adxhyungwon-blog

[adxhyungwon-blog]

Dear Adverse members,

I hereby announce my official resignation from Adverse as both admin and member. This was not a decision made lightly and it is with a heavy heart I say goodbye, however, rest assured that the other members of the admin team are working together to bring you a new and improved Adverse. In fact, I am leaving with high hopes for Adverse.

For now, I will be focusing on my real life issues as I gear up for prime thesis writing season. I am not yet good enough to balance real life responsibilities with rp and my lack of progress with my thesis is already a cause of concern for my desk partners. I will continue to try to improve my lacking self, in the way of work-life balance and in the way I have handled these issues that have arisen here. I am especially apologetic towards the admin team, you as members and all those who were hurt during their stay with us. To everyone, I am truly sorry that you had to experience this.

If you wish to keep in contact with me-- or befriend me for those who I have yet to meet-- you are free to ask for my contact details on private messenger. I will still be logged in on this account over the weekend, but will log out come Monday.

It is now time for the Adverse community to heal. It has been a pleasure roleplaying with you all and just in general knowing the very supportive people here. You are all stars, so continue to shine brightly. 

Maybe we’ll rp together again in the future, but for now, this is goodbye.

With lots of love and farewell, Hoshika.

Edit: Please unfollow @adxhyungwon-blog and @adxyezi-blog, thank you.

[adxhyungwon-blog]

Dear Members,

I write to you as Hoshika and not as part of the admin team.

I want to sincerely apologise for the disruption in the past few hours. I understand that it has affected you all as members of the Adverse KRP community, and therefore I have attempted open and productive dialogue with the parties involved. I, too, am shocked and surprised by this incident, although not so much the high emotions involved, and can only hope for a swift resolution, be it whatever it may. At this point in time, I can only beg for your patience with me and send my deepest apologies for the confusion and delay in getting this roleplay directory back on track.

Deepest apologies and regrets,

Hoshika.

[adxhyungwon-blog]

[adxhyungwon-blog]

{ You’re Under Investigation }

@adxdonghae

He couldn’t believe it. He’s stuck on some investigation into a club tonight. Yeah, okay, he got that clubs are a hotspot for gang activity but this was not how the police department could better use his skills. What’s worse than being stuck with this assignment was his partner, who was currently standing with hearts in his eyes as he, well, openly eyed up some girl ahead of them in the line. He knew exactly what will happen. Without a doubt, the moment the bouncers have checked their drivers licence and given them the green light to enter the club, his partner will disappear to find his one night stand. (Hyungwon knew him well. Hell, the whole police department knew his track record with relationships. Which was to say, they never last past a week.)

True to his predictions, the moment they drop their coats off in the cloakroom, Hyungwon’s partner is gone, lost into the crowd of moving bodies. Hyungwon resigned himself to wading into the crowd too—but with a different objective. The assignment aim was to talk to the club owner, to investigate whether he may have any ties to criminal activities. Or rather, Hyungwon was here to warn the club owner that the police had their eyes on them, just waiting for a mistake to pounce.

The club felt oppressive. There were way too many people in the limited space, too many hot bodies pressed against his. Too many slaps to his behind from intoxicated men, too many girls trying to make a grab for his belt. They pressed into him, stealing his oxygen, trying to etch themselves into his skin, the thin fabric of his button up doing nothing to block the ghosting of their fingers. (The ghosting of the past, the lines of all his mistakes, the memories of all his sins.)

It was only when he broke free from the crowd to stumble a little into the bar that he realised he had been holding his breath. He exhaled shakily, a little dizzy, and motions towards a bartender who had just served up a Sex on the Beach (he remembered how the girls loved their cocktails, while the boys drank rounds and rounds of shots).

“A glass of water,” He said to the bartender, plastering on a nonchalant face. “Oh, and the club owner.”

An inconspicuous flash of his police ID in his wallet sent the employee madly bowing and scrambling away. In the meantime, Hyungwon carefully began to craft his ‘don’t fuck with me’ face as he stared out into the mass of people, somehow moving as one to the music, but simultaneously out of sync with each other. He sipped his water, wondering who the club owner could be.

[adxhyungwon-blog]

[adxhyungwon-blog]

Tracker; { 170623 }

coma; writing Grey (Step on this fuse; don’t let it burn), Kang Donghae (Starter), Ma Yeonsoo (Starter), Shin Hoseok (Propofol), Song Choa (Insomnia)

apnoea; waiting Bang Chulsuk (Out of Chains), Go Minho (Hey Kitty Kitty), Hani (Starter)

circadian; plotting Bae Suzy, Park Misun, Wang Zhixin, Yoon Dahye, Hansa, Choi Naeil, Joshua, Park Jimin.

.

((I’m losing track of my life, if you’re not up there and you’re supposed to be, lmk pls!!!!!!!! ))

[adxhyungwon-blog]

WONBEBE ϟ do not edit or crop logo. 

[adxhyungwon-blog]

{ Out of Chains }

@adchulsuk

The interrogation room is cold. It’s cold enough to raise goosebumps on Hyungwon’s arm despite being clad in his dark navy uniform. One of his least favourite places, three of the four walls are adorned with a one-way window, while the fourth is white, as is the ceiling. He sits at the table, reading through the files about the suspect again, trying to memorise the large amount of facts and synthesising them into an attack.

Bang Chulsuk was the heir to the well-known JC Group, and took up the position of CEO after the untimely death of his father some years past. That is a familiar enough fact. It had required no investigative power on behalf of the police to uncover. Hyungwon flips through Chulsuk’s profile, ignoring the mundane details and focuses on why the famous party thrower would be stepping into the interrogation room in just a moment. The file details quite the extensive suspicions the police have had over the last decade or so during the reign of the previous head, but, without any hard evidence, there had been no grounds for a search warrant much less an arrest. For a period of a few years, the file on JC Group had gathered dust. Now that an anonymous tip off (the police suspect it likely came from a rival company) that the company may have links to the notorious Seoul Tigers gang had been made to the police, the file had been taken off the shelf to be rifled through again.

This is not Hyungwon’s case though. This is not in any shape or form Hyungwon’s area of expertise. He doesn’t like interrogations, and if ever he did have to question his suspects after unsuccessfully handballing it to his partners, he would rather play the ‘nice cop’ role. Unlike some of his partners, he didn’t quite enjoy breaking the suspects. He shuffles the papers and lays them on the desk just as the door is thrown open and the man of the hour is frogmarched in (oh how Hyungwon wishes he were the one leading the handcuffed man inside instead of sitting in this unforgivingly hard chair, silently observing the man).

On the recording device set up on the otherwise bare table, he presses a button before smoothing down his uniform and staring the suspect, Bang Chulsuk, head of JC Group, right in the eyes. In a confident, yet mild voice, Hyungwon begins the questioning. 

“Do you know why you’re here, Bang Chulsuk-ssi?”

[adxhyungwon-blog]

[adxhyungwon-blog]

{ Hey Kitty Kitty }

@adminho

There’s a little alleyway between his home and the nearby park that he sometimes walks through after work. It’s a little narrow, only fit for two people to walk abreast, but hardly anyone walks down the alleyway anyway. It’s not the safest place at night what with the lack of streetlamps, but it’s a beautiful walk during the day. Small daises grow between cracks in the concrete and soft orchestral music often plays from one of the adjacent houses owned by a lovely old couple. Most importantly though, there’s a stray cat that stalks the alleyway.

It’s there now, sat atop the garbage bins belonging to the old couple with its tail swishing to the beat of the symphony. Hyungwon smiles at it while it regards him with cautious yellow eyes and he pulls out a paper bag with bits of leftovers in it—whatever he managed to snatch after their catered mission debrief. It’s rather heart-warming to see the black cat sniff delicately at the various bits of ham, tuna and beef in the palm of his hands before eagerly devouring the whole lot. In fact, it’s so endearing that, once the paper bag is completely empty and he’d discarded it in the very bin the cat is perched on, he begins to rub its ears and pet its back and grasp its little paws.

He’s so preoccupied about swinging the cat around in a circle (it’s really just too adorable! The little mews it makes is just so sweet!), that when he hears a voice calling out to him, he quickly hugs the cat to his chest in shock, as if he’s trying to protect it from the newcomer.

“I’m sorry, what?”

[adxhyungwon-blog]

Pokémon Donuts. Gotta eat ‘em all! #FoodPorn #PokemonGo #donuts.🍩 via meow_mayhem

[adxhyungwon-blog]

aerinxad:

(...)

As Aerin raises her head slowly to give the waitress a quiet thanks, she finds a familiar face that’s not of the young waitress, the last face she wants to see at the moment.

He smirks, albeit only out of playfulness. She scowls. While she doesn’t welcome his presence, she doesn’t stop him as he reaches for the chair across from her.

He’s pulling a double shift today, graveyard and morning. There had been five cases assigned to Hyungwon’s team—that’s five too many as far as he’s concerned—, and with one being an urgent treason plot, Hyungwon’s about ready to either scream from the stress, or just sleep for the next century. The senior sergeant had just ordered the police officers off for a break as the forensics and intelligence team do what they do best. ‘You’ll need all your strength later,’ the senior sergeant had said. Hyungwon sighs.

He sighs again as he pulls up in front of the coffee shop next to the police station. Without even stopping, he passes the queue that has wormed its way onto the footpath and heads three blocks down.

The café here made really nice chocolate filled doughnuts, Hyungwon recently discovered. Just the right ratio of warm brown goop and deep fried goodness. Excellent, really. It’s just the extra few metres he has to walk that really puts Hyungwon off. Oh, and the familiar face at one of the tables. Aerin. They weren’t friends per se, just work colleagues, and honestly, she scowled too much for her own good. The pretty face of hers was going to get wrinkles far too early. Not to mention the way she bites into him when he shows up at her door just because his handwriting was much too sloppy or that he was late by a few minutes the last time he had swung by to collect evidence. For crying out loud, it’s not like he asks the witness to be particularly uncooperative.

Just the thought of it makes Hyungwon quite cross, and, before he’s even thought it through, he stops the waitress with a gentle hand to her elbow and an arresting soft smile. “Is that for our lovely Aerin? I can take it from here,” he says before he turns around, grabs a packet of sugar from the nearby table, and dumps the entire contents into her cup. He moves to the next table, and proceeds to do the same. There’re about six tables between the counter where he ordered his caramel latte and Aerin, so by the time he places the cup by her papers, there are six full packets of sugar in her regular black.

Satisfied, he pulls out the chair opposite her and leans back with a cat-like smirk on his face. “How has your morning been, sweet stuff?”

bitter like sugar

[adxhyungwon-blog]

boyfriend hyungwon

[adxhyungwon-blog]

{ Insomnia }

@adchoa

When one lived alone, it was a hard decision to make between getting one bunch of spinach at the price of 1200 won or three bunches at 2500—cheaper but it risked becoming an unidentifiable glop of wilted green in the bottom drawer of his fridge by the end of the week. Hyungwon stared for another minute at the display, wondering if it was worth his meagre wage to buy three bunches and let it all rot— and he decided that, no, it was not.

Life was much simpler back in Gwangju. Even when Hyungwon had stubbornly moved out to the police academy dorms, his mother would often pop up on his doorstep with a week’s worth of food all neatly packed in lunchboxes. And before that, he wouldn’t even need to think about groceries. He had moved out at age 18, and yet, four and a half years later at the ripe age of 23, he still found being an adult a burdensome task. 

But he wouldn’t go back to before even if every decision he had made was so much easier when living under the roof of his parents’ house. He would never go back to those teenage days, to those weekends spent in Seoul drenched in all the wrong doings and all the bad choices, to those times when he would nervously declare his name was Kyunghye but which after three years become second nature to respond to. Here he was now, in Seoul, but with a different kind of mission. A mission that said he would have to keep his history under wraps should he ever want to stay in the police force.

Hyungwon continued to browse the aisles at the supermarkets, his basket hanging from the crook of his elbow. The other disastrous thing about being adult was the fact that one brand or other of chocolate biscuits would always be on sale, and the fact that they would always almost be sold out made the temptation to buy one for himself just a little harder to resist. He paused in front of the shelf, the sound of his bank account slowly going bankrupt ringing in his head.

Fuck that. Chocolate biscuits were chocolate biscuits and no currency symbol should be any impediment to the obtainment of said chocolate biscuits. What he didn’t expect was for a hand to also grip the very same packet he had reached for. His eyes narrowed. No way, Jose. Those chocolate biscuits were his. The other person could fuck right off, thank you very much.

“Excuse me, but those are mine.”

[adxhyungwon-blog]

won moment ϟ do not edit or crop logo.

[adxhyungwon-blog]

adxminhyuk:

(...)

swirling his tongue around the strawberry - flavored lollipop, he lies down flat on his stomach && places his finger over the trigger. the officer- chae hyungwon if he remembered correctly- just decided to open the WINDOW, ( always a fantastic idea when interrogating someone who’s life could very well have a time limit ) causing minhyuk to frantically pull his rifle below the ledge and duck his head, counting to 60 before he peeked up to see that the dark - haired man sit with his back facing himself. what a SHAME— he’d hate to have to shoot someone with such a pretty face. but at the end of the day, business was business. with that thought, he aimed the weapon at his target’s chest && pressed the trigger, bracing himself for the recoil from the weapon. cursing when the bullet impacted the officer’s shoulder instead due to a movement of his, he barely had time to fire two other hasty shots into the window when he heard the crack over his intercom telling to scram. now.

The open window brought in a breath of fresh air, and Hyungwon inhaled the smell of… hmm, whatever flowers Mr Song’s neighbour had planted on their windowsill. Just that one breath helped to calm Hyungwon down, his irritation boiling down to a small simmer. He faced their witness with a smile on his face, pointedly ignoring his still grumbling and half-awake partner.

“So, Mr Song,” Hyungwon began, noting that Mr Song seemed to be fidgeting a little less with the hem of his sleeves. “I’m Chae Hyungwon.” 

Mr Song turned slightly towards Hyungwon’s partner, but that wouldn’t do. Hyungwon was not going to introduce his partner. Oh hell no. His partner was leaning against the wall scowling like a goddamn demon, he wasn’t participating in this investigation at all, and therefore, Hyungwon will not be introducing such useless garbage. He moved forward with the aim to draw Mr Song’s attention back onto him. “I would like to know where you were on the night of—“

He screamed.

Pain blossomed from his shoulder and grabbed hold of his entire left side. The world tilted and blacked out. The force of the pain had thrown Hyungwon onto the floor and, when his vision refocused, he was staring into the eyes of a shocked Mr Song. Shit. Somewhere, someone was panicking and yelling, but Hyungwon could only focus on the man in front of him. Tentatively, he reached out and pressed two fingers into the side of Mr Song’s neck.

Nothing. No pulse. No breath.

He attempted to scramble backwards, to distance himself from the dead body and all the blood, blood, blood cascading down the hollowed chest, but the pain in his shoulder screamed at him to stop. And really, with all the red that painted the couch and the carpet, he didn’t know which splatters of blood was his and which were Mr Song’s.

As Hyungwon laid there, breathing hard through his nose and his eyes squeezed shut in an attempt to fight off unconsciousness, he wasn’t thinking about how their one lead on the case was now dead on the floor of this house, or even about how the bullet through his shoulder could have clipped an important artery and he would only have minutes to survive. No, he was thinking about the stack of Incident Reports on his desk waiting to be filled out— Sections 32, 34, 35, and 37a), all in triplicate to be filed within a week of his return.

Fucking Seoul Tigers.

{ Ignition }

[adxhyungwon-blog]

Hyungwon ONLY; { How many petals can a flower have? }

{ How many petals can a flower have? The answer is infinite. }

{ Alternatively titled a few scattered minutes in Hyungwon’s rather average and boring life. }

1026 HRS

<Mum>: Kyungwon is back from America and Hyewon just won her case in Japan. She’ll be back in Korea in a day or two. <Mum>: When will you come home?

Hyungwon places the phone back on his bedside table and rolls over, flinging his covers over his head. An astrophysicist, a lawyer and… a disappointment. Why would his parents want him back in Gwangju? He sighs into his bedsheets and closes his eyes, drifting back into sleep.

Even if Hyungwon could catch all the dandelions in the world, none of his wishes would ever be granted. It was against the laws of reality.

-

1958 HRS

If his life were a canvas, then Hyungwon’s past was streaks of red and black upon it. All that he is doing now is attempt to cake the canvas in a layer of white paint in the hopes that it will somehow hide the blemishes away, that it will look new, untainted and untarnished again.

“C’mon, just a beer this one time, Hyungwon-ah?”

Hyungwon gives an easy laugh, practised to perfection.

“Sorry,” he says, a slight ruefulness tugging at the corners of his otherwise genuine smile. “I don’t drink.”

His co-workers sigh at this Hyungwon in front of them, but all Hyungwon can see is the fifteen year old one with roses for eyes and a throat full of thorns.

-

0823 HRS

The flowers look pretty wrapped in baby blue and tied off with a creamy pink. Lisianthus, waxflowers, and ranunculus. Hyungwon nods politely along to the florist as she gathers them up.

“For a special someone?” She asks, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear with one hand as she rings up the bouquet with another.

Hyungwon smells the flowers. “Unfortunately not. I wish it were for you though.”

The forty-something year old florist laughs sweetly and Hyungwon can’t help but grin.

(he grins again as his colleague, who is going on maternity leave, gathers him into a hug upon presentation of the flowers.)

-

0046HRS

“You’re rather quiet.”

Hyungwon just continues to scan the crime scene. 

“Do you want to call it?”

Hyungwon purses his lips and exhales through his nose. “Our killer is let in through the front door. They must have appeared non-threatening at the time—there’s a used umbrella by the door and a few pairs of slippers that are too big for our victim out— so our victim lets them in. They come into the living room where they get into an argument.” He walks over to the couch that isn’t quite facing the television. “Our victim pushes our killer, hence the couch is disturbed. They retaliate by pushing her back. She falls over the coffee table. Knocks over the flower vase. This is the last straw for our victim and she throws her engagement or wedding ring on the ground. You can see on our victim, the left ring finger has a slight indent.”

As he reasons out the crime scene, he turns a full circle, gesturing from one point of the room to the next before ending up looking out the open window. “Our killer probably jumped. He’ll be too injured to get that far out of the area.”

“A lover’s tiff?” Hyungwon’s partner raises his eyebrows.

“Probably,” Hyungwon answers absentmindedly, his gloved hands already moving towards the table where a scattered trace of white powder could be found.

His partner eyes some wrapping in the bin. “The flowers are fresh though.”

Hyungwon sighs.

   “They always are.”

-

1404HRS

Hyungwon sits up on the couch. He runs a hand down his face and exhales shakily. He rubs the sleep from his eyes before just sitting there, still tired. Still so goddamn tired.

The calming scent of potpourri fills him up with dried roses.

-

0523HRS

He couldn’t sleep, but now he’s spiralled into a disaster. Maybe he’ll talk about this, laugh it off amongst his co-workers when they ask why he was falling asleep over his paperwork. I just finished a round of LoL and I looked at the time, he will mine looking at the time in bottom right hand corner, his palm coming up in a ‘what?’ gesture and his eyes will narrow in pretend disbelief. 5:23am, and I just sat there, staring at my screen. You know how it blacks out? Yeah, I could see my reflection and I just sat there going, what the hell am I doing with my life?

“When did you even start gaming?” One of the more curious co-workers will ask, her cheek resting on the back of her knuckles.

And Hyungwon will only tease her back, “When do you think boys start? We’re born gamers.”

And his co-worker will playfully slap Hyungwon’s arm and he will just give her a grin.

But, right now, as he stares at his reflection on the screen, his thoughts are sycamore seeds, spiralling through the haze of his mind until they come to rest on the floor. With due water and sunlight, it will bloom into another sturdy tree, as indestructible as the ones that have already caged his mind.

-

1059 HRS

<Hyungwon>: I don’t know mum. Sorry.

-

1820 HRS

The ladle clatters against the sink as Hyungwon discards it. The kitchen smells of spices and herbs with a hint of sesame oil underneath—it smells just like Hyungwon. It smells like home back in Gwangju, like the packed lunches he always bought to school. It smells of petty arguments with Hyewon and cold shoulders from Kyungwon, of soft lullabies sung by his mother and scraped knees patched by his father.

But it also smells like drunken nights out, like the smoke that curled over his lips, of universal disapproval and unfounded arrogance.

He turns back towards the plates, the food plated nicely in an aesthetic fashion. Leaving his apron by the door, he grabs his camera from the living room to take a photo. He’ll upload it later, but for now, there are four plates worth of food and only one mouth. Suddenly the one bedroom apartment feels much too big and much too unlived in. He slides into the chair. The plates across the table feel too far, like as if he reached over, they would still be a whole ocean away. The little orange flower he had cut from a carrot begins to unfurl on one of the other plates as the toothpick fails to hold the thick petals together.

As he eats, he tries to distract himself with the thought of a shirt he saw in a shopfront the other day. This summer, checkers and vermillion were in for men and floral for women. It seems like it may be a fun summer.

-

1111HRS

He captures the dandelion fluff in between his fingers. The sun makes his skin glow golden and fills him up. Apricity. And just like this, with one hand on his bag strap and the other bringing the white softness towards his lips, he makes a wish upon the seedling of a weed.

-

0101 HRS

“Hey, are you okay?” Hyungwon moves towards the new recruit who was squatting by the sidewalk. He squats down too, but hesitates, not sure if the other would appreciate if Hyungwon put an arm around his shoulders.

“Yeah,” the new recruit manages. “I’ll be fine.”

They sit like that, their car in front of them, the crime scene behind them and yellow tape all around as other officers move to secure the area. It’s not a full moon tonight, but even under the slight sliver of moonlight, Hyungwon eyes a suspicious patch of shadows on the driveway next to them.

“It was just a shock,” the recruit breaks the silence, his voice almost a monotone if it weren’t for the slight wobble at the end.

Hyungwon stretches his legs out in front of him. “First time seeing a dead person in real life?”

“Yeah.”

And Hyungwon curls an arm around the new recruit, because even if the other was dealing quite well without tears or shaking shoulders, sometimes the red blooming on a mutilated chest can be too much. And Hyungwon wants to tell the other that sometimes it doesn’t get better, not until the tenth, the twentieth, or maybe even the fiftieth.

-

-7247 HRS

It feels like the sky is collapsing on him and the only thing keeping him upright is the cold wall on his bare back. His shirt has probably been discarded on the floor somewhere. He gingerly wipes the bitter taste of another man from his lips and pushes off from the wall. Flowers begin to bloom from the concrete, yellow, orange, and blue. He feels warm and fuzzy, like the winter sun gently wrapping him up to chase away the snow. Wherever he steps in search of his shirt, there is a kaleidoscope of colours. An orange tulip will morph into a bluebell and a lilac will melt into a golden chrysanthemum.

He feels good. This feels good.

He thinks maybe it’s time to search out the girl with the studded jacket, ample chest, tight waist and perky butt on the fringes of the audience to seduce to bed, but then remembers one of the sponsors had been eyeing him up. Honestly, he wouldn’t mind. He feels great. Except that his throat burns. No, wait. It’s his neck that feels bruised. He can’t remember what happened, and sometimes that happens, but it’s okay. Because he feels on top of the world and the stars are raining down on him in bright pinpricks of light that burn where they land on his skin. The flowers look even more beautiful bathed in brilliant star light. They glow. Red roses bathed in a purifying fire.

He eventually figures out that the thing he has picked up is his pants. His knees are scraped and the blood are lines of ruby. In the starlight, they glow with a worth that is more than his lifeline. His back is probably also decorated with lines of rubies, sapphires and diamonds. He is studded in worth. When they push against him, when they pull and drag and thrust and wrap their hands around his throat to line them with purple pearls, they draw out that worth in him and decorate him in the easy touch of gems that runs in his veins. He gives a little laugh and continues to skip through the field of ever changing flowers towards the exit.

“I’m not kidding when I said I’ll shoot you cops!”

Bang.

Bang, bang, bang. All the flowers suddenly retreat into the concrete and it stops showering stars. Hyungwon is left in the dark.

Ahead of him, a figure stumbles into his line of vision. Hyungwon quickly tries to catch them, but ends up tripping. The body falls on top of him, knocking his breathing away.

“Contain the damage! Don’t let a single one get away!”

The figure is naked, Hyungwon quickly realises, and the face is recognisable. It’s the male who always orders half g of coke and likes to cut off Hyungwon’s oxygen supply even when Hyungwon repeatedly tells him not to. His eyes are already glassy, like the last of life has fogged them up but his breath is still warm as it fans across Hyungwon’s cheek. Suddenly it feels hot, feels way too hot trapped under the weight of another person. It’s with a sense of urgency that Hyungwon begins to push at the body on top of him. The male above him sucks in a breath and manages to rasp something that sounds suspiciously like ‘you’ before expiring.

Hyungwon freezes.

Then he makes a mad scramble to get out. He’s pushing at the dead body, the fixed glassy eyes stare at Hyungwon accusingly, asking why isn’t Hyungwon dead too. The body is still so hot from life, his hands shove at the naked chest. Except it burns. It’s sticky and it burns, and Hyungwon pulls his hand away, clamping back a yelp. It’s covered in blood. His hands are covered in blood. It’s not rubies anymore, it’s just blood blood blood and more blood.

Somehow Hyungwon manages to flip the dead body over.

The chest is ripped to shreds. Heaped flesh line the bullet hole where the heart should be, and there are shards of bone littered inside with lumps of muscle and blood gushing over everything. A red poppy blooming after death. A waterfall of the most primal red, cascading. A bright red so full of oxygen, so full of life, that it makes Hyungwon sick. The metallic tang of blood is mixed in with the stench of a half digested dinner.

“Round up the last of what we can. Remember your own safety is a priority too!”

Shit. Hyungwon attempts to stand on wobbly legs. He needs to find Gunwoo and Jiyoung and the rest and get them back to Gwangju. He needs to, he has to, he’s got to. But his legs are so weak, and his arms are too, but somehow he does it. Somehow he manages to drag himself into a crawl.

The place is alien to him without the field of flowers and the star shower. He chokes on the air of the underground arena, so full of sweat, blood and gunpowder—so full of death and so full of thorns.

-

∞ HRS

Life courts Death with flowers and gifts and, Hyungwon supposes that each person, each living thing, were a petal in that bouquet. A bouquet sent with all the beautiful love and affection that Life has to surrender.