( / it's only a matter of time before they'd see it: full moon, blood moon soon to hover in the sky ) ( / he's speeding at the pace of pulses, fully maxed out on desperation ) ( / the dim flickering of a torch ablaze is slowly becoming visible and—fuck, is he about to cry? he’s going to fucking cry. ) ( / cabin black surrounds him within a tangible radius, from the front or behind ) ( / the sound of footsteps grows louder and louder until suddenly it matches with his. uh. ) ( / in momentary panic—all thanks to the trauma from the shack just a few minutes prior— yejun nearly swivels his head to look and it’s none other than one of the two alpha pricks they’ve got with them. ) ( / somehow he can summon the energy and oxygen to scoff ) where the fuck have you been?
( / * so if she’s already seen yejun and yujin on the road, at some point the world’s gotta bring cody or jaein or xiaoli crashing into her life, right? yunseo’s pretty certain that they might have headed off before her and gotten a head start, what with the debacle of forgetting jugeum at the cabin and everything. \ ) ( / * it’s as she’s brooding about the setback that she sees the back of his head. she tries hard not to smack him right across it. \ ) “i blame you, xiaoli! if you weren’t so squeamish i would have kept jugeum in the cabin and yejun and i wouldn’t have forgotten to bring him in the craziness of this race!” ( / * but to have gone what she’s gone through--maybe this is one situation in which leaving jugeum behind might have been the better idea. a chunk of her time is spent trying to get him from place to place, leaving only 3 fingers between both hands for practical use. but you’d never catch her say that out loud. that’s xiaoli might have had a point, that is. \ )
“but i suppose you’re useful--at least with this part.” ( / * the look cast over the rocky shore is analytical. any of these rocks could be loose, leading to a sprained ankle or a gashing leg wound. neither sound appealing. \ ) ( / * rocky terrain is a challenge in general. balancing her own safety with the safe passage of jugeum? that’s going to be a doozy. yunseo chews on her bottom lip, thinking out loud. \ ) “you running this section with a partner yet, partner?”
he’s kind of used to mind-numbing exhaustion, both of the physical and mental variety. overworking yourself since a sprightly young age of LEGAL ENOUGH TO DITCH HOME AND NEVER LOOK BACK tends to have that impact, and harim’s more or less adapted to it. but there’s something particularly tiring about having to go through the hazing rituals of an oh-so glorious alpha initiate on top of working, on top of studying (yeah, studying, in the summer), and on top of dodging phone calls from unknown numbers that he knows belong to his parents.
so.
maybe it’s a pride thing (he’ll concede that much—he’s stubborn to a fault), but he isn’t really in the mood to dwell in how tired he actually is. there’s shit to be done, people to be talked to, accomplishments to be made, and harim’s sure he can sacrifice a couple more hours of sleep with little immediate detriment. sure, future harim might be wracked with sleep debt and maybe as an elderly man, he’ll curse his younger self for being a reckless asshole, but just for today, he’ll neglect the future and live in the present.
and in the present, he has shit to figure out. being miles away from home means he’s miles away from work and being miles away from work means he’s miles deep in broke-ass hell.
it’d probably be easier to make sense of his schedule if he wasn’t nursing a killer hangover (seriously? no mercy around these parts) and his body wasn’t aching from the aftermath of trying to get across a body of water probably not meant to be crossed with a pool noodle or an air mattress. as much as he'd like to be responsible and meticulous about his life, however, he really is tired. he could run a couple of miles if he had to, but he's tired in a different way; he just wants to relax, to stop feeling that wound-up tension in his veins shocking him from beneath his skin.
at the very least, he’s grateful for the reliable pillars in his life, the few people he can wholly and candidly (as candidly as jung harim can manage, at least) depend on. he’s met a few new friends, met a few new upperclassmen he’s caught between fearing and admiring, and he's met a fair share of people he could really give minimal shits about, but he’s especially grateful for the troopers that have been around much longer.
it’s why his immediate response to giving up on Responsibility(TM) is to knock twice on cabin black’s door before the bonfire's scheduled to start. he holds his breath as he nudges it open, only letting out a sigh when he sees it’s almost empty save for one person—zhou xiaoli.
with an unpracticed comfort, harim drags his feet across the ground and flops over immediately onto xiaoli’s bed and the older boy’s back, careless in nature but careful not to make any contact that might see a stray discharge of electricity touching xiaoli's skin..
“you’re warm, hyung,” harim says first and foremost. and then, as an afterthought, as though trying to find a good reason that wasn’t ‘needing human interaction with people who wouldn’t make him shotgun a beer on the spot’ for seeking him out: “do you have bug repellant?”
CHALLENGING is the world that you are born into.
blood tastes bitter in your mouth,
but you realise you don’t mind.
you trips over your feet as a kid, limbs too long for your body, mind running at eighty miles an hour when you could only run at four.
the rocks are crushed under your feet, ground rumbles, but you never fall.
your mother watches you fondly, your father less so. the seeds of resentment can only be hidden for so long until it burrows its way into the surface like a festering wound, red for a mouth and vicious for eyes.
the curiosity eats away inside of you, but even you are smart enough to not ask your mother, ‘why does daddy hate me so much?’
everyone else seems to know, however, from the look in their eyes when they flitter from your mother, to your father, to YOU. a wave of realisation, mouth forming an ‘ah’, a tight smile thrown at your mother. your mother, your mother, you ㅡ
( “slut. of course, you couldn’t keep away from him!” )
ㅡ you ㅡ your mother.
sorry, you couldn’t breathe for a second there.
you learn to hold it in because i thought you were your mother there! and a little bit of makeup, long hair, you could look just like her! and oh, you look nothing like your father! and oh no, i’m sure i do, really, if you stand really far away and close your eyes, and hmm, i guess you do, but you’ve definitely gone your mother’s way!
it becomes a sort of joke, that you look everything like your mother and nothing like your father. people FORGET that you’re not even his son.
(oh, oh, you WEREN’T supposed to say that,
you’re not supposed to say that, bad boy.)
everything changes when you’re nine, when your sister is born, and she looks like both of your parents this time. you see the displeased look on your father’s face when he realises it’s a daughter, but at least she’s his. he favors her, of course he does, who would favor a bastard?
you don’t mind, because you like her more than you like you.
nothing changes. the world spins on its axis, you chase after it.
IT ROTS.
inside of you, it does.
it’s dormant, but only because you stop chasing.
IT FESTERS.
twelve years old and the world stops spinning.
it’s your dance recital and you wonder why she’s not coming yet. there’s a vip seat for her, right in the middle, front row, waiting for her and you clutch your phone. she had messaged you fifteen minutes ago, saying she was on her way.
your peek through the curtains, and
somebody taps your back.
(“what’s going to happen to the children? no doubt mingxi will be taken care of but ㅡ “
“oh, the bastard, who knows? maybe some orphan house will take him in.” )
you try block out the speech, your fingers closing around your mother’s limp hand. the hospital room smells strange, like someone had gone ballistic while holding febreze or disinfectant, and nobody had bothered to spray something else. your father sits next to you.
( “i hear they’re saying it’s his fault?”
“the kid? oh, right. yeah, it’s not really his fault per se, but it was his recital she was driving to, i mean..” )
the nurses talk too loudly, you notice. you tell your mother that, and your father stiffens.
you know it’s your fault, but if you acknowledge that, you lose.
a glance at your mother, her paleness matching the bed’s, despite the bruises that litter her skin, a blooming picture of red and blue all over her, the cuts, the bone an inch above her collarbone that juts out a little too much. you look back down.
you wonder if she’ll wake up or not. you wonder a lot of things, at that moment, but there’s a roar in your ear, and all you hear is a flat line.
the nurses rush in, your father exhales the same time you inhale.
it’s unclear who screams first.
IT DIGS.
the chase begins again.
south korea, a new chapter. mingxi hangs off your arm as you try and prop her up, and your aunt greets you at the airport. she has your mother’s kind eyes, and you swallow the lump in your throat when she reaches towards the two of you in an embrace.
everything is strange in a new country, but your aunt is quick to help you adapt. you pick the language up slowly but surely, long nights spent over homework you couldn’t understand, rubbing at tired eyes to make sure you had the right pronunciation.
you make friends. twelve year olds are excited about the new chinese transfer student who does dance, and a clean slate has never been bad.
you find yourself being happy for the first time in a while.
it’s strange feeling. addictive, saccharine.
IT TRAPS.
it turns at fourteen, because you get robbed.
you should have been looking behind you, paying attention to what creeps in the shadows at night, but you don’t. and your phone clatters to the ground, your arms are pulled behind your back, you drop to your knees.
“give me your fucking money!”
classic line, six out of ten points for being convincing. you say so, and in return, you get a kick to your mouth. you run your tongue over your loose tooth, taste the iron and lick your lips.
“i’m not playing, kid, where’s your money?”
trust a broke kid to get robbed by an even more broke man, it seems. but you just scoff, clench your jaw as they rustle around in your pockets. you forget about your possessions, until they pull out a picture from your wallet.
you’ve always been sentimental,
you freak.
your mother, you, mingxi. you keep it, fool yourself into thinking that’s what a proper family looks like. it’s torn around the edges, frayed from pulling it out too much. the man laughs, hoarsely, throws it to the ground and digs the heel of their foot into it.
they make a lewd comment about her, about them ㅡ
you see red, you see white.
the ground should split open, you think, i want it to swallow you whole.
the next time you open your eyes, there’s blood, more so than there had been before. the man is on the ground, and you startle when you see it’s his.
you collapse, find there’s blood smeared on your hands, and you retch.
then you notice the rocks scattered around you. countless sizes, shapes, each with sharp edges and hard enough to cause wounds. wounds like the one on the stranger’s face.
(you hadn’t moved, no, not at all,
you know you hadn’t. so how had you ㅡ
you know what you did, clever boy,
don’t forget about it.)
you scramble forwards, hands shaking as they grab the photo, shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. you trip over your own feet again, mind running at eighty miles an hour, legs only able to run four.
IT FEEDS.
you don’t stop from there on. you ask your aunt about it and she pales, but her silence is answer enough.
you quite like the way earth crumbles when you touch it.
but you never show it around mingxi, no, not even around your aunt. you don’t want them to see how much of a freak you are. anomalous, edges, dangerous.
you’re just different.
IT SWALLOWS.
high school passes in a breeze, and there’s really only one option. your finances have never been fully stable, not with your aunt working a full time job just to take care of you and your sister. you can’t afford to dance.
(you can’t afford to feel NORMAL,
to know what it’s like to have adrenaline in your BLOOD,
when you perform, and people watch in awe,
and they’re envious. no, no, you can’t afford any of that.)
you’ve always been good at biology. a quick google search, researching into what pays best, and your future is sorted.
neuroscience.
for someone who’ll be studying brains, you sure don’t know what yours is doing.
IT SOWS.
you like the word alpha. the legacy, not so much.
it’s fine, because it radiates power. you know what it’s like holding it in, anyways. you know it’s better to let it all simmer under the surface, until it boils to a rage unimaginable, until it opens its mouth and swallows you whole. you know.
the ground cracks under your feet,
the world is your oyster.
WHAT CAN THEY DO?
DEFINITION
xiaoli has the ability to manipulate anything that is to do with earth, meaning solid ground and also natural sediments such as rocks, boulders, soil, dust etc. one of the ways he can use his power is to either widen or even create cracks in the floor. therefore the ground opens up gaps and holes in the ground that people can fall into or get swallowed by. when it comes to manipulating the sediments, he can spray dust from the ground into people’s vision to blur what they can see, and he can levitate rocks or boulders. this is the ability that he uses most frequently, often used when he’s bored and plays around or when he hurls them at others. another way he can use his power is to create mild earthquakes up to a certain level or (if near a large expanse of mud) cause landslides to happen. this aspect of his power isn’t used as much as the rest as they are preserved for more desperate scenarios that he rarely finds himself in.
WEAKNESSES
weakness #1 — the amount of time he can use is power for is limited, but the length depends on whether he’s in an emotionally stable state of mind and to what extent he’s using it. for example, if he’s creating earthquakes, it drains his energy rapidly and lasts for a maximum of around 45 seconds whereas when it comes to levitating rocks and boulders to throw, he could do it without rest for a much longer time. if he’s in a vulnerable state of mind, that also causes him to lose focus and therefore be able to use his power for a shorter amount of time.
weakness #2 — a physical flaw is that xiaoli has to be near a more rural area for his powers to work to their full extent due to the fact that they require earth. they still work in urbanized places where there’s rock, dust etc but less strongly and with limitations. for example, if he’s in a place where there are no rocks, he can no longer levitate them (because they don’t exist), and the same with other sediments like boulders, mud, etc.
weakness #3 — his range when it comes to the ground is non existent, as he’s constantly near the ground. however with rocks and boulders, he must be able to see them clearly to throw them.
weakness #4 — energy drainage. despite being familiar with his powers by now, putting all of his efforts into them for a long amount of time drains his energy quickly. if he over strains himself, he could land himself with a nosebleed and a headache. the idea of him falling unconscious for a few hours is also possible.
weakness #5 — he may be talented with his powers, but xiaoli is most definitely not an expert yet. therefore limitations come with his abilities, such as how the cracks and holes he creates on the ground can sometimes vary in size depending on how focused he is, and when his aim may falter when throwing sediments.
DID YOU KNOW?
he won’t admit it but he cried watching the end of clueless.
