He closes one eye coolly and looks to the side.

When he peers back, you're chewing on the pulp like it's rubber, but you swallow without a hitch.

There's a quiet that expands like ice, until he laughs. It sounds like rocks against the tide, but the smooth ones you can flip over in your palm.

When his shoulders have stopped shaking, he stares you down. "You're the exact type of person I like to mess around with. Ask anyone off this island and they'll tell you the same thing." He pulls a cigarette from his pocket and lights up, shielding the flame from the damp cold. Something about him feels unreachable, like you're looking at him through a crack. You realize you've gone too deep.

"Why do you let life go to waste?" you question, fighting a bitter aftertaste. You wonder if you're asking about him or the lemons. The wind abuses the acid on your lips.

He blows a thin line of smoke towards you, like he’s dispelling an initial thought. "Some of us can't afford to enjoy it."

You don't try to understand what he means by that--you just know you didn’t like the way it sounded.

"Did you know I've been stealing from you this whole time?"

"Of course."

"Why didn't you stop me?"

"Because I like seeing you steal from me."

"Why?"

"Does there need to be a reason?"

"There's always a reason."

No one has ever left you wordless in an argument--you always get the last one in. You also think every conversation is an argument.

After yet another standstill, he flicks his cigarette into the snow. His hands find their home in his pockets. You think winter looks good when he's standing amidst it.

"My mom hits me, sure. Everyone here knows that. She hits me, and I hit people. Because I know how it feels,” he says in an offhand sort of way.

It leaves your lips before the thought forms in one whole piece: "Are you going to hit me?”

You feel your anchor becoming loose. It drags, but you only drift further out.

There's a look on his face you've never seen on anyone before. It unfurls a heat hiding inside of you. It spreads through your body, a warm kiss that makes you forget the cold that bites.

His tongue does something in his mouth that you don't quite catch. His head tilts in a way that has his breath fogging up the bottom of his lenses. His eyes peer at you from above the frames.

"Do you want me to?"

And all you can do is hold back.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

bruit.

for n. baekjin.

There's a sun out over the water. It burns so bright it casts a shadow. It flickers in and out of the tide. There's a quiet that barely travels through the current.

You feel the ripples roll along your back like a washboard. You haven't seen the world like this in a long time. You hear a heartbeat in the water.

The sky watches you stay afloat--just barely. In the space between, there's a shared silence that has grown familiar in the absence of love.

You wonder if water is like death--no noise, no air, no weight, nothing except the embrace of the cold that will soon grow warm around you.

You let your body memorize the feeling--a stillness strong enough to swallow you whole--so that when you pass, you know death before it comes.

You let it wash you away.

~~~

The skin ruptures like it's ripe, and you run the blade along the pocket of organs. Carefully, you peel the skin back and pin it to the board beneath, revealing what's inside. Splayed out like this, you see it for how it survived, and not how it once lived, and you feel nothing.

You collect your phone after class and take a photo of the bisected rat at your lab station. At the lunch bell, you walk to the alley behind the gym.

~~~

"This is only half." Na Baekjin stands like stone--like he's sculpted from the walls around him.

You're leaning against the brick, your shoulders hunched and knees locked. You peer at the scab on your shin, taking an absent-minded draw of your cigarette.

He waits for you to respond, however you'll choose to this time. Na Baekjin commands time with stillness--like he has so much of it, it barely exists anymore. Time moves you, whereas it moves for him.

"It's what you gave me to work with. I can't turn shit into gold. Can I get my cut now?"

You and Baekjin have an agreement--you sell his drugs, and he gifts you the margin of error.

His eyes pierce yours, and you feel yourself on the edge of a warning. Nothing's ever free with him--even you come at a price. He lives in transactions and calculations, and you'd give it all to stay in the equation.

He reaches into his gray uniform blazer and pulls out a small square of plastic containing seven orange tablets. It crinkles between his fingers.

You eye the bag with disinterest despite the lump in your pulse when he extends it to you. "Twice what you owe by next week"--his eyes flick up to your face--"or I'll cut your supply for good."

The way you're looking at him could cause a ship to sink under its weight. But he stands taut, as always, anchored to something you’ll never know.

Breaking the stale air, you pull out a stack of cash from your purse and thrust it at him.

He doesn't move, eyes glancing down at your hand before he takes the money. He doesn't bother counting it.

"Is that all?" you ask.

When he doesn't respond, you put your cigarette out on the wall behind you. Snatching the pills from him, you push off the brick. You leave like you'll never come back.

He thinks you're childish, and you let him.

~~~

The sun goes out with your vision, and without it, you feel the water like never before.

It's a vibration inside your body, like something caught between an intrusion and an embrace. You think of how much can be below you without you ever knowing.

The lake will dry up, you think.

The sky sleeps, its twilight cooling the water and stone. The trees flicker as birds fly home. The heartbeat becomes a murmur in the water.

If you open your eyes, you'll see what you're missing. You think it's better not to know.

~~~

"That's enough," he says, and it rolls off his tongue without an edge, like he knows you won't listen.

You sit on top of his bare torso in a straddle, your fingers splayed out against his chest as you examine every inch of him, tracing over his heart, his trachea, his diaphragm. Despite his prior reprimand, he lets you--his forearm draped across his eyes in an attempt to rest them, as if it’s the only way he can get a break from the world.

You want to know if he's alive under his skin; you want to know what it takes to see what's underneath.

You've never known what it means to be someone's girlfriend. You wonder if loving him is a requirement, if it involves some form of mutual, intimate sacrifice.

But you've never had that with Na Baekjin.

He looks at you differently sometimes, kisses you at others. It's tense and predictable all the same, his eyes giving it away every time. He takes you in fully, like he's testing his limits. You don't lean in or push back--you wait for it.

He has a way of putting your life on hold for him. You don't know what you like about him--or if you like him at all--but you know something keeps you around. Maybe it's a concealed kind of pity, or a desire to know more.

Your fingers brush upward to his clavicle, his larynx, his jaw, then back down along his spine. You press down on his sternum. You're wordless in your studies, wishing you could reach under the skin that separates you from him, and touch what even he can't reach.

You lean down to rest an ear to his heart and listen to the muted pump of his blood, the rumble of his chest. Your head rides the undulation of his ribs as his lungs inflate in steady swells. You don't ever want to come up for air.

The ebb calms you. A conch to your ear, you listen for the sea.

He has you hooked--on his drugs, on him. You think you can drown in him.

You hear him start to slip into sleep--sense the slight shift in the way his body sounds, the way his sternum deflates.

You look up at him, your cheek sticking to the patch of skin where you were listening so intently. "Don't sleep yet," you say, and your voice sends a vibration through his lungs.

"Why not?" he replies, his voice only barely betraying his exhaustion, the arm over his eyes offering reprieve from the harsh lights.

"Because you sound different when you sleep."

He doesn't respond for a long time.

"Okay," he says, finally, and it's barely a mutter. A deep exhale follows, and it electrifies you.

~~~

He has never looked at you as he looks at you now, his brow no longer heavy, his eyes softened to support a smile--carved out at the edges by a thin black frame, lush with white wreaths that stand guard at his altar.

It's quiet. You can’t hear a thing--only the blood in your left ear, the ear that once stuck to his skin. You start to swear by this silence.

Then comes the weeping. You hear six hearts clad in black suits beating faster than yours, and you realize you will never hear his again.

He was perfect. Inside, it was always loud--an orchestra of organs to keep him alive, like he was made of noise despite his silence. A conductor of his chaos. There was music inside him.

Something was different in his chest the last time you lay on it. You sensed it before it came--a pseudo-somatic current in the rhythm of his body. A canary in a coal mine.

You think of the rat flayed on the table--or was it a mouse?--with everything that kept it alive still perfectly intact inside it.

You wonder if parts of him are missing or broken, splattered against a wall in an alley somewhere--if his heart is in someone else's chest.

If Na Baekjin's body were still intact, you would lie on it and listen forever.

~~~

Your body is at equilibrium--the exact set-point of density between sinking and flying. You hold your breath.

The sun blinks awake, and you get out.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

inertia.

for a. suho.

There's a pain in his eyes you will never decipher but will always know. He can't betray himself if he tried.

Yeon Sieun makes you uncomfortable, so you avoid him--he reminds you of your old dog that died with the same look on its face--but it becomes hard to avoid someone so conspicuous in his silence.

You see him sometimes at cram school, still in his Eunjang uniform as if it doesn't brand him like an iron. He hasn't shown up in weeks.

~~~

Ahn Suho is everything you wish you were but know you'll never be. But with him, you feel closer to everything than ever.

So when you're suddenly walking home alone again, you notice how still your world is without him; you have too much time to think, too much silence to know what to do with. You used to love your solitude--your stillness. But it's never without your restless thoughts anymore.

Your home becomes the hospital, a new step in your routine as you check in every night after cram school. You often spend the night, studying beside his bed, listening to the hissing and beeping of his body. It calms you in a strange way--drowns the thoughts in your head. You brush your teeth in the inpatient restrooms and wake up early to shower at home.

At first, the sterile quiet of the ICU after dark made you cynical, but you've since learned to find it comforting.

Yeon Sieun sits in the same spot he always does--outside Suho's room, typing away on his phone. The routine is to ignore each other, but the unspoken silence has since turned into a shared recognition, and you hate it. You don't want to share anything with Yeon Sieun, especially not Suho.

Like clockwork, you enter his room and come out a few seconds later with an armful of arranged bouquets. Without as much as a proper look, you toss them all into the disposal bin at the end of the hall.

You never bring him flowers, and any that show up in his room go in the trash before they get the chance to wither. Flowers in hospitals are for dead people. Ahn Suho isn't dead.

You stop in front of Sieun before entering Suho's room.

"Don't come back here," you say steadily, in the same tone of voice you use when reporting exam results in front of your class. Your arms are loose on your shoulders, your muscles relaxed despite the persistent tightness in your chest.

He looks up slowly, and he catches the slight grimace in your face that you hide beneath indifference. His eyes protect a vacancy behind them that he never bothers to hide.

Without sparing another word, you turn around and walk into Suho's room. You pull out your workbooks and study to the sounds of his body.

~~~

The following day, he's in the exact same spot. You meet his gaze in a way you never have before. You're about to enter the room when you hesitate, and before the thought takes shape fully, you're walking up to him.

"You skip cram school to come here, and you never do anything.” Your own bitterness surprises you. “You don't look at him. You don't talk. You don't move. You just sit there like your life's the one on hold."

You didn't mean for it to sound as ugly as it did, but it's too late to stop. "It should’ve been you."

Before you get the chance to feel guilty, you walk into Suho's room, as if you can hide from yourself inside. As soon as the door shuts behind you, your heart grows sour, and it contorts your face. Your cheeks get hot.

You hate Yeon Sieun.

You wish he weren't here to make it worse--to remind you how many other lives Suho has to go back to. Perhaps selfishly, you want to be the only one in pain for him. You tell yourself it will lessen the load bearing down on his return. Secretly, you know it's to prepare for when he doesn't--or when he does, and you find out you're not the one who needed him back the most.

It's the first time you've cried since his hospitalization, and you feel ridiculous.

You hate Yeon Sieun. You hate his eyes. You hate how he's one more person you have to feel sorry for.

~~~

It's Suho's birthday.

A small cake sits untouched on the small table by the couch; it's the one you both got every time you went to the bakery by your house together. You had a feeling you liked it more than he did, but he always liked everything you liked.

You look at the pink pillow in the shape of a cat resting under his head; you had placed it there after going through what was collected from his locker. He probably slept in class every day. You wish you could have known what he was like at school, how he acted with his friends. You hardly know them, just that they were close.

You caught on early--how he went out of his way to keep their distance from you. He never failed to keep you out of trouble, putting you above your curiosities and having you grateful for it later. He was always part of your world more than you were part of his.

You stare at his face, trying to memorize every detail. You do this just in case you forget one day. You're afraid to touch him, as if he'll grow weaker if you do anything at all.

"Do you really get older if time stops just for you?" He always liked it when you asked him questions he couldn't answer. "You haven't changed. I wonder if your body knows it's a year older."

Between working two jobs and never missing a day at school, he always somehow ended up right where you were--a force to your mass. You were unchanging in every place, static until he found you--moved you. He kept you alive.

You wish you had trusted him less--forced him to stop seeing his friends when you still had the time. If you had been less forgiving, it may have changed things.

But you were motionless where you were; you never thought about potentialities.

You lived like a picture. You once thought that was enough.

An object at rest stays at rest.

The time you never spent with him is time you will never get again. Now, he can experience the luxury you've always had--to stay at rest in a moving world.

Secretly, for a split second, you wonder how long until you move along with it.

You gnaw on your lip. You want to tell him you're sorry, but you don't know what you would be apologizing for--just that he deserves one. Foolishly, you think he's still listening.

"I know living was exhausting for you, and this is your only break from it all--" You don't finish your sentence after you realize what you're asking.

But I need you to show up for me one last time.

You hate Yeon Sieun because he isn't selfish like you.

But you stand up anyway, and walk to open the door to a statue of him, his thumbs frozen above his screen as it goes black.

An object at rest stays at rest-- unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

"You should come in," you offer, and it's the first time you've felt kind in a long time.

His gaze is fixed on the screen, and you almost hope it stays that way. You wonder if he sees himself and thinks what you think.

When he doesn't move, you walk over to him and gently take the phone from his hands. "He doesn't have all day." Your face feels lighter as the words leave your lips. You still like making all the jokes that Suho would laugh at.

He looks up at you, then stands like it hurts, then follows you inside.

You both finish the cake quietly, and it reminds you just how hungry you've been all this time.

~~~

You don't mind that he never speaks to you. Honestly, you prefer it that way. You're afraid of what he'll say, and what it'll do to you.

Suho's grandmother started making home-cooked, lunchbox-style meals for the two of you. You eat them with him after cram school, right on the steps outside. He started showing up again.

It's an extra stop in your routines before walking to the hospital together.

"I don't really know who Suho is," you say after a moment of eating in silence. You came to this realization after you noticed that all the things you wanted to buy for him--for when he wakes up--are all somehow related to you.

He picks out all the diced radish that he hates and places them on your rice as you talk. "I only knew him when he was with me." You look down at the pile of radish. "I know I don’t deserve to feel the way I do about everything right now."

You stare at a moth as it flits around a luminescent street lamp. "I wanted to take it all away from him--his exhaustion, his pain." The moth darts into the lamp and falls from its limelight. "But in the end, I never really added anything to his life."

You look at him; you're finally able to without feeling like you owe him something you can't afford. "I think you added a lot." You don't smile, so he knows you're not trying to comfort him.

He sighs through his nose and stares at something far off and unreachable.

"For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction that follows."

His voice is deep and contains a grit absent from Suho's, like he hasn't used it in years. You wonder if Suho's voice will sound different when he wakes up.

He looks at you, too. "Forces always come in pairs."

This time, you smile.

There's a pain in his eyes you will never decipher but will always know. You can't betray yourself if you tried, either.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

feynman's trick.

for g. seongje. epilogue of 'name of the game.'

Being empty is when you’re at the fullest capacity for love. Loving someone like Geum Seongje means having to be entirely hollow. He keeps you hungry, and the feeling fills you right up again.

When you aren't at cram school, you're studying at the lanes. The bowling alley is always filled with Seongje's underlings. They like you because they can gawk at you without him doing anything about it. He'll stroll ahead of you, hands in his windbreaker pockets, a lazy smirk below his glasses. You have a feeling he likes the idea of tempting people with what they can't have.

He's rarely possessive in a way that pushes him to the frontline. He strategizes. He's territorial, leaving messages in the shadows--a student disappearing from school, a smug look that lingers. He barely lifts a finger.

When he heard about a secret admirer leaving flowers on your desk at cram school, the boy showed up the next day to your classroom with a swollen face, trembling. He slowly shuffled to your desk and handed you an elaborate bouquet of roses, his fingers jittering as he sucked on his busted lip. Written on a note nestled between the pink buds were the initials--GSJ.

He takes care of you in his own way; the few Ganghak students at your cram school buy your favorite drinks, then deliver them to your desk before class--every day, like clockwork. They anxiously check the time, avert their gaze, and bow before skittering away. You've never spoken to them. You don't even know their names.

He rarely gives you attention, yet somehow, you feel like the center of the world when you're with him. He doesn't need to hold your hand or take you on dates--he makes sure his distance has gravity.

He has eyes everywhere; Ganghak students orbit you, circling your school field while you're in class--your satellites. They follow you to cram school and wait to make sure you come out on time; a minute late and they call Seongje.

He's constantly planting silent landmines, always watching for the right time to set one off. Anyone in the way is collateral--shrapnel in the trail he leaves.

~~~

Step 1: Introduce a parameter into the integral.

You sit in Na Baekjin's office, upright in his chair at the sleek, metal table. You're speeding through practice questions for the college entrance exam when the door creaks open. You don't look up.

He says nothing as he makes his way over and peers down at you. You scribble shorthand equations into the margins of your workbook, your back straight and hand steady. He knows this exact scene before him--feels the twitch in his finger as he watches you work in a method he's perfected. A timer sits running on the side as you work.

He lets himself observe a moment longer before reaching over and pressing ‘stop.’

Your hand halts, and you finally look up at him. From this angle, he notices, you look human.

"If you want my help, you need to offer something in return."

Baekjin doesn't do favors--only transactions. He also frames blackmail to be help.

To fund the Union, he makes under-the-table deals with failing businesses, which included your parents' company. If not for him, they would’ve gone bankrupt, and they can't afford a scandal if you want to get anywhere near Yonsei University.

You don't move--don't hesitate. "I'm not that sort of person," you say as you continue working through each set.

His eyes cut like blades, and you feel yourself on the edge. You flip to a new page.

"Leave him."

Your pen stops just before writing down the answer. You don't respond.

"Leave Geum Seongje and never talk to him again."

A heavy stillness settles in the space between you and his sterile gaze. It lasts for hours. Maybe even days. A small sigh escapes your lips, too quiet to tell what it means.

Finally, you meet his eyes. What Seongje brushes off, you and Baekjin tightly clutch and bury. You both pretend not to know this, and whatever is left unsaid becomes a silent language between the two of you.

So you return your attention to your workbook and start the timer again.

"He has no one but you"--your pen dances across 5 problems in 4 seconds--" which is why I'll never leave."

Friendship is foreign to both of you, but he's always around when you don't want him to be. You think it counts, at least a little bit.

His eye twitches, just barely. He stands still as a board while you answer 3 more problems, watching your Miu Miu hair clip cast a kaleidoscope of light onto the table. He think it looks ridiculous on someone like you.

There are plenty of reasons why Na Baekjin wants you out. For one, you're not part of the Union--only an extension of Seongje, which makes you a liability. The other reason stays buried--your singular landmine--and you can never let Geum Seongje dig it up.

Seongje wants what he's always had. Baekjin wants what he can never get.

"I'll give you a choice." His voice comes out calm and steady, taking up time he doesn't have. "Leave Geum Seongje or join the Union." His eyes flicker to the timer, which ran just past 30 minutes--three-fourths of the way to finish at an ideal pace. "Decide in fifteen minutes."

He doesn't leave, just stares at you, then at the pile of papers scrawled with equations to the side of your workbook. You've been trying to crack last year's exam's near-impossible calculus question.

"Introduce a new parameter into the integral first." His back is to you as he leaves where he came.

~~~

Step 2: Differentiate under and evaluate the new integral.

You sit at the sleek, metal table, a deceptively expensive cake between you two. A small, key-lime velveteen box sits before you.

You look down at it, then slowly flip open the lid. Inside lies a delicate rose-gold bracelet. In silver embossment on the black leather above it reads: Van Cleef & Arpels.

"Put it on," Seongje says.

You lift it from the box and clip it around your wrist--three flowers and a ladybug. For your three-year anniversary--and good luck, you guess.

"Like it?" It's a confirmation rather than an inquiry; he knows exactly what you like--what you don't like. He makes use of both.

"Mhm," you confirm, shifting your wrist slightly so the light catches on the ladybug spots. And you truly do.

"Never take it off, got it?" he adds.

You still wear the Miu Miu hair clip, even when no one's around to see--even when you've graduated high school a year ago. You like keeping a piece of him with you.

You look up at him. "I won't."

He knows it means more than a promise. When you say anything at all, it means the world.

His gaze lingers on something far past your eyes, like he's trying to extract something from deep inside you.

He leans in, sniffs, and gives you that familiar yet uncrackable look.

“It's been three years, and you're still the exact same," he laughs suddenly. "You never change. You never complain. You're so consistent, it pisses me off."

Sometimes, you wonder why he keeps you around--stands in front of you no matter what. He's never abandoned you, even when you're wrong--even when you're right. He has always protected you in his offset sort of way, letting you dangle by the clutches of his iron grip.

"Three years to get away from me. But here you are."

You don't know what it is he sees in you, only that he sees something and has for all this time. In a strange yet non-foreign way, you like how that part of you belongs only to him--like a piece of you only he can decipher.

But you've known him long enough to know what he likes. What he hates.

He likes the way you look when you're wearing something that was once his. He likes that you're pretty. He likes your hair--how soft it is to touch. He likes the way you do your makeup. He likes your shoulders and collarbones. He likes skirts over shorts, but no shorts under skirts. He likes the way your spine looks through your back. He likes it when you don't realize he's watching you.

He hates when you're late. He hates your little tattoos--especially the ones he can't see. He hates when you curl your hair or part it differently. He hates when you get too skinny--or too fat. He hates when you paint your nails yellow or red. He hates your Instagram account. He hates your friends. He hates not knowing where you are. He hates when you hide from him what he already knows. He hates that no matter how much he infiltrates you, there are constantly new grounds to cover.

He loves you, you think.

You're only you when you're with him. No one else can give you that hunger; they would feed you until you burst.

He leans back in his chair and sniffs. "Do you know how many strings I had to pull to get you that? Fuck, these people don't let me get away with anything. Getting a bribe in cost more than that fucking thing."

After all this time, you still feel like a reflection in his glasses, even if he doesn’t wear them anymore. You wonder if his everlasting flippancy is a result of fight--or flight.

His knee bounces rapidly as he drums his fingers against the steel surface. You sit with your back straight, wearing the dress you bought a day ago.

A news piece on your parents' scandal is being broadcast on the TV, mounted high on the wall behind him. You glance up at the screen and watch as they replay the clip of your mother and stepfather being escorted to the courtroom, pushing through a sea of reporters and flashing cameras.

"How's Yonsei?” he says, returning your attention to him. “I was really hoping you'd hate it.”

You smile only slightly. "It's awful."

He laughs dryly. "You've never been who you’ve always pretended to be, y/n."

And it's clear as day when you sit before him now, looking how you've never looked before--longer hair pulled out of your face, the scar on your chest faded, more meat on your bones. You look different, but you're unchanged.

Seongje smiles as he looks at you, and you almost think it's genuine. He nods at the untouched cake. "Thanks for the cake. It's not like I can eat it."

Before you can think of something else to say, a loud buzzer sounds, and the heavy iron door opens behind him.

"Guess that's it," he quips in an offhand way.

You stand on cue, and he glances up at you, a soft smirk still painting his face. He's lost weight.

You're glad he hasn't lost what will always make him yours.

You're not like Geum Seongje. You can't face yourself the way he does, but you notice him every day: in your dorm room; while getting dressed in the morning; when you catch a glimpse of him in another student's smile. You hear him in your laugh--when you laugh.

You watch him through the glass, but your eyes focus in and out of your own reflection. You'll never escape this divide, transparent but never invisible--tempered to withstand fire and ice.

He waves at you through his handcuffs as a guard escorts him out of the room and back to his cell, still walking in that lazy, smug sort of way. He smiles.

You could spend the rest of your life saying goodbye if it meant seeing him like this.

Step 3: Integrate back, and solve.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

name of the game.

for g. seongje. a continuation of 'slapkiss.'

'If you loved me, and I told you I wanted to die--would you beg me not to, or would you kill me instead?'

~~~

You watch as he beats the boy's skull into the stained concrete, one punch after another. Your back is pressed against cold brick. A cigarette lingers between your fingers, which you occasionally bring to your lips.

He doesn't glance over at you to make sure that you're watching. He knows you are. He knows you'll always do what he asks, eventually.

A sigh falls from your lips. This is his leisure, but you're getting bored.

"You said we'd get hot pot today," you say through a tired puff of smoke.

Seongje throws the final blow--goes in for the kill. He stands, sniffs, and licks the blood from his lips.

"You're right, I did say that," he responds casually before sending one last relentless kick into the boy's ribs. "But I'm craving chicken now." He shoves his hands in his pockets before strolling towards the open warehouse gate. He stops and looks behind him, straight at you. That's another thing you like about him--when he does decide to look, it's always your eyes, first.

"You coming?"

You snub your half-finished cigarette out against the wall behind you before pushing away from it. You walk to him how you always do--slowly, but you know he'll always wait, and you'll always meet him right where he’s at.

He pulls out a cigarette. On cue, you light it for him.

~~~

"What a shit day," he grumbles, slurping his ramen.

"I thought you wanted chicken."

"I changed my mind." He looks up, and something lingers in the space between you. "Did you change your hair?"

"No."

"It looks different." He digs around his bowl with his chopsticks, looking for more spam at the bottom. You decided you weren't hungry after sitting down.

You realize Seongje isn't really asking if your hair is different; rather, he knows it definitely is. You didn't wear your hair clip today, the one he bought for you. You're supposed to wear it every day, and you're not supposed to forget.

You watch him as he eats.

You remember when he first gave it to you, pulling it out of his blazer pocket and tossing it in your direction. So people know who you belong to, he said. You looked at the Miu Miu clip in your hands, embellished with crystals all over. Seongje could buy Miu Miu itself if he wanted to.

"I lost it," you say. You test him.

He doesn't look up at you. Instead, he picks up his bowl and drinks up the last of his broth. "You lost it, huh?" he echoes after placing it back down.

You don't respond.

Finally, his eyes meet yours. You want to take his glasses off; the harsh restaurant lights cast a glare on the lenses. You want to see him the way he sees you--clear and unobstructed through the frames. You see your own reflection looking back at you.

"You'll have to make it up to me, then, won't you?"

His hand reaches across the table and sifts through a lock of hair framing your face. He examines each strand. "Should I shave your head? Long, pretty hair like yours sells for a lot." You can see the thought light up his face--the smile curl into his lips.

"Or I can take you back tonight and fuck a proper apology out of you." It comes out easily for him, like his first nature is being crude. His words are smooth and steady, and they almost comfort you.

"It's been a while since I've taught you a lesson. I've been fucking nice recently, haven't I?" His head quirks to the side as he seems to genuinely ponder such a concept. A crackle leaves his throat, and he laughs through that smile you've wanted so many times to only appear when he's with you.

~~~

You lie in his bed, your blouse unbuttoned and glued to your bare chest with sweat. Your skirt is still on.

He sits in front of his PC, smoking a cigarette in a crisp black shirt and fleece sweatpants. An ashtray anchors down a pile of report cards. The clacking of his keyboard, gunshots, and the occasional curse as he plays his game are the only sounds in the room. His focus is like a live wire.

And then it snaps.

He shoots up abruptly from his chair and chucks his mouse across the bed. It zips past your body and breaks against the wall. You scroll on your phone.

He's peculiar in many ways, you think--pummeling real people to a pulp is just for fun, but there's nothing he takes more seriously than his in-person shooters.

Suddenly, he's snatching the phone from your hand and throwing it to the floor. Before you can process your last thought, he's on the bed and yanking you by the ankle towards him in one swift motion, silent and seething. His head knocks against yours before dipping into the crook of your shoulder. He inhales and bites down on your pulse before you feel an abrupt intrusion--a heat that spreads and stings every time. His thumb finds the scar on your chest--digs into it.

You wince as he pulls back, and you catch the familiar smell of shampoo in his hair, the smooth linen of his shirt.

From this angle, he looks more familiar than ever--staring down at your spotless face despite the bruises littering your body. He never pays much attention to them--little trophies of his ownership staining your smooth skin. You know he puts them there for you to look at instead.

He jerks your leg up onto his shoulder, eyes boring into yours as he licks a slow, deliberate stripe along your leg, stopping at your ankle. His teeth meet bone.

You love to hate it.

~~~

He's back to his game as if nothing happened, eyes glued to the screen. You catch its reflection in his glasses. Nothing ever shakes him--only bounces right back. No matter how close you get compared to the rest, you'll never know him the way he knows himself. Strangely, it makes you feel seen--you've never met someone like you before.

You stay in bed, now topless and heavy with exhaustion.

"Don't sleepover," he says halfheartedly, still fixed to his screen. He doesn't have to look to know you're beginning to drift off.

With that, you slowly prop yourself up and start getting dressed, assembling the uniform that was just torn from your body. His clicking and clacking become more rapid before he exhales in victory.

"Fuck, finally." He sinks back in his chair and spins on its wheels so he can face you--legs spread and frame relaxed. His eyes scan you up and down. "What do you think you're doing?" he asks.

"You said not to sleepover."

His head tilts just slightly, like the ticking of a second. "I didn't say you could leave, either. You still haven't given me a proper apology."

Seongje never keeps promises--you know that firsthand. He's volatile and unpredictable in a calculated way; he flips like a switch, but only when he wants to. He owns what he can rule and discards what he can't. He controls through chaos.

He gets everything, because he commits to nothing. That's why Geum Seongje always wins.

You stand with your blouse half-buttoned and skirt misaligned. His eyes flicker to the floor in front of him before boring into you. "Come here."

You listen, stopping in the space between his legs. He smirks at how easy it is.

"Get on your knees and do it properly," he says, and it's smooth and steady like melting ice.

Slowly, you kneel and look at your hands as they form fists in your lap. When you don't speak or move, he nudges you with his foot. "You're gonna act stupid now? Tell your boyfriend how sorry you are."

"I'm sorry."

Suddenly, your head is shoved to the side, his large palm enveloping half your skull.

"Fuck, do I have to tell you how to do everything? Sorry for what?" His voice splits the previous stillness and rings in your ear.

"For losing something you gave me,” you say.

"You don't look sorry to me."

You practically hear the idea taking shape in his head. "Take your shirt off.“

After a moment, you unbutton your blouse and begin to peel it from your body.

He kicks your knee. "Faster," he says, his patience slipping by the second. You let the shirt fall to the floor.

"Skirt."

On cue, you unzip the pleated fabric and perch yourself up a bit to maneuver it down your legs, leaving yourself completely bare in front of him.

His eyes study every detail--every bruise and bite. It's surgical, like he's scanning for errors.

After fully taking in your current state, an amused scoff slips past his smirk. "Fuck, you really will do anything I tell you, won’t you?” He loses himself in laughter.

He pets your head before shoving it aside again, and it feels like a reward.

He lights a cigarette and leans in so close you can smell it on his breath. "And you never complain. It’s like you’re made for it," he muses before blowing smoke through a silent laugh--right into your face. It stings your downcast eyes but swells something deep within you.

He taps your cheek with his palm before straightening up in his chair and starting a new match.

“Just stay like that,” he quips casually, eyes absorbed by his monitor once more.

~~~

The next day, you find him waiting for you at your school gate, hands in his slack pockets. The girls cast glances and hurry past him. A speck of crimson in a sea of navy blue skirts.

You're as pristine and put-together as always, not a single trace of the night before on any part of you. No one would ever think that just last night, you were kneeling naked in front of him.

As you walk down the sloping hill to the gate, the sun catches on the crystals in your hair. Neatly pinned above your left ear are the shimmering letters: Miu Miu. It's where it always is--where it always should be. From where he's standing, you're almost blinding.

You see him clear as day--making sure that even in the absence of his gifted accessory, everyone still knows who you belong to.

You breathe in and hold your composure; your environment demands it and nothing less--a prestigious, all-girls private academy feeding students into SKY every year.

You keep to yourself. The less you reveal, the less people know. It’s how you keep yourself at the top--no one can ruin you if they don't truly know who you are. When you're number one, everyone sees you, but you've ensured that no one can touch you. If your life were a game, you’ve mastered its most basic strategy.

He doesn't mention the hair clip, just turns on his heel and expects you to follow, to which you fall in step behind him and decide not to mention what you both already know.

You love to lie, and you do it earnestly, to which he feigns ignorance and hurts you like you hate it. You love the way he kills something inside you--hollows you out to make room for him. You're addicted to this game--this nourishment--and you live to play. You know all the right buttons to push, all his cool-down times, all the shortcuts.

You'll never feel more alive than when you think he's going to kill you.

There's an ecstasy to predictability, and that's something Geum Seongje will never understand.

x.

continue.

[prettypeppermint]

slapkiss.

for g. seongje. a prelude to 'name of the game.'

"Let's break up," you say calmly, letting the words linger in the air--sift through your cigarette smoke. There's a quiet in your eyes, one that dulls every word that comes from your mouth. He knows there's something so damaged about you that it makes you unbreakable.

A scoff leaves his throat, mimicking the scuff of his shoe against pavement as he kicks at his cigarette butt. "You're getting a little too predictable recently, don't you think?" he laughs, and the sound soothes the venom in his words.

He takes a step in, then another, until you have to tilt your head up to look at him.

"You think you can run? Hm?" He presses a knuckle to your temple and shoves your head to the side. "Where will you go? Back to studying in your ivory tower?” Another push to your temple. “Baekjin’s doing you a huge favor by not releasing your daddy’s transactions with the Union to the press.”

He leans in, and his lips brush against your earlobe as he whispers: “You won't even get into junior college with a scandal like that.” It ends with a laugh that caresses the shell of your ear.

He pulls away and smooths down your hair before grabbing a fistful of it at the back of your head. He tugs slightly to get a better view of your chest. His fingers creep up to your collar, yanking at your tie like a leash, pulling you even closer to him. There's a hunger in his eyes that only he's capable of--a hunger that fills your stomach, but you crave it nonetheless.

He begins undoing the buttons of your uniform, one by one, until he can peel it away from your shoulder. You let him.

His thumb runs over the cigarette burn on your chest. Your heart swells whenever you're reminded it’s there--that he put it there.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, y/n," he says lowly, digging his thumb into the mark just enough to slightly crack your calm demeanor.

Seongje takes a step back to admire his work--the undone state he's put you in that only he can coax out of you, like a flame he won’t let die. He likes when you remind him what he's capable of, and how good he treats you despite it.

“You really piss me off, you know? On the surface, you're this ice-cold bitch, turning your nose up at everyone,” he muses, barely stifling a dark chuckle. “But I know you.”

He lights another cigarette, then scans your body. "Should I make another? Put it somewhere everyone can see? You're like my human canvas--fuck." He bites his lip, as if he's holding back a direct attack to the throat.

He traces the cigarette up along the silhouette of your body, barely a centimeter from singeing your uniform. But your eyes don't follow it. Instead, they look at him.

"Should I put it... here”--he halts at your neck--"or... here?" You inhale a lick of smoke as he raises it to your cheek. The ring of heat it leaves against your skin makes your lips part.

"If only your classmates could see you like this--top student y/n, human ashtray.” Another laugh whistles from his throat. He pats your cheek twice. "Open."

You obey by habit, unlocking your jaw and letting your tongue loll past your teeth, just slightly.

He brings the cigarette to your tongue but pauses right before contact. He can tell you're waiting for it, with your eyes looking straight into his--like his antics are your routines.

An amused scoff leaves his throat. "Crazy bitch."

He flicks the cigarette to the side before locking a hand around your throat, shoving you against the alley wall. You feel the brick send a jolt through your skull. He barely looks at you, as if he's bored. Your neck fits the mold of his fingers perfectly, you notice.

There's a twitch in his lip as he studies you like an animal, his head maneuvering like a snake. He hates the way you absorb his treatment, but he loves the way it makes him feel.

"Only I can touch you like this, hm?” He lightly slaps your cheek, his touch light but burning. “Hurt you like this?” It comes out as a flippant warning, but you take it as a confession.

His hand lingers, his thumb creeping up your chin, past your bottom lip. He teases the flesh a bit before forcing past your teeth and pressing down on your tongue. You taste something burnt--something heating up within him.

“You love me, right?" He’s somewhere between smug and smitten as he shakes your face, his grip tight on your jaw.

You nod around his thumb.

"Then why don’t you say it for once?” he teases. He shoves his digit further down, and you feel his nail scratch the back of your throat.

You've never had to say it for it to be true. You don’t know being in love, but you know you're possessed by it. And he knows it best of all.

He particularly hates something about your eyes--how striking they are when they stare into his. You see your reflection in his glasses, and it melts something in you.

Suddenly, he withdraws from your throat and shoves your head against the wall with a half-hearted flick of his palm. You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear like it means nothing.

His eyes narrow beneath a furrowed brow as he pulls out his third cigarette like it’s second nature. He nips it between his lips and lights up, looking at something far off and out of your reach.

"Come," he says as he extends his hand without looking at you.

You press your palm into his and feel the familiar clasp of his fingers--the tug that follows, the lock that clicks--as he leads the way and walks off. You never know where he's going, but you always tether right behind.

You like this view--the back of his head, his arm a lifeline behind him connecting to yours. You like the way the wind tousles his hair and blazer--a crimson mast against the wind. It's your favorite angle--right behind him, where it's safe. Where you will always belong.

Life feels slow when you're on the move, with no knowledge of where he's taking you. But as long as you're Geum Seongje, no one can hurt you except him. It soothes something you didn't know was aching inside you.

A slap. Then a kiss. And you're right at home again.

x.

continue.

[prettypeppermint]

in the bleak midwinter.

for t. shelby. an epilogue for 'swan song.'

~~~ In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago.

~~~

As Thomas stood at the window of his office, peering out not at the festive streets but just past the hills in the distance, he once more thought of you.

You were not the bumbling, scintillating rows of carolers and frenzied shoppers. You were not the snow that disappeare under soles, muddied through a constant hurry. You were something beyond: the vanishing point of a snow-capped peak—a crown jewel against the dust-cloaked heavens. You were elusive—quiet yet screaming, sharp yet mild.

You were his wife.

And you loved him for how he saw you as something far-away, even though you were always right there, standing just behind him.

Like falling snow, you landed within him and melted away.

You watched his strong, exhausted back from the doorway. You wished you could take away his loneliness. You wished you were enough for that.

But love is weakness. And Thomas’s weakness was his blood. Thomas’s method of loving was having his family behind him—not next to him—where he could protect them. He was a man who could not love without love.

So you stood in your place: at the seam of the doorway—the threshold separating his world from yours, at the cold white peak in the distance.

Over the years, you’ve adapted yourself—your silence, your love—to fit his craters and crests. You’ve learned that business was not a priority he chose to place before his marriage, his family. It was simply the only thing he had ever known. He loved within the parameters of his truth. Just as he grew to spot the subtleties and overtones of your silence, you grew to wrap around the prickly edges of his business-strung mind.

Your way of loving was knowing. And if to understand is to love, you’ve done it best.

You smiled before slipping away, a habit of yours Thomas had learned to sense throughout the years.

~~~

Minutes went by, and Thomas’s irises still reflected that of the faraway Romani summits.

Splat.

A wet blotch of fresh snow interrupted his vision as it landed on the glass. Faint laughter permeated the frosted panes, and he looked down to see his wife and son hiding amongst powdery-white bushes, loading up on snowballs.

You knew what made Thomas happy like the back of your hand. Charlie made him happy. Grace made him happy. When business was good he was happy--but only when it could buy his family big houses and some peace of mind. When he could afford to forget about business for a small while, he was happy, as much as he didn’t like to admit it.

He watched as you bent down next to Charlie, squinted your eye, and pointed directly at his face through the window, correcting Charlie's aim before he launched another snowball.

The sound of giggles and laughter melted through the biting chill of December, and Thomas’s own coldness warmed into a smile.

~~~ What can I give Him, Poor as I am? — If I were a Shepherd I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man I would do my part, — Yet what I can I give Him, — Give my heart.

~~~

It was your turn now to watch as Thomas knelt beside Charlie, a plate of cookies manufactured by the pastry chef and a glass of whiskey in his hands for Santa. It was a sweet sight.

Thomas was a lover at heart—a concoction of all the failures of his father catalyzed into all the good things a man should be. As you looked at the way his gaze softened with nothing but patience and care for his son, you were reminded of how detrimentally you loved him. This was why you chose to stay. This was the man you chose to love. This was why you allowed him to mourn the death of another woman—why you decided to fill her role knowing you could never take her place, and to care for her child.

This was happiness.

You knew then that you had too much love for this man, and you would love him like this one hundred times over.

As the maid led Charlie to bed, you ruffled his chestnut hair. You saw Grace’s features beginning to take home in his face. You saw her gaze in his eyes, her memory in his spirit.

“Good night, Nugget. Merry Christmas,” you called him by his nickname.

“Merry Christmas, y/n.”

He didn't ever address you as “Mummy”, and you surprised yourself when you found that you didn’t mind. You liked being just y/n to him. He loved you like more of an aunt than a mother, but you would always love him as if he were your own.

Thomas’s gaze followed the two of them long after they turned the corner and disappeared down the hall. He picked up the whiskey glass and made his way to his desk where he slumped into the chair. You walked over to him, now in a much longer and more expensive nightgown than the one you wore in Small Heath. You liked how money never changed you or Thomas—only your wardrobe and his schedule.

You lifted the glass from his hand in one languid motion, setting it down on his desk in front of a small, framed portrait of you with Charlie.

“I thought that was for Santa,” you teased. Your lips became a slow smile as you sat on his armrest. When you swung your legs across his lap and began playing with the various quills and expensive paperweights on his desk, he caught a glimpse of that youthful girl in Small Heath.

“I’ll tell him I’m sorry then, for stealing his booze,” he replied, bringing a hand up to play with your hair. You heard the restless nights and stirring thoughts in his voice.

You picked up the picture of you and Charlie and examined it. Suddenly, you were made very aware of just how young you were compared to Thomas, but how Shelby blood had rendered you mature with little time.

You placed the frame back down and looked into your husband’s eyes. “Merry Christmas, Thomas,” you whispered, your faces centimeters apart, still calling him by that same formal name just how he liked it.

His gaze flitted to your lips. In this light, you noticed, his eyes looked exactly of that cursed sapphire. Their brilliance despite his exhaustion never failed to slightly fascinate you.

He closed the gap between you in a soft kiss. You draped one arm around his neck while the other traveled to his lapel--a seemingly pure gesture if it weren't for the card you swiftly drew from it, pleated into a tiny square.

You noticed a wilted corner peaking from his otherwise pristine ensemble the second you were close enough to spot it--a tiny, white peak almost invisible against his navy chest. You knew that that single touch of white was the root of all his recent tension.

You pulled away and held it to his face--“Nice try."

Thomas was always a quick one--sharp and astute next to any man. But the double-edged vice of being a woman was that you would always be quicker. Sharper. When it came to wits, you had him beat.

Before he could decide how to handle this, you began to unfold the card, stopping when you saw a black thumb and the beginning of a palm. There was no need to look any further.

All you saw was a flash of hot white before you chucked the half-pleated paper at his chest. You got up from the armrest and turned away from him. You slid the whiskey glass on his desk into your hand and took a swig, swallowing a fire to condemn the anger rising in your chest.

Were you planning on leaving only me in the dark?

That's what you wanted to say. Thomas may have said something while you were conjuring up all the words you wanted to spit in his face but withheld in the bowstring of your dignity. You didn't know. You just quietly seethed in a bout of anxiety and silent rage.

A silence spanned--a familiar sound when it was just the two of you. "Thomas, have you gotten around to visiting the new kitchen staff?" you started slowly, calmly.

Your back was still to him, but you could sense he had risen from his chair. You spun around and met his wide stare. You knew that stare. He was ruminating--realizing. He was processing what to do next.

"Thomas," you said again, your words somehow slow and steady despite the racing beat of your heart. They're here.

"Charlie," was the first word he got out.

Charlie. He was sleeping right above them.

"I'll get him," you quickly intercepted. "Go downstairs and make sure no one comes out alive. I'll take care of the rest."

When you looked in his eyes, you saw an unfamiliar man. He was shaken.

"Thomas, go," you pressed more firmly this time.

It seemed to snap him out of it, and he was almost out the door before he spun around again. "And Frances-"

“I'll take care of it. Go. Now."

The next ten minutes were a flurry. You began packing everything you’ve accumulated over the years: memories in silver frames and dresses Thomas had bought for you. You rushed up the stairs into Charlie’s room, dampening your frantic footsteps as to not disturb his peaceful dreams. In his sleeping state, your heart grew bloated with the prospective of anyone ever taking him away from you.

You paused as you neared his bedside, taking a moment of peace granted by innocence in its purest, unawake form. As you brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, he began to stir. "Hey Nugget," you whispered.

"Mummy?" he mumbled in a half-awake lull.

You paused as you felt a pang in your chest before promptly scooping him into your bosom. "No, not mummy. It's y/n. Daddy’s taking us on a trip.”

As you left the room with him in your arms, you were met with an alert Frances. "Pack everything and prepare the Bentley. Don't tell the others."

While stuffing your bags full of Thomas's many important documents, files, suits, and secrets, you came across a picture of Grace in the locked drawer of his desk. You paused to look at it before tossing it in with the rest of his things.

You did the same with her perfume and pearl earrings.

And before anything had the time to shake you, your family was out the door and back in Small Heath.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

homage to the square.

for g. suguru.

You're planted on his chest, knees hanging over his shoulders as your toes just graze the headboard. He plays with the plush of your thighs on his shoulders, looking up at your slouched form smoking a blunt. You tilt your chin up to blow the smoke into the air, a simultaneous breath of relaxation as you twirl a lock of his long hair with your free hand.

He thinks of how good you look from down here, how the sunlight peeking through the window perfectly lights a lazy halo around your head as the high settles in for both of you.

He steals the blunt away from your lips with a pinch of his fingers, taking in a lengthy draw only someone like him could stomach. It's all so natural--you in nothing but your underwear and he in his boxers, hair messy and eyebags dim from a long noon nap.

You break the silence first. "Shut up," you say, stealing the blunt and inhaling. His fingers continue gliding up and down your thigh, in rhythm with his churning thoughts.

"I wasn't talking."

He didn't need to. Every time you get high, it's as if you can hear his thoughts--always so soft yet so potent, like a dimmed rumble of a distant storm or the quelled eternity of a constant fan.

You blow the smoke down into his face, as if to tease him, before looking straight at the headboard as if it were a painting. Something shifts as the familiar embrace of weed crawls into your lap and rests purring in your lungs like a cat. Time slows as you stare. He likes it when you look like you're about to say something he knows he won't want to think about later.

"Is he the strongest because he's Gojo Satoru, or is he Gojo Satoru because he's the strongest?" you say matter-of-factly as if it were a headliner in the news. To be or not to be.

His hand stops moving along your thigh, and your gaze reverts to him. "Do you compare yourself to Gojo Satoru because he's Gojo Satoru, or do you compare yourself to Gojo Satoru because you're Geto Suguru?"

For the first time in months, the tight knot in Suguru's chest begins to unravel.

You drone on. "Everyone wants to be the strongest. Who even decides that? If the whole world thinks it's Satoru, is it Satoru? If one person thinks it's you? Or me? A monkey? And no one believes it? Then what?"

You lean back, hand on his toned thigh for support. Your words stretch out the silence that spans. "Who cares? The strongest is the strongest. A monkey is a monkey. You are you. Fuck."

He ponders this as you offer the blunt back to him, somehow making sense of your nonsensical highness.

Suddenly, Geto is made very aware of the idea that there may exist a timeline in which you don't exist. He is made aware of all the spirals and divots he could've easily slipped into and not been strong enough to get himself out of if it weren't for you.

He loves you so much. You both knew it.

His fingers caress your jawline before snaking back to your nape, pulling you down for a kiss. He forgets about the blunt, savoring the familiar high in his mouth as he tastes the cotton in yours. Something in him grows hungry and he deepens the kiss, only for you to steal the blunt and pull away teasingly.

You laugh, nipping the roll between your lips, and it's like a breath of spring--when the ground begins to grow. A satiated groan leaves your body as your arms reach up to the sky and your back arches into a deep stretch--the kind that sends blood rushing to your ears--inhaling just as deeply, only for the smoke to get caught in your throat. You chuckle airily through the coughs.

"So jealous," you purr, plopping your hand down onto his lower abs to lean against it. "Maybe we're all just one soul living within each other. Like that Josef Albers painting. Squares within squares within squares"--your palm inches down past his waistband to that familiar outline in his boxers--"You inside me. Me inside Satoru. Satoru inside you and him inside me."

Something in your boyfriend's jaw twitches and he lets out a strained breath. All the blood drains from his face and into his cock. His eyes, misty pink, stare up at the seams where the ceiling turns into wall, his body a square within the square of his bedroom.

You can't help but crack a smile as you maneuver your hips so they meet his. "You wanna be a god?" you drawl lowly, "You want me to call you Satoru?"

With that, you start easing his hard-on into all your right spots, moaning Satoru's name each time you rock back and forth. Your clit feels like it's on fire; every little touch and point of contact against your skin erupts into a flash of heat.

Almost to his surprise, a moan rips from Suguru's throat. He can't contain himself when you're like this--playing such a dangerous game, walking his patience like a tightrope. His head gets heavier each time you move, and it feels like it's sinking endlessly into the cold pillow beneath it.

Somewhere in the fog is the last of his senses telling him how potentially fucked up this is, but the way he could feel every single detail of your pussy through the wet fabric that separates you two tells him not to care.

"Come on, Satoru," you tease between labored breaths, your pace achingly slow from the static in your legs and the fact the bed feels like water, "Show me how the strongest fucks."

With heavy brows on his eyes and a heavier conscience, he finishes from just your lazy friction and Gojo’s name.

Your boyfriend grasps a fistful of your hair from behind and practically pulls you off his dick. The room spins as you roll to the side and accidentally singe the sheets with the forgotten blunt between your fingers. You start to babble something about waterbeds, and he's already on top of you and hard again.

He takes one last good look at his sweaty mess of a girlfriend. "You're fucking crazy." And he likes it.

He plucks the haphazard bud from your fingers and takes an obnoxiously long draw before trapping the smoke in your mouth. His tongue swirls it into your gums and you groan down his throat. When you start to choke, he only deepens the kiss by pushing further into you.

When he comes up, seemingly not for air but for you to get some, he looks like a different person. His hair sticks to his glistening skin as he towers over you on his knees, and the way he's looking at you has your fingers traipsing down your abdomen into your panties.

He watches as you get yourself off and groans. "Say my name," he mutters, reaching up to take your throat in his grip.

You smirk as your body contorts underneath him. “Satoru," you draw out, panting as you feel your own heat pool between your fingers. Time slows and somewhere during it all your fingers get replaced by his dick. The sting barely registers and all you feel is chills from your core to your scalp as he hits all the right places.

He hooks an arm sloppily under your thigh and hoists your leg over his shoulder, his free hand kneading the plush on your hip. You laugh as he flattens his tongue against your clavicle and licks up to your jaw, stopping at your jugular to nip at the skin. “Who's the strongest?" he mutters against your skin, and his voice is like gravel in his throat.

"You are," you breathe, giggling when you reach for the blunt just to remember you have no idea where it is.

"Again."

"You're the strongest"--a whine--"You're my god. You're my one and only fucking god."

"Good girl. Fuck."

The way he fills you up with each deep thrust makes you see stars on his ceiling--an endless galaxy of opportunity. You've never been so relaxed yet so filled with ecstasy.

"Open," he mumbles with a couple light taps to your cheek. You laugh when you realize the blunt's been in his hand this whole time. You do as he orders, letting your tongue lull out of your mouth for full effect. He spits in it before lifting your jaw to close around the roll. You grin.

"Don't drop it," he says, and before you can even act confused, his pace quickens to an incomprehensible speed; it's almost too much for you to handle. The blunt becomes a gag in your mouth as stifled yelps and quivers rack your whole body. The pad of his thumb works at your clit and it takes everything in you to try and not pee.

You almost pass out then and there, saliva sticking your cheek to his pillow as a noise you've never made before escapes your chest. Your back arches and hips buck wild, and you're still climaxing even after his cum's already leaking out of you. It's all stretched out--time, your orgasm, you, everything.

You don't even register he's finished inside you already, mind still high in the clouds and pussy clenching around his imprint on your walls.

Suguru rolls over to the side, and you both gaze up hazily at the square ceiling. He plucks the chewed-up snub of a blunt from your lips, wet from your drool, and tosses it in the trash across the room.

Not a word from either of you--only the comfort of being within.

x.