▸ byun baekhyun (baek) — a 23 year old cypher with a hummingbird therion.
▸ personality —
strong-willed
opinionated
obedient
curious
sharp
vivacious
▸ history —
To say that life had never been easy for Baekhyun, it would be a vast understatement. He can’t exactly remember a moment when he had a family. As far back as he can recall, he’s been on his own. The streets had become his home and he’d done the most vile things, just to survive. Innocence was a word that didn’t belong in his vocabulary, unless it was geared towards his looks. The man was always smaller than those his age, not that he spent much time around people his age. He’d never managed to weigh much more than 125 pounds. Despite never really spending time with others, he had become quite the people person. Or he, at least, pretended to be. Baekhyun had a way of getting people to see him as a sweet, caring person. When in reality, he was the type to use people for his own personal gain.
There was on person, Taehyung, who he had actually cared about. But of course he ditched him, at some point. Volunteering as a cypher was something he’d never intended on doing, but he didn’t have many options. Being a cypher wasn’t something that he particularly liked. He didn’t like doing something just to benefit someone else. He got no personal gain from the task except he got to live. But life wasn’t something that he felt was a prize. Especially not his. Sure, he wasn’t on the streets anymore and he didn’t have to worry where his next meal came from, but he felt like a slave. He was a slave to the keepers. Just a vessel that they could use to do their bidding.
His therion is weak and he knows it. But he figures it’ll be harder for him to get caught, that way. He doesn’t look like a threat to anything or anyone and he hopes that it continues to keep working in his favor.
▸ lee hoseok (wonho) — a 25 year old keeper (second-in-command) with a lynx therion.
▸ personality —
unapproachable, utterly isolated, and aloof—everything about wonho, his actions, and his words, at the first glance and on the surface, screams dispassionate. always either one step forward or one step to the side, he’s somewhere off where the others aren’t; he’s always doing something on his own, whether it’s mission and keeper related or not. he just always seems to be preoccupied with a thought, an unreadable and unforthcoming thought.
if you didn’t know him any better, you’d think that he’s formulating the many different ways of making your life miserable—which, when he’s pissed off or his expression is especially churlish, might not be too far off—but if you did know him to the extent of recognizing his core, you’d know that he’s probably musing about what the dinner menu is and how the hell he can get there fast enough to get two servings and whether the ladies would be nice enough to give him more rice.
despite his often curt remarks, cold demeanor, and adamant refusals to get involved in group activities, wonho is a child at heart, a child who, even through all these years of spending time with other keepers and individuals integrated into this system, remains unsure on how to really let himself show through his thick outer shell. he doesn’t know how to show that he’s pleased or that he’s proud of someone or even that he’s disappointed; and sometimes his words don’t stand as an accurate reflection of what he’s feeling. talking to someone who is younger than him is particularly difficult for wonho, since he hadn’t exactly had the warmest welcome into this place when he had arrived as a kid. in fact, he doesn’t even know what it means to be warm—what warmth is.
is it letting someone lean on his shoulder during a hard time? is it sacrificing his own time to get something done when someone doesn’t seem to be able to do it? is it offering more sympathy and less scathing comments? because if it is, if that really is what warmth is, wonho isn’t sure if he can do it. he completely runs on experience and precedents—in fear of letting himself slip up and perform an irreversible mistake—and from what he’s lived through so far, he’s received none of that. and this is not a ruse for pity; it’s simply a fact.
how can he reciprocate something that he doesn’t have?
wonho thinks that ultimately, feelings are complicated. they’re like a rubik’s cube—there must be a code to figuring it out, but he just can’t seem to follow through with the right steps and get all the colors to fit. honestly, why the fuck won’t the blue match with the blue and the white match with the whites? feelings are just too complicated for him to fully comprehend, and when he encounters a feeling that’s foreign, he doesn’t know what to think. embarrassment is one of them—how the fuck does he make this damned redness in his cheeks go away? his mind goes blank, a completely clean, blank sheet of white paper, missing all the scrawled words and doodling.
wonho also thinks that really, he is complicated. he’s so simple that he’s complicated. of course, he also thinks that he often makes no sense at all, which is what makes him even more complicated. wonho realizes that he complicates himself, complicates situations, and complicates relationships; he complicates already complicated feelings by stuffing them altogether in a jar and merely hoping that one of the less desired ones don’t decide to jump out on him when he opens the jar, his pandora’s box.
wonho has a profusion of nightmares. he seems himself falling for an eternity, reliving killings in missions of severity, burning to death amongst red, hungry flames, the corpses of the people he’s killed coming back to strangle him alive, and more extended images of his imagination. but the single one that hurts him the most, the one he finds himself waking up to in the middle of night in cold sweat, is the one in which he can feel the unassuming truck slam into the side of the car he’s in, the massive force and momentum crushing the silver metal inwards, the car tilting to the side, flipping over, and skidding. it’s the one in which wonho can hear the slow yet steady dripping of gasoline from a busted engine as the blood rushes to his head, his body solidly against the chair due to his seatbelt; the one in which he can see his mother, a single parent with a single child, bleeding profusely from her head, skin paling at a terrifying speed, struggling to turn around to mouth the words “we’ll still get you your robot” to her six-year-old son.
when the fire trucks and the police cars arrive, when the ambulance parks at the side of the road, when wonho is the first to get pulled out of the site of the accident, a rib broken, the collected drops of gasoline fire up. and he sees his car explode and sizzle, catch in flames and burn, with his mother—still barely alive—in it.
and when he gets flung into the ambulance car, a smoke mask sealing itself over his mouth that heaves gasps in shock and disbelief, when he starts to lose consciousness as he feels the rumble of the vehicle from under his numb body, all wonho can think is: if only he hadn’t begged her for that dumb robot. if only today, this day, hadn’t been his birthday.
that day was the last birthday that ever mattered because that day, wonho lost the only and last person in the world that would celebrate it with him. two weeks later, he was sent to an orphanage—a mundane place that offered mundane activities and a mundane childhood—and a month later, wonho was adopted by an odd family.
an odd family, he soon realized, that was training him to be more than resilient and a dependable son—it was training him to become something manufactured, an archetype, training him to become a model for the others that would soon join the family tree. sometimes, wonho wonders if should have chosen to lead a mundane life instead.
▸ kim taehyung, B:02 — a 22 year old cypher with a wolf therion.
▸ personality —
most consider taehyung some type of anomaly. he is underwhelming and over whelming simultaneously. the contents of his child were supposed to deter him, which it did, absent of certain emotions, love, one he isn’t allowed to feel in the first place. and pity, sympathy not a term he can concern himself with.
on the outside he seems cold, adorned in pastel colors, and dirty sneakers. chiseled features slate, years of wear in this manufactured world he has no choice but to live in. years of wear from a child hood of false promises and scars. taehyung is the calm before the storm on the outside.
on the inside he is lighting, he is thunder, he is rain, but also sunlight, a cool breeze in the heat. he’s the moment the sea crashes into the sand. the bend in the clouds before a pour. he is static, white noise, but he is also music.
taehyung is intelligent but to most he is lacking, calculative but also…free spirited. flowers are his favorite things, and glitter makes him happy. he could roam the world in a day just settle back in the toxic environment he lives in, he lived in. he’s the excited puppy, the one who waits for you to get home, mouth wide and easy wild. opposite of his therion who would wait for you, watch you, collect your routine before attacking.
he’s excitable, and easy to please, but also hard to understand. you remove a layer just to reveal another, in order to find a broken core, a mind of mental fragility granted from neglect, from abuse, from an unstable life. sometimes his ears perk up to sounds that aren’t there, sometimes he’s plagued with nightmares, even in brightness that is taehyung, the darkness still follows. it consumes him, and he always fears. a constant nagging, is he subpar? using painting and drawing, reading and writing. and when his mind enters somewhere too dark to emerge, he picks up his families old habits.
taehyung lived a life of discomfort. in a family full of those who didn’t approve of individuality, in a family full of secrets a sick and twisted nightmare that he was conformed to live in on a daily basis. home doesn’t bring a warmth to his chest, just strikes fear into his heart as his parents did. his father more, while his mother stood back and watched. no begs or pleas from red lips.
an only child born into drugs and aggression. the repercussion of a night walker and a desperate man, angry at the world for what he’d done. bruises and broken noses, bloodied lips and black eyes, screams of repulsion and complete disregard. and yet taehyung learned to love them.
there were hunger stricken nights, for him only, days at a time alone, dirty and discarded. and then there were nights where there was a family in his dingy living room, a man and woman in love despite the split lips and a child they adored despite the way his ribs poked from under a shirt that didn’t belong to him first.
time passed quickly, taehyung grew into himself, bettered himself, the pain persisted, the mental pain continued, but he found himself, in lavish paintings, in docile melodies, in a deep soulful voice. he found himself dancing around in his room, in high waisted jeans and over-sized sweaters, in glitter and lip gloss and jewelry, in the color pink, not afraid of femininity, of being an individual.
flourishing halted soon, waking up to an empty home, barely fourteen. furniture still decrepit, old and dusty. their room, empty…
from then on taehyung raised himself, in the old home. walking the streets as if nothing mattered, as if the world was still spinning, as if, he wasn’t alone. he scavenged for food, stole with a smile, did things he shouldn’t have for a meal, for lights, for clothing,
taehyung’s therion was apparent to him early on, maybe he knew all his life, he used it often, for food, to scare others off. he’d known about them, at least thought he knew, heard some horror stories maybe, but he his personality hadn’t allowed him to be cautious, his therion wasn’t like him, it was vicious and merciless, protective and he let it loose. maybe that’s why he hadn’t remembered falling asleep on that bench..but he’ll always vividly remember waking up in the arena.
▸ kim seokjin (iago), C:02 — a 23 year old cypher with a raccoon therion.
▸ personality —
He’s always been personable. From greeting his classmates and teachers with a smile every day to being the radiant, galaxy eyed admiree of many, he’s been liked by pretty much everyone his whole life. Something about his genuine earnestness (and sweet face) helps many to lower their guards, and his uncanny ability to always know exactly what to say or do.
He’s always been accessible. Despite his popularity, he never let it get into his head (and how could he? Even with his empathic accuracy, he never seemed to really believe that he could be so well-liked. He was just trying to make other people’s days better). Somehow, even if you’ve never spoken to him before, if you come up to him and say a small “hi” with a burdened mind, he’s always available to help.
He’s always been compassionate. Being able to read other people’s minds only heightens that. If he can do something to alleviate their pain, he will. He has felt the pain of so many people that it becomes his own.
He feels. He feels his own pain, others’ pain, and it consumes him.
He’s oddly dorky. It’s a stark contrast to his angelic face and poetic words, but it still works in the way that fries dipped in a milkshake works.
His paranoia trails him like garbage stuck on the foot of the trash panda he is classified as. He does not know if he will be caught feeling, or if his work was satisfactory enough for him not to be offed. He does not know if his boss won’t simply decide one day that his services are no longer needed, and that his death would be more amusing. He walks, glancing over his shoulder. He is not good enough.
He’s learned to become manipulative. Whether it’s a necessary component in his mission or to survive, he can, and will, direct others’ actions through the sweet ambrosia of poisoned diction.
He must survive. He will survive. And he will bring his fellow cyphers with him towards freedom, no matter the personal cost.
Seokjin nods, a graceful smile toying on his lips. “Yes,” he answers, placing a hand on a knee.
“Congratulations!” his interviewer exclaims, all too excitedly.
“Thank you.” His cheeks redden in embarrassment. “I hope to spend even more time in my work now.”
She nods. “You’re a volunteer… veterinary EMT, in addition to being a model, correct?” she asks, leaning forward.
His eyes stay completely in contact with hers, ignoring how she had obviously worn a push-up bra and revealing shirt, smile unwavering and not at all as genuine as it seems. “Yes,” he answers again. His eyes light up when he explains, “now I should not only be able to model in more projects, but also go on more missions.”
“Wow!” she cheers, leaning back in her seat. “That’s so amazing of you. We don’t see many people like that nowadays. I’ve heard that your schedule is rather volatile sometimes. Is it because of the EMT work?”
“That and the school work I had to do." And the other missions.
"I see.” She taps her pen against her purpley-red lips in a faux-thoughtful manner. “Well. How about a few questions about your experience there? And your childhood? Despite being a prominent model for the nearly four years since you debuted, you’re still much of an enigma.”
Seokjin laughs. “I wouldn’t call myself an enigma, per se." False. "I had a normal childhood," true-ish, "with my older brother," true, "and a small group of friends.” (Also true.)
“No gaggle of admirers?” Her tone is intrigued and almost skeptical.
He laughs again. “Oh, no, not that I’ve noticed anyways.” (True.) “After that, I just…went to university.” (True.) “I majored in Mandarin and Chinese studies, with a few English classes, and was on a pre-med track.” (True.)
“You’re quite intelligent.”
He shrugs bashfully. “I hope so.”
“How did you get into modeling?”
“I saw an ad on the bulletin looking for a model, and I thought I’d give it a go, to help pay for expenses. I didn’t think I’d actually make it.” (True.)
“You’re amazingly humble,” his interviewer says.
“Not at all,” he replies. “Anyways, I got into the EMT work from another flyer on the bulletin, and it just went from there.” (True.) “That’s pretty much it.”
False.
Because university was also the time his abilities were found out. One careless slip, or extremely insightful professor, and suddenly someone knew that he could read their mind. Even when he was young, he’d never been found out by another other than his brother.
He was shuffled to a facility he’d never seen before, forced into a life of brutal training and sudden rankings and inhumane missions. Mysterious cuts and bruises littered his skin then, not only a physical pain, but one to explain to his makeup artists as well.
His manager was pleased with how his body was filling out with muscle, and when questioned, Seokjin replied with a simple “I thought I should hit the gym.” Telling his manager the real reason would’ve been literal and figurative suicide, and a lifetime of paranoia had taught him too much for even a glimmer of hope.
“—in-ssi? Seokjin-ssi?”
“Yes?” he asks, startled back into the present, before continuing cooly, but with mortification. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was just thinking about a puppy we rescued a few days ago and I guess I zoned out.”
False.
“How cute,” the interviewer coos. “Is the puppy doing well?”
“As far as I know,” Seokjin says. “He should be doing fine.”
“That’s wonderful. Now. Many fans are calling for you to try out a role in a drama. What do you think of this?”
“Me, act?” He points to himself. “I could never. Even if my schedule allowed, I’m just not talented enough. Short bursts for modeling, yes, but not actual film. That’s just beyond me.”
“Give yourself some credit, Seokjin-ssi!” the interviewer exclaims. “I’m sure you’d be marvelous!”
▸ ahn heeyeon, F:03 — a 25 year old cypher with a wild dog therion.
▸ personality —
dissociative identity disorder (noun): a mental disorder characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states.
she fights a constant internal war, a war between two completely polarized, conflicting sides, a war for light over dark, morality over immorality. she fights against her therion, a covetous and bloodthirsty and turbulent entity. she fights for herself, and she survives.
hani survives, yes, but she doesn’t win.
she’s been in a stalemate for years, been the queen endlessly trying to check the king, a shitty, broken checkafter check after check, and she doesn’t lose—but she doesn’t win.
and sometimes, just sometimes, it’s so fucking difficult to act as if she did.
sometimes, hani wonders if there’s ever a limit to how bright or dark someone can be. why hasn’t anyone discovered that yet? her main goal in her abnormally short life—to find that limit and reach it so she can tell herself in her last breaths that she did it, that she somehow managed to fend off the beast till the end, the abomination that had ceaselessly driven her to the edge of the cliff and had tested her boundaries of self-control.
to hani, self-control is the greatest gift of all, and a gift that she has a finite amount of. it’s what draws the line between her and her therion, what separates them into two contrasting categories; and god, she can feel herself nearing the end of it every time the beast within her snarls and writhes and demands power. it’s a feeling of disgust.
bile rising in her throat
the taste of bitterness
head pounding, body trembling
shackles snapping, snapping, snapping
surviving, but losing, losing, losing
the more disgusted she is with the other half of herself, the monster in a cycle of being dormant and awake, the more hani forces herself to battle it—because she’s a fighter and a survivor, a soldier in war who wants nothing but to retire and receive pensions like any other. and the more she forces herself to battle it, the more she finds herself trying to smile and be sunny and smart about her circumstances.
yes, there will be times when she wants to stab you with a spoon that has, yes, just come out of her pocket. yes, there will be times when she wants to kick you in the place where the sun doesn’t shine. and yes, there will inevitably be times when she wants to lash out at you with a colorful strings of words deriving from her capacity of creativity.
but she’ll try to hold back—not because she likes you any more than she already doesn't—but because hani believes that patience, affection, and, most importantly, self-control are the keys to unlocking this hellish stalemate.
2009, one hot summer on a friday afternoon, eighteen-year-old and high schooler ahn heeyeon babysits two adorable kindergarteners and one kid who has just gotten herself into elementary school. their parents tell her that they’ll come back in the morning of the day after; heeyeon is too busy making funny faces at the six-year-olds, her heart fuzzy and warm and gushing at the cuteness of the children, their little bright eyes and their little soft hands and their little voices that scream her name in pure delight.
she realizes again that she loves her job; it’s not a matter of earning money for her younger brother who needs to buy school supplies anymore, but a matter of attachment and commitment and something else, something called contentment.
and contentment for heeyeon, a teenager struggling to help pay her family’s bills and rent and to save up enough money for university, is a luxury.
the parents leave, and heeyeon grasps the chance to have fun with the little monsters. pizza for dinner—a secret from their parents—and a bubble bath gears them for the end of the day, and at 9:00 pm, she tucks them in. with pleading eyes, they whine and ask to be allowed to stay up later (after all, tomorrow is saturday), but she is adamant. as much as she’d love to, heeyeon can’t lie through her teeth and say that she’s not tired.
dressed in a comfortable pair of black leggings and an obviously too large sweater, heeyeon lies down on the couch in the living room, her phone within reach. sleep overpowers her and she soon falls into a deep slumber, dreaming of a future in which she doesn’t have to worry about how much money she’s spent this week, about what time she has to get to her younger brother’s school to watch him play soccer, about what to wear when all she has is a small drawer of year long clothes—when someone shakes her awake.
it’s the youngest, a little boy, five years old, and he can’t sleep. heeyeon coos at him and brings him into her side and he burrows in, taking in her warmth. sleep is a welcome guest but a temporary one, and heeyeon is awoken again, but not because of the boy.
instead, she is awoken with a knife to her throat.
.
from then on, all heeyeon remembers is the coldness of the thin and cruelly sharp blade, the trickling of droplets of blood down the tender flesh of her pale neck, the stained red against the whites of her swear, and fuck—the trepidation, the utterly solid yet intangible smell and feel and sound of utter fear, when the monster dressed in black nears the precious five-year-old with a blade dripping red.
all she remembers is: nothing.
nothing except for the horrific outcome when the scarlet fades from her crazed eyes, nothing except for the metallic reek in the air and the assailant marred to the point of being unrecognizable and the child, the child, on the couch. dead. one of the few things in her life that gave her warmth, dead.
and then heeyeon remembers that contentment is a luxury.
it is also a mistake that had provoked her own monster and had given it the initiative to grow, feed, and obliterate the few values she had in life. it was the start of a cycle of hell.
.
heeyeon had provoked the monster at her own expense, and now?
now she’d join the cyphers to learn to tame it and coax it out of its frenzied ideals, to keep it chained up, to be put on a leash.
▸ kang minhyuk, B:01 — a 22 year old cypher with a wolf therion.
▸ personality —
he’s a tornado. well, specifically a tornado with a big heart, if that makes any sense. forgiving. supportive. affable. yeah, that about sums up this crazy, breathing, living being referred as kang minhyuk.
even as he does well to keep his head low, his influence is undoubtedly ubiquitous. it isn’t difficult to notice the warm keenness he carries himself with, not to mention just how all over the place he is. you’ll spot him almost everywhere: in a cafe, chugging a gallon of a mango smoothie, in the corridors, sprinting with the intent to live as he delivers a late document, and even in a nearby park, quietly enjoying a tranquil scenery. to him, everything is vivacious with color and life.
he finds life in everything and makes damn well certain that he appreciates every bit of it. the smallest things don’t go unnoticed by his eyes; perhaps that’s why he’s content over little things, such as sighting a small squirrel skittering across the asphalt road, catching a glimpse of the boisterous nature of children as they happily chase after a ball, or spotting a small flower blooming earlier than the rest, just before the cold winter is truly over and the white blanket over the country thaws. it doesn’t take any luxurious items to make him content, and this shows in the way he dresses, too.
most individuals don’t understand his sheer affection for trivial matters and people. what they don’t realize is the fact that the lack of understanding they face when regarding minhyuk works in his favor, as he oftentimes has underhanded intentions behind his behavior (albeit they are mostly meant to be good) and is much more grounded than what most would give him credit for. his guise as a tactless and air-headed individual obscures an astonishingly perceptive, collected, reticent, and down-to-earth strategist who rarely surfaces unless needed otherwise.
contrary to his usual unconditional loving, magnanimous, and optimistic demeanor, he’s far from naive. he understands that he’s another number on a long, endless list that will be erased with one misstep, and he’s more than capable of discerning different circumstances with his acute eye. and, of course, the metallic affliction of his occupation is not foreign for minhyuk.
in fact, he’s used to watching blood spray from the mouths of men who are murdered by his own hands. he’s blankly watched their chests tear open and their soft, punctured flesh bleed too often. when he finally has the chance to rest his aching feet and his pounding head and the world goes silent, so silent that even the crickets seize their mellow songs, sometimes, sometimes, he wonders when those blank, vacant eyes will eventually become his own.
but he’ll still try and end the day with a smile - with that same sanguine “good night” of his, and he’ll still try and keep his shoulder open for anyone in need, because he knows all too well that his support for others is all he has left to give. with all this in mind, for kang minhyuk, it’s surely his unconditional love for his crew that’ll eventually get him killed.
minhyuk was raised by the excruciating system ever since he was just a toddler, and yet, he is not the conventional product the board had expected him to be. he was extraordinarily talented, yes, and the phenomenal potential he presented was eminent. as an incredibly intelligent and reflective youth, there was an undisturbed grace to him when pressure threatened to exterminate him because he was raised to be a weapon, one that knows how to wrap an enemy around his finger and vehemently kill without a beat of hesitance. he was taught to be peerless. immaculate.
he never had the chance of knowing the environment a school provided. he never had the chance of delicately crafting a mundane childhood. he never was allowed to turn his eyes away from the sole objective he was born to undertake. he still doesn’t remember anything about his past before he was supposedly founded by the board and thrown head-first into his role as a cypher. and yet, through all the rigor and toil he was coerced into performing, minhyuk’s peculiar sense of humor somehow managed to remain intact along with his warm affinity for people. he, in a sense, had become a curious mutation in the board’s eyes. (it’s even rumored that he was the first one to ever elicit animosity from them, an organization supposedly consisting of individuals incapable of feeling emotion.)
however, it would be a lie to say that he feels nothing. he smiles often, but there are rare times when it doesn’t reach his eyes, and even then only a handful of people are able to recognize the difference within his fervent gaze. while his whole life was coldly predestined for him before he was able to breathe and it still remains as a poignant reminder of how he could have lived differently, it’s not raw bitterness that violently rots in his heart, but rather a salient loneliness that he cannot fill. no matter how many times he struggles, no matter how many times he surrounds himself with a crowd, no matter how many times he tries to sleep the feeling off, he knows all too well that every life tethered to this secluded system lives and dies alone.
▸ han sanghyuk, A:01 — a 23 year old cypher with a panther therion.
▸ personality —
guarded. shadowed. nobody knows much about him, how his gears turn and his clock hands tick. rumors buzz around him like pesky flies, always coming back because he doesn’t bother enough to, nor does he care enough to, swat them away, always buzzing up close in his ear, always nitpicking and stubborn and curious. flies.
rumor is that he’s the long lost son of some korean ceo living in france. rumor is that he is secretly afraid of centipedes and any organism with more than four legs. rumor is that he goes crazy for people, male and female alike, who are able to pry him open like an oyster without a pearl, something beautiful inside.
but they are precisely just that—rumors. nobody knows the truth behind them, nobody except for hyuk himself. and he is not ready—he doesn’t think that he’ll ever be ready—to spill out his secrets, especially when he knows that he’s missing a pearl, and maybe a heart. or at least, a heart familiar and conditioned with compassion.
hyuk sees a pearl as a sign of innocence and purity, two unobtainable ideals in life. it cruelly highlights the many fledgelings of light that he’s missing in life and leaves him to lurk in the shadows, where he belongs with his silence, pessimism, and gloominess. hyuk, a panther, a cypher at the top of the ladder, is not necessarily cruel himself; he finds no pleasure in his job and the constant killing and a constantly guilty conscience. yet, he will not stop because doing something is better than doing nothing and living is better than dying, because this despondent and monochromatic life of his is still a life, and a life is meant to be lived, shitty or not.
he does what he does because hyuk knows, already is a hundred percent certain, that he is not needed and can be replaced at any time. it is not fear of death that keeps him going, but rather the fear of forcing another human with a therion, just another individual trying to scrape by life’s hurdles, into the position he is in now. at this point, hyuk knows too much about living in this shithole—the unspeakable, unfathomable, excruciating torment that had consumed him whole after his first kill, the binding, mechanic uniformness resembling that of a prison, the agonizing feeling of his brain eating his heart out—to necessitate someone else into his predicament. fuck, he hates himself, but he won’t relent, not for this. not at the expense of someone else’s misery.
besides, without this, the title of a ruthless murderer, who is he really?
it turns out that the buzzing and bothersome flies had somehow managed to turn one rumor into a truth—and hyuk honestly has no idea how, nor does he care—that he, in fact, is the long lost son of a korean ceo in france. having born a prince and having lived through his childhood as a prince, he was someone to be envied; that is, before he was deprived of his luxuries and identity of a prince at the age of seventeen.
seventeen. it really was too young of an age to be coerced into a brutal and unmerciful system of grueling mental and physical training. it really was too soon for him to become something that he was not, too soon for a baby bird to leave its nest. with his kidnapping at the incheon airport at 3:43 am, only an hour and forty five minutes after setting foot in his homeland, he was a baby bird out of its nest, free falling without its flight feathers fully developed. hyuk was a nestling surrounded by wolves, claws at his neck and poised to kill, when he was “offered” a position on the team of cyphers. seventeen. he was too young and too naive because he ended up saying yes.
some nights, hyuk is reminded of the spate of raw, frenzied panic when the dark bag had sealed its fate over his head, drowning him in sudden darkness, the dizzyingly sweetness of the sleep drug, the ruggedness and tightness of the cold, hard metal that had encircled his wrists, bringing his shoulder blades painfully together beyond the point that should have been impossible, forming bluish purple bruises on a tender parts of his skin. some nights, he feels the physical abuse happen over and over and over again—god, the blows had just kept coming after every uttered “no”; to his cheek; to his ribs; to his head; to his stomach; a broken hand. a scream.
