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»»» WELCOME ZHANG YIXING, ALSO KNOWN AS X, TO SUNNY PEAK, WHERE THE ABNORMAL IS NORMAL! Filed as a LEVEL 2 ESPER of TWENTY FOUR YEARS OLD, they possess the ability of PSYCHIC NAVIGATION and pass their time working as a PIZZA DELIVERY BOY. You can find them in CEREBUM #003!
WHAT CAN YOU DO, WHAT CAN YOU DO? WEAR A RED HEART? RIP IT IN TWO?
psychic navigation—the ability to go into a temporary paralytic state and create present-time three dimensional mental maps of an area, including anything and everything within it, thus being able to track the locations and movements of individuals and objects within the area also. He is able to then pass on this information to members of his team via mind links they share, aiding them in battle.
LIMITS, LIMITS, LIMITS -- THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CREATURE LIMITLESS.
considering the fact that he is only able to use his powers within a short radius of himself, there is no other option available than to provide tactical and analytical support while directly in the line of fire, and as his powers are primarily based on support and strategy, being unable to use them for either offence or defense—especially in his paralytic state during the use of his ability—leaves him open to attack. due to this reason he almost always needs to rely on another for protection against potential assault. his visual capacity is also affected by distance; in other words, the further a person or object is, from him, the less details he will be able to provide about the person or object in question. currently, the absolute limit when it comes to time he can spend using his ability at a stretch is an hour, both because of his lack of skill and mastery, and because of the immense strain it puts on his body and his mind—the larger the area, the faster his energy will deplete, and the shorter the time limit. his ability also requires immense calm and focus, which means that his emotional and psychological well-being plays at that particular moment in time plays a part in it as well.
WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU? TELL ME, CONFIDENTLY, WHO ARE YOU?
1. WHAT DO YOU FEAR?
i. like with most things, only people who have ever really experienced full body paralysis understand how frightening it truly is— you’re still conscious of your surroundings, aware of everything that’s going on, and yet you’re unable to physically do anything about it. like you’re trapped in your very own body. the feeling is no stranger to you simply because of your nature, but facing your fears don’t always make them disappear, do they? quite the opposite, really, and you're absolutely terrified of the idea that, one day, that temporary loss of muscle function in your body will no longer be temporary.
2. WHAT ARE YOUR DREAMS?
ii. 1998—changsha, hunan, china; first day of school after winter break. Your mother’s driving you to school, hair pulled up into a messy bun with her sunglasses hiding blood-shot eyes and the bags beneath them. When you arrive she kisses your cheek goodbye before pressing the unlock button for the passenger side door. Her skin feels sweaty against yours. The adult word for it is ‘hungover’, but you don’t know that yet. You don’t know a lot of things yet. Kiss your mother back, get out of the car, wave before making your way to class; it’s all routine. You settle into your seat, overhear the girl who sits behind you tell her friend all about how her parents took her to the amusement park on the other side of town last week, how they ate ice cream and cotton candy, how she took pictures with the bunny rabbit and she got on the carousel twice. It sounds amazing. Magical, even. You wonder if your mother will take you there one day.
3. WHAT KIND OF FUCKWAD ARE YOU? (EVERYONE’S AN ASSHOLE)
iii. perhaps treachery and fraud is simply in your blood. your father was never an honest man, if the stories you hear are any indication; why should you be any different? this is not a new idea, but rather words you grew up hearing. you never took it to heart or so you say. mother’s been through a lot, she doesn’t mean the things she says. you kept telling yourself that, at least. it’s the thought that counts. but now you’re less a boy and more a man, and you have to wonder if those harsh words in moments of broken vulnerability were really just that, words. maybe she knew all along. mothers seem to have a knack for knowing, don’t they?
4. WHAT KIND OF GOODY TWOSHOES ARE YOU? (EVERYONE’S A BIT SOFT)
iv. you’ve always been somewhat of a workaholic—a trait the result of your perfectionist persona or one last pathetic attempt at getting mommy dearest’s acceptance, approval, and unconditional love? who knows. you certainly don’t. well, never look a gift horse in the mouth, they say. diligent work ethics, steadfast belief in your own (very limited) moral compass and never knowing when to give up; some of your (very few) respectable attributes. you’re also positively anal-retentive at times, but that’s alright, you’re cute from certain angles under certain types of lighting. a flaw or two can be overlooked.
5. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER? (THERE MUST BE THINGS THAT HAUNT YOU)
one — it’s yixing’s 6th birthday today but no one seems to remember. he’s holed up in a corner of his bedroom with the lights turned off, legs crossed and absentmindedly playing with the iron-man action figure in his hands. pretending he can’t hear the screaming going on downstairs, the sound of china plates shattering against walls and dining chairs being thrown across the room. mother’s yelling for them to ‘just get the fuck out, get the fuck out of my house you fucking son of a bitch’. he gets up, opens the door just a crack and just in time to see his father storm out the front door, duffel bag in hand and not a single word goodbye. mother runs up the stairs with tears streaming down reddened cheeks, more so caused by anger and frustration than actual sadness. she passes him by without a second glance. he’s always been rather invisible in this house. two — three years have passed since his father walked out on them for the last time (although certainly not the first). a job transfer requires his mother on a one-way flight to seoul by sunday morning, which means, by default, that he’ll be tagging along for the metaphorical ride; she’s busy packing dishes and cutlery into cardboard boxes in the kitchen while he folds freshly laundered clothes into an open suitcase on his bedroom floor. truth be told, he’s not all that upset about the move. he doesn’t have much to be left behind. three — he’s a teenager dealing with teenage issues, like hormones and learning how to shave without mutilating his face and having grown out of that really nice pair of jeans already (even though he bought the damned thing just two months ago) and cramming for midterms that start next week; he’s brought a classmate over today to help with that last one—she sucks at math and he sucks at english, they’re of mutual use to one another, but that initial plan seems to get lost in translation because, an hour later, they’re making out on the living room floor when his mother walks in. ritualistic ‘yixing, i’m home’ stopping mid-sentence, followed by the obligatory awkward silence. It takes the girl a minute or two to get her books and bolt through the door, red-faced and gaze-lowered, stopping only to bow a perfect 90 degrees with a soft “sorry, mrs.zhang.” his mother smiles in return, waiting till she’s gone before turning back to her son, a single brow raised—she bursts out laughing and he wishes the earth would just split open, swallow him whole and be done with it.
WHAT WILL YOU DO, WHAT WILL YOU DO? WHEN THE BIG MAN IN BLACK COMES RUNNING FOR YOU?
02/05/2013, HOPE’S PEAK, DAEGU, SK— mother kisses his cheek goodbye for the last time, her fingers mapping over the contours of his face, the rise of his cheekbones; when he looks her in the eyes he can’t decide whether he’s seeing in them sadness or disappointment. is there a difference? does it even matter? he kisses her forehead in return, one arm wrapped around her, slender fingers gently squeezing a shoulder. silent thanks for everything she’s done in spite of her flaws; a single working woman who raised a child all on her own when she could have just as easily dropped him off at a church doorstep in some nameless Changsha neighborhood. He was never really all that good at emotional displays of affection. Perhaps that runs in the family, too—she tells him to take care, says she’ll call when he knows she won’t. says she’ll miss him and he knows she will. he turns around with a small wave, doesn’t bother looking back as he’s escorted through the beginnings of what turns out to be a myriad of seemingly never-ending corridors. it’s like he’s a child again and it’s the first day of school, he’s half-hoping she’s still standing where he left her but he half-knows she’s not (and he’d honestly rather not find out). they come to a stop in front of what he assumes to be a training field—what with all the wooden obstacles and various intimidating machinery scattered across the area—minutes later. he’s introduced to several people, all of whom he exchanges brief formalities with, but he’s only really interested in a young man of about his age who’s introduced to him as his ‘partner’ for the test that would determine whether or not he’ll be admitted into this fine jailhouse facility; they look like they just woke up, doesn’t come across as the type of person with a single problem in the world. now, normally, yixing wouldn’t care, he’s just not the type of person to care, but with him being in his current predicament, he’s more or less forced to care. he’s not necessarily a fan of trusting complete strangers—armed with nothing but a devil-may-care attitude, from the looks of it—with his life, considering his extremely strong sense of self-preservation. but it doesn’t seem like he’s got much of a choice, now, does it? he sighs, utters a prayer under his breath (although he does wonder how much of use that’ll be, considering all the years of sunday mass he’s missed by now—don’t judge him, everyone remembers god when their asses are on the line) before making his way across the grounds, his ‘partner’ only a few steps behind him. yixing wasn’t offered many details and he isn’t bothered enough to ask; if they were completely incompetent, what good would knowing they were completely incompetent do him, after all. so he chooses to wordlessly take his seat and hope for the best, the same type of grey plastic chair used in most under-budgeted public schools across south korea set up just for him, out here, right in the middle of the course. he wants to make a sarcastic remark about how they really shouldn’t have, metaphorically bites his tongue instead. he’s got bigger issues to worry about.
breathe in, close your eyes. breathe out. numbness begins spreading through him, starting at his fingertips before rushing through his limbs, inwards, towards his core. fear has his heart in his throat and he can almost hear it, pounding against his ears; he wills himself to keep breathing, in, out. even. calm. his head nods back to rest against the back of his chair, body slipping the slightest bit from his original position. arm sliding off his lap, hanging off his frame at an awkward angle. he, for all intents and purposes, looks like he’s fallen asleep and, understandably, it takes sunggyu by surprise. “what the hell—,“ they mutter, confusion building further when none of the instructors seem to share their sentiment; on the contrary, the sound of a buzzer going off rings throughout the field, signaling the start of the test. amidst the sudden chaos that ensues, they don’t notice the stray fireball coming their way—but suddenly, there’s a voice in their head, oddly familiar, speaking with static in between the words. ‘fireball, 3 o’clock’. they side-step instinctually, avoids burning their left cheek by mere inches. ‘well, that was close. i’d appreciate it if you repaid the favor by not letting me die.’ there’s that voice again, realization dawning upon them soon after. ‘no, i’m not asleep. i’m not dead yet, either, emphasis on the yet. just temporarily paralyzed. we don’t have a lot of time though, show and tell will have to wait’. they were told of 3 items—all of them rather small, everyday household objects—scattered across the area. no other instructions were given except that they’re to find them all within a time-frame of 5 minutes. ‘the first one’s a necklace, turquoise colored crystal pendant, on the ground 10 meters south-east of the second electricity orb to your left.’ they immediately take off running, narrowly missing injury at the hands of a water whip that strikes the earth less than a foot behind them. ‘there’s also something small on the ground behind the fireball generator furthest from you, directly north. it’s too far for me to be able to give you specifics.’ urgency is starting to bleed through his tone, passing on information through a mind link created from when they exchanged faux pleasantries—the further they get, the more worried he becomes, electric bolts barely missing his immobile frame. he ignores the feeling of dread, focuses on the present-time blueprint of the area constructed within the confines of his mind. ‘great, this is the last one. an inhaler, white and blue, 5 meters south-west of me,” he says when sunggyu picks a black marker up off the ground, watches them make their way back towards him and then past. ‘water whip, 9 o’clock.’ They take another quick side-step and it misses again, they grab the inhaler off the grass and relief immediately floods through yixing— but the relief is short-lived, he notices the water whip preparing to come down on him; for a minute time slows, he inhales sharply, waits for the blow followed by searing pain that never comes. His eyes open to a familiar figure and a face that betrays nothing of whatever they’re feeling except boredom (maybe it’s just their default facial expression, who knows?), blood oozing out of an open wound in their palm, trickling down their fingers to fall and stain the grass below. There’s a thin shield of solid red hovering over them. “you did tell me to repay the favor.”