I need help understanding what my issue with Alchemised by Senlin Yu is.
So the book is obviously a war story with heavy fantasy elements. I picked it up because I love fantasy and wanted to venture into more adult themes as well. I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale, and while it disturbed and upset me, I still finished it.
I’m currently on the second part of Alchemized (Luc has disappeared), and I have many issues with it, but I just can’t put my finger on what exactly they are.
I don’t understand the “love” between Kain and Helena. I really don’t understand why Kain is seemingly so obsessed with her, and after he confessed that the runes made his feelings toward her stronger, I found it odd rather than romantic (especially why he chose her in the first place).
The sentence “like a rose in a graveyard” is meant to be romantic, but to me it just sounds sad.
The “love” feels like being trapped in a house fire and finding a cup of water. You know it won’t save you, and it won’t really help, but you drink it anyway and enjoy a few seconds of relief before the fire closes in again.
It’s just sad, and it doesn’t make me feel excited or hopeful for them.
My second issue with their relationship is intimacy. Over 500 pages in, and I still feel like I don’t really know Kain. He’s an enigma to me. When he and Helena had an intimate scene in Part Two, I couldn’t read it. It made me very uncomfortable, and it honestly felt like another assault scene, especially based on Helena’s feelings and how Kain acted afterward.
My next issue is with Luc, Solen, and Lila. I really love Luc, and I felt close to Helena whenever she talked about him. But when Helena breaks off her friendship, it felt like all that buildup suddenly didn’t matter. Nothing major changed in Helena’s life afterward, and I think the book would have benefited a lot from fewer Kain-and-Helena scenes and more focus on her friendships.
Overall, I can’t put my finger on what exactly my issue with the book is, which is why I’m asking here. Did you like the book or not, and why?
Synopsis: Thomas and Andrew survived, lived and changed, yet the world can never truly understand. Will the whispers of the night ever stop?
The forest whispered a warning before the men stepped into the clearing. They wore blue uniforms and had several dogs on harnesses; they were loud and obnoxious to the eyes watching them. Their breath came out in visible white puffs until the forest absorbed them, chewed it up, and excreted for the other living beings with hearts and lungs filled with air, not moss and rosebuds.
They found two boys; one leaning against a tree while cradling the other in his arms. At first they looked dead, skin blue from the biting cold with vermilion as a decoration, but at second glance they looked alive, albeit barely.
A man kneeled down, softly searching for signs, anything after so much time of searching. One child was dead, and two disappeared; truly this seemed the end of the prestigious school. The fence, the footprints, and the forest bore the indication of something heinous, something monstrous.
The last pieces of the puzzle were now found, yet it only held a meaning if those pieces could express themselves.
Unbeknownst to these boys, one golden-haired and the other looking like he walked through fire, the men were close to giving up, yet one of the dogs snatched a scent of tears, fear, mud, and blood.
It was around the boys too; it engulfed them until it made sure to never let them go, to never let them forget. Those men had no care for the whisper of the forest and the words of the tree with a broken branch. No, even if they had, they would not have understood. Not like the boys.
Later that day, they separated them, accessed them until even the white of their bones was seen, and then the waiting began. One boy had no one, the other just a father and a dead sister, whose ghost floated above the boy in the hospital bed among machines with claws and mouths filled with teeth, unseen.
The boy kissed by fire and autumn woke up first, whispered a name, and fell back asleep. The minutes he spent awake, he was crying rivers until he felt only sap coming out of his eyes in this sterile room, filled with monsters and machines. The police couldn’t stop asking and asking until Thomas put a scared hand to his ears and let out screeches identical to a bear in a cage, whose life it spent ignorant to the freedom he possessed before, only aware once it was lost.
The father visited Thomas, and he watched as the boy, who was once upon a time the treasure of his children, slowly disintegrated like leaves under snow. The man did not see but knew the scar on his chest where once a heart was and the hole in his stomach, which have left the doctors wondering and making horrendous deductions ignorant of the truth.
Worst, his boy, the last of his children, had not awoken, his body broken and tired. Where one of his eyes once was, a thick scar lay now. There was no question whether he could see or not when his body restarted. Like a computer, said a doctor. His body might heal, they told him, but his mind… the human brain was a labyrinth with endless tunnels unknown where it took you.
The police visited the man and his boy several times, at first with their endless questions, but now with their silence. Therefore, when a detective, a woman of less than forty years with brown hair and eyes like mud, told what they had pieced together, it made the man’s throat close up more than he thought possible.
There were whispers of murder, of Thomas's parents still missing but declared dead, of a teacher and a golden student dying in the now closed school, and of the boys. There was something missing, the detective said. There was a connection between Thomas and Andrew and the last months, the murders and the forest, and the clearing filled with blood.
The doctors said there were words engraved on the skin of his son, words they could not understand. They told him it might have been self-inflicted. The detective said, Cult. Madmen, manipulators, and murderers.
The father had to work to afford the hospital and their endless medical bills; therefore, he left and came back and left again, still nothing changing.
When Thomas was capable of not shivering so much, when the taste of rot and the smell of fresh organs reduced from heart-stopping to uncomfortable, he asked, and then, when rejected, begged, to visit Andrew, the other half of his heart.
Andrew was broken, beaten, and sick, yet he looked ethereal, like a true prince. His hair was the crown, his scars the testimony of his strength, and his breath the sign of life. Thomas tried to ignore the smell of forest, of rotting leaves and moss and wildflowers increasing the closer he was to Andrew, yet once he was alone with a nurse, he cried and cried until he couldn’t anymore.
One day he stood before the window, looking at the budding flowers and green leaves telling him that it was spring, when the detective stepped into the room and asked again. They have not shown up in a long time, probably forbidden from distributing Thomas after he had a panic attack and almost stabbed himself in the eye with a needle.
“Mr. Rye.” The woman said. Thomas had not moved nor said anything, just watched as the flowers at the windowsill smiled at him kindly.
“Mr. Rye,” the detective said again. “We have questions concerning what transpired last Halloween in Wickwood Academy.”
Silence.
“One of your classmates died, and there were testimonies against your friend, Andrew Perrault.” Thomas twitched and moved his head.
“He told the friends of said classmate that the “forest” killed the boy.”
The detective sighed and sat down on a sticky, old plastic chair.
“Your parents have been declared dead.”
Thomas nodded as if he knew that, but truthfully, he saw them devoured by the monster with a wolf-stitched wolf head.
The detective smiled reassuringly and tapped her fingers against a notebook.
“The cost of your residence has been paid by Mr. Perrault. It seems like you have a close relationship.”
Thomas whispered a word silently, and the detective went tense, her eyes open like saucers. If the forest were here, it would have smelled her excitement, her heart pumping blood quickly, Thomas thought.
“Forest.” Thomas spoke for the first time since that cursed day, since declaring his devotion to his prince and poet.
The detective jumped up, knocking over the chair, without a care. She smiled, her pupil wide and back tense.
“Is there anything more you wish to tell us?” She asked, trying to mask her emotions.
Thomas turned back to the window and watched as the leaves on the tree grew and grew while he wilted and wilted.
Andrew woke up and wished he was back in the forest with Thomas on his side. He couldn’t see, at least not fully, and his arms were heavy and bothersome. He knew he was in the hospital; he was no stranger to the modern world. Yet his heart was somewhere, rotting under the surface while roots intertwined and animals walked over it.
A nurse walked in, and as he saw Andrew with his eyes open, he called out something Andrew was not capable of understanding. His head hurt, his soul shivered, and his molecules ached for Thomas.
That day a lot of nurses and doctors came and went, watching him, trying to guess what his body needed, oblivious to the missing part, his heart and his sister.
Andrew’s mind felt like jelly that you had to sift through a tunnel too tiny; his body did not feel like his own, even if he knew that the forest had retracted its roots and vines. But sometimes, for the short time he was left alone, he saw yellow eyes watching and staring, strange shadows in the darkest nook of the room, and when he was blinking to sleep, he heard monstrous voices talking and whispering under the bed.
The doctors gave him medication, but Andrew knew only Thomas could help him. They have not talked, because words were not a necessity once you shared the same heart.
His father came, hugged him, and acted like everything was fine, as if the last months had not happened. Andrew did not dare to ask what the future held. But while he surfed through the TV, he saw the arrest of an organization called “Forest,” and somehow he knew that no matter what he would say, they saw what they wanted.
After a few weeks of observing his organs, relearning how to walk, and doing anything with limited sight, Andrew left the hospital. His father had already booked a flight back to Australia, in tow with Thomas, who he had, probably illegally, adopted.
And now they were leaving America, leaving behind the forest and the academy, making a new life. Thomas loved Australia with its nature and people, and the culture and all the exciting things. They decided to spend their days around the huge house of Andrew's fatherand its endless garden, a big pool, and all possibilities. Here, even the forest did not feel as near.
Andrew‘s father had to work, and he left a caregiver to the boys, in addition to the cook and cleaning lady. The gardener showed up some days, but the boys avoided all contact with the outside world.
Andrew always woke up early, either watching Thomas sleeping or waiting for the sun to rise. Once the sun neared halfway to its peak, Thomas began to move around, and Andrew kissed him awake. They cuddled and hardly made any move to do anything with their day. Some days a private tutor came and gave lectures, but mostly they were left alone.
After lunch and when the sun had begun to set, both boys made their way outside. Not far from the manor was the ocean, and they walked hand in hand to the shore, eating ice cream and enjoying each other's company, until the stones disappeared and sand stuck to their feet.
Thomas waddled in the water, spending a lot of time just swimming around; however, Andrew didn’t like swimming that much since losing one of his eyes. Walking and just doing everyday activities took him a long time to get used to, and swimming and all sporty activities still made him too tired.
And he felt self-conscious about his body. The scars stayed with him, deep inside and outside as well, and no matter how often Thomas praised him or told him to not worry about it, Andrew was still unwilling to undress if not necessary.
Their nightly swimming and walking around, just enjoying themselves, lasted deep inside the night until the whole world quieted down, and without the man-made lights, the darkness engulfed them. Until only the grass, the flowers, and the trees whispered, telling them to do unimaginable deeds.
Some days Andrew's father showed up, but he didn’t bother them too much. Andrew felt like they had lost something fundamental, and he had no care to search for it. They did not speak about his sister or about what had happened, especially once the psychologist made it clear that both boys had a deep-rooted trauma and it would take them a long time, months or even years, to just talk about it.
In truth they have lost their passion, and this hurts more than anything. Thomas couldn’t draw anymore, and Andrew was too afraid to even write a single line. The image of creating a monster that haunted them in their new idyllic world made his heart pound and his brain stop working.
One night they lay side by side, the manor silent; only the crickets were singing their songs and the soft wind blew through the window when they talked for the first time about the cause of their issues.
“You can draw again.” Andrew whispered into the dark. Thomas did not say anything, just curled around the blond and inhaled his smell.
“If you do this because… I can’t write anymore, then just stop.” Andrew turned to his side and took Thomas’ head into his hands.
“I love your drawings.”
“But I can’t draw anymore.” Thomas replied.
“It’s not the same without your stories.”
Andrew closed his eyes and hugged Thomas tighter. He felt a tear making its way across his face until it dropped onto Thomas’ face. He was too afraid to ask if he heard the whispers and voices telling him to create, to be a creator, to make things the human mind couldn’t comprehend. And both knew no matter where they were, the forest always went with them.
The tension filled the room like water. It felt cool, but all oppressive; it could kill you in an instant, but you love the feeling of it.
It began on a usual day, with Eli making himself ready for the morning. He put his light gray running shirt on and fastened the laces on his sweatpants. A routine that Eli began years ago and to this day continued without fail; however, today Jeremy caught his eyes in the mirror. His eyes were dark, a look that meant one thing.
Death.
Eli was a true killer, a man of fake smiles and even faker laughter. His moves were precise, as if he had done them a thousand times. Watching him choose his next victim, tracking them down, and getting them to know always made Jeremy feel lightheaded. Eli was like water for the perched soul walking in the sandy dunes of the savanna; he was the judge who decided your fate.
Jeremy saw these eyes a dozen times, but they never looked at him like this. It made his pulse quicken, his breath heavy. Before he could slip into Eli’s mind, a place that he knew better than his own palms, Eli was out of the door. Jeremy knew that his time was ticking and slipping through his fingers. The judge has decided his fate, and Jeremy could only wait for the executioner.
Eli came back exactly 65 minutes later, the sweat on his face making him look ethereal, like a picture that rich people kept in their private room, only allowed for their eyes.
And Jeremy was the only person granted to see this side of him. He was standing in the kitchen, leaning against the old cupboard, staring and waiting. Eli just watched him, anticipating something that never came, his face cold and hard as stone. They watched each other like a predator watching their prey, but who was the predator, and who was the prey?
The cheap green clock in the living room ticked and ticked, each time sounding louder and louder to Jeremy’s ears. It surrendered them, as if it waited for a move, a voice. Neither did anything. Even as the tiny egg clock shrieked up and down on the counter. Even as their upper neighbor dropped their weights against the floor, a thing that would usually make Jeremy angry enough to go up a flight of stairs and knock angrily on the door. But not today.
‘It’s going to burn.‘ Eli gestured towards the oven, but Jeremy only had eyes for his golden skin.
He swallowed, trying to forget the urge to lick and bite his skin, breaking it until it bled, until Eli cried out a no.
‘Yes,‘ Jeremy stated.
The meat was already looking a little bit too brown, and Jeremy knew that in exactly one minute and thirteen seconds it would turn black and be uneatable. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the tension, the judgment that Eli has already shown but didn’t say.
Eli crouched down, took his time with his shoelace, and put his shoe next to Jeremy’s boots. If a stranger saw it, they would think that a family lived there, the shoes well-kept and ordinary. They would not see the jail Jeremy lived in, his punishment coming to an end.
Even as Eli turned the oven down, frowned and began to try to save their dinner, Jeremy did not move, could not; his heart beating against his ribcage strong enough to break it.
Everything that has happened since that fateful day—24 horrible hours that sealed Jeremy’s fate—went through his head until it stopped on an old picture. It was already crumpled, the edges flayed, and the color lacked any trace of the original. It was a secret that Jeremy guarded, a pleasure that could lead to his end if it ended up in the wrong hands. A picture that Eli now slipped out of his pocket.
He was looking at it deeply, maybe trying to analyze it. Or he might have remembered the old days, days when there were four friends and not two. Where all of them lived and nobody was in jail. Where he was not the executioner for Him, where Jeremy had a choice.
The memories always overwhelmed Jeremy, the picture frozen in happy times. On nights where Jeremy could allow himself a glimpse of it, he grazed slowly the face of him. His eyes were closed, but his smile was wide. His blonde hair was all over the place, and there was a redness to his face. To this day, Jeremy did not know if it was because of the alcohol they consumed or because of what Jeremy did to him. Victor Vale was a confusing being, a being that took most of Jeremy’s heart. He warmed his heart on nights where Jeremy was not capable of holding his emotions back, on days when he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. And now Eli had it, and Jeremy could not think about anything else but of Victor.
‘You changed.’
Eli said silently, as if it were a thought that just slipped out of his mouth. Jeremy knew what he meant. Next to him was a young man with all the happiness of a youngster that hasn’t experienced life. It was supposed to be sad; it should have made Jeremy feel hollow; instead, he felt anger bubbling in his gut.
‘I haven’t really.’ Jeremy denied the truth.
It slipped out before he could think, before he could even imagine what Eli would do. But he just huffed, as if Jeremy’s response was amusing. It made Jeremy clench his fist. How could he be so cruel on a day like this?
Eli took a quick look at the picture again and slid it over to Jeremy. Instead of waiting for the other man’s reaction, he just turned around and left the room. Jeremy could hear the faint sounds of Eli’s phone as he was calling up a delivery.
After dinner, Jeremy went to wash himself. He stared in the bathtub, thinking about nothing important, when he heard the bathroom door open and silent footsteps creeping towards him. Jeremy closed his eyes, breathing in the fruity smell of the expensive body wash that he begged Eli to buy.
Jeremy didn’t need to open his eyes to know where Eli was. He could feel his mind in a chaotic and dark place, a place that Jeremy tried to never enter, but he had to. He knew that Eli sat down on the toilet, and he knew what he was holding in his hand. Even without his extraordinary ability, Jeremy would have guessed right.
He did not move, nor did Eli. A long time must have passed, the room filled with the fog of the scalding water. Jeremy listened to Eli’s breath and to his every movement, as if he could have saved himself from God’s angel.
He was contemplating doing something, anything to end this agony of not knowing what was going to happen, until Eli stood up and ripped the shower curtain off. The metal rod fell off, and the sound of metal meeting tile made Jeremy shiver.
Eli just stood there and watched him wet and naked, laid open, awaiting God’s judgment. Usually he would have already dealt with his prey; he wouldn’t have even brought a gun. His hands were enough. But Jeremy was different; he was a constant for the past years, and his betrayal cut deep. He promised to forget him, and Eli believed him. Until he found the picture hidden smartly between two shelves, a place Eli would have never looked at if he had not dropped one of Jeremy’s books.
Eli pointed the gun at Jeremy’s chest, fingers on the trigger. It did not escape Jeremy that Eli’s hand trembled slightly, and looking in his eyes, he understood that Eli did not want to kill him.
Slowly, Jeremy raised his arm and pulled the gun out of Eli’s hand, remembering a different time; a time where Eli was bleeding, but healed; a time where he was there. It landed on the floor with a crash.
The shine of the streetlight was interrupted by the shutter, and there was no way to hide. The small flickers of light that could escape were enough for Jeremy to see the outline of Eli’s face as he lay beside him. They began sharing a bed years ago and continued to this day, a thing that Jeremy despised so much but could not give up even if he had a choice.
Jeremy hated seeing him, the one who destroyed so much, but it made his heart warm at the same time. Waking up next to Eli and watching as he slowly woke up and opened his gorgeous eyes was a sight that Jeremy could bask in every morning for the rest of his days.
But it was not morning; it was late night, and Eli was wide awake. Both hands were beneath his pillow, and Jeremy acted as if he did not know what the pillow hid and how sick it made him.
Jeremy was lying on his side, one of his arms outstretched towards Eli, the other under his chin, supporting his head, his armband digging uncomfortably in the soft flesh.
The room felt suffocating, as if there were viewers watching every move and trying to dissect both of them. Jeremy could imagine what the people would do; some would whisper to their neighbor, some would just sit silently, but everyone would hold their breath, waiting, knowing what would happen. Jeremy lived for surprises and surprising others, and this time was no different.
Eli’s eyes shone in the dark like a cat's; however, Jeremy could not look away; they held an intensity, a feeling that Jeremy knew. A feeling that he has felt as well on countless nights but has never done anything about it. Jeremy noticed the iris of Eli’s eyes disappearing slowly-no-getting smaller and smaller—until only the blackness of Eli’s pupil existed. It was like the black hole sucking Jeremy in until nothing existed, not even time.
Eli did not move, but Jeremy did. The cover crumpled as his arm slowly crept up and up, until it carefully cradled Eli’s face. His skin was smooth and hot, making Jeremy tremble with a feeling he did not dare to dwell on. Just thinking about it made him ill; his stomach was doing backflips. He began to slowly caress Eli’s face, on his cheek, under his eyes, and then his nose. Jeremy lowered his hand until it was on Eli’s jaw, silently asking a question.
Eli blinked a few times and pulled his hands out from the pillow. Jeremy noticed that his hands were empty, an answer that Jeremy understood. He smiled and lowered his hand towards Eli’s neck and collarbone.
He felt Eli tremble beneath the caresses and felt him getting hotter. Before Jeremy’s hand could disappear beneath Eli’s shirt, he navigated his caresses slowly towards Eli’s jaw again. But this time he didn’t stop; instead, his fingertips crept toward Eli’s back. As he passed the space between Eli’s neck and shoulder, he felt Eli taking a deep breath. His eyelashes fluttered, and his mouth opened a little.
Jeremy felt his blood singing, just a being allowed to touch Eli this way made him crazy. He wanted more, he wanted Eli in a way that he never allowed himself to think about.
As his hand slowly went to Eli’s back until he felt Eli’s hand on his waist, pulling them together. It definitely did made easier to touch Eli’s back, until Jeremy’s finger reached his shoulder blade.
Eli pulled Jeremy toward himself; indirectly between his legs until they touched chest to chest. They could feel each other’s laboured breath, they felt the air getting hotter and the tension getting to a snapping point. Both of their eyes was a black hole, promising a journey that no one has ever dared to undertake.
As Jeremy lowered his head back on the pillow, Eli pulled one of his legs over Jeremy’s body and flipped himself over. Jeremy automatically turned fully on his back, and now one of his hands was caressing Eli’s shoulder while the other slowly touched Eli’s abs.
Eli seemed unsure for a moment, a small frown between his brow, but his desire was too great. He leaned down, his lips cautiously dragged over Jeremy’s face, until he reached a place he always wished to touch. He kissed under Jeremy’s jaw, and the silent noise the other let out made his blood flow quicker and hotter.
Jeremy put his legs around Eli’s waist while peppering Eli’s neck with kisses. The only thing he could think about was Eli, Eli, Eli…
