dmitrikurylenko

[dmitrikurylenko]

She is toying with him. There's no other way to see it. She truly thinks that, on some level, he believes she is weak.

He is not naive enough to believe that anyone he is working with is weak.

They are different beings. They have been different beings their entire lives. Which has resulted in a lifetime of being able to fight, to control their abilities. They are above him in so many different ways and they know that. Everyone within the room and the compound knows it. And she knows it too.

It turns his blood hot.

["That's your issue, isn't it?" she drew out, her hot fingertips on his cooling skin. "You underestimated me."]

"I don't think that..." he responds but it might simply be too late. She has figured out what she believes about him and it will remain this way. Many people have not bothered to give him a chance, so he will not seek one out from Freya of all people.

He might not know much about her or the things that she has gone through; all he does know is that she is different from him. Born like this, so she has been given an edge that he will never have.

He often wonders if the others here understand that it is unfair. He often wonders if they know he struggles. He often wonders if they would rather that he had died that night.

["You'll be in good hands," the other had said. Poised and older. And a leader. "Freya is a lot of things but she will hold you to the right standards."

He hadn't wanted to be held to a single standard. He wanted to be dead. But that would no longer be a luxury he could afford.

"I don't want that," he replied. "Why don't you just give me the cure and I'll forget all about this?"

There had come a resigned laugh. "There is no cure."]

Now, he stares down the barrel of her gun. He watches her move slowly, returning his fire with her own. I quite like a challenge are the words she hands to him and he finds himself smirking. An empty laugh is directed towards the other side of the room.

He does not know what she wants from him. What anyone here wants from him. He has trained his entire life and he does not intend to spend this new one training. His control has always been smooth; the anger that is buried to the hilt within his stomach does not seep out because he does not remove the blade. It will remain plugged, bleeding out only into his body.

If he hurts himself, then there is no one to look at him with pitiful eyes. There is no one to say that poor dytyna was always destined for this.

Now, all he has is Freya and her cold gaze.

And her fight comes with caveats, it comes with rules. They believe this is the kind of thing that will make him better. He does not wish to be better. He wishes to be far from here, to still be on the move and moving further from the darkness that has followed him his entire life. She might not understand such a thing, he's not sure if anyone here would, but by staying here, he is slowing down.

There might be a roof over his head and a bed and a steady supply of the things he needs to survive but it would all be rendered moot if he were to be found.

Because it had taken Dmitri almost his entire life to realised what his work truly had been. And he does not wish to know what he will do now that his only blood is now half of their blood too.

"That doesn't sound like a challenge," he remarks, dropping his hands to his sides. He remains still, keeping his eyes on her as best he can. When she disappears behind him, he feels a steady chill down his spine; it ripples and spreads outwards. It fills his stomach and then his chest. Never let someone see your back but he is in the gym. He is with Freya. It is hardly the time to worry about such a thing. "Three hits would be easy for you, with all of your talk," he continues, his hands curling into fists. His body is cold but his palms are clammy. He knows what it is. "Why not give yourself a higher number if you think you're so good?"

But it hardly means a thing. She will not change her mind. And she doesn't.

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen entire minutes. He must contend with her and the brutal realisation that what he had learned in his youth might never be enough to fight against the threats around him.

Her eyes shift, turning from the colour of the starriest night spent in the cabin, into something else. Blood, anger, pain, hatred for someone who could never be enough. He swallows back the heartbeat within his throat, his fingers uncurling only for him to find that they are shaking.

Her eyes had turned red before she had wiped him out.

["I didn't..." he gasps, his voice rasp and broken. "I just thought —"

He had never been given the chance to finish.]

It is ice she wields. Just like the shapes that had hung from the edge of the cabin's roof. Always cold, always sharp, always pointed. He has faced ice before, he has seen the snow and the chill. He has watched frost take over the world and return to normal when the sun reunited with the earth.

Now, it is used as a weapon. One that is aimed towards him. It might be the least threatening object that has been pointed his way but they carry a weight that settles upon his shoulders. A weight that tells him he will no longer be welcomed here if he does not live up to their standards.

And for a moment, he wonders what might happen if he were to let her defeat him and in less that fifteen minutes. Perhaps he could let all three strike him and give her the win. It would be that simple.

But his arrogance simply won't let that happen.

So, he ducks past the first few; dodging has always been the first thing to be taught. It is easy to slip past it all and only briefly feel the cold from her ice above his skin. Close to touching but he gives her that, he allows her to think that she might have gotten him.

Something ignites within him. Some filled with anger that slips past the plug he was sure was inside of him. A desperate question of why? Why do they think he is so weak? Why does his father think he is weak? Why did that ghoul think he was weak?

Why does Freya think that he is weak?

He twists, keeping himself balanced as one hand slides up. He grasps one of the shards, the ice is sharp and filled with power. It vibrates in his warm hand; water slides down his palm, rolling over the heel of his hand and down into his sleeve. Her chill follows it, sinking within his skin and he feels it then.

A rumble beneath his skin. The call of thunder before the first lightning strike.

"That count?" he asks and his voice comes out low, almost in a growl. "I'll let you have it if it does..."

He doesn't wait for her response, there is no time to. All he needs is one strike to prove to her that he is not weak. He sends the shard back to her, with a succinct throw; he feels the water on his finger, they meet with the sparks that reside on the tips, small trickles that nip at his skin.

Let it out. Let it out.

But he doesn't want to.

While she is preoccupied, he uses it as his chance to draw closer to her. He comes within her space, he sees the way her dark hair falls into her crimson eyes and he smells the sharp scent on her. It trickles into his mind until it meets the middle of it. The point that controls it all, a new part of his being. He understands what will be unleashed as the lightning strikes his mind.

Her eyes, the way she moves, the aim of her actions, they are all familiar. He did not know he could still feel pain but he does now. Perhaps it is a phantom, endlessly chasing him down to the end of his life, but it sits there, residing within the scars that had been left after she was done with him.

After she had torn him apart. After she had faced him just like this.

With a gasp, Dmitri drops his hand. A bolt aborting in his palm. It slides up his arm, slamming into his shoulder blade and he gasps, a cold sweat settling onto his spine as he takes a step back from Freya.

The feelings are unlike anything he has felt before. He does not understand the tightness within his chest or the roar in his mind, only that his arm tingles with pain he shouldn't feel.

And then she is on him, with her wild crimson eyes, her desire to cause harm, and everything that makes her the complete opposite of what he had thought she would be.

Dmitri closes his eyes.

This is the worst kind of training. I don’t want to fight you.

The words sounded foreign to Freya’s ears; so foreign that it made her take a step back, eyes narrowing and studying the person in front of her.

Dmitri, someone who seemed to teem with energy and zest, the kind who’d be the first to run up a hill and then back down in the very same breath, thought fighting her was the worst kind of training? "Surely, you jest.” Freya laughed in disbelief, staring daggers at him. “You try to pick a fight every other day, and then suddenly when I’m your sparring partner, it becomes the ‘worst kind of training’? What, you think I’m too weak for you?” She knew that weren’t true, hardly. Dmiya may have been new, but he certainly wasn’t stupid. But it’d become a terrible habit of hers to pick out the bad from any situation or thing presented to her.

(“That’s both your strength and ultimate downfall, Frey.” Nikolav, her team leader, sighed with a resigned smile. “You just refuse to see the good in things sometimes. How did you get this way?”)

She didn’t have much of an answer back then; besides the usual snarky comment that should have gotten her kicked off the team if not for Nikolav’s patience and compassion. But the more she grew, the more she too wondered how did she get this way, especially when there was not a hint of evil or cynicism in her parents’ blood. If they were ever faced with a bad situation or if they were ever dealt a bad hand, they would still find something beautiful from it all. Pick up the pieces and slowly, steadily create a masterpiece from the remains of chaos.

But if you were to put it in her hands? She would tell you a completely different story. Spin a different tale. Break rather than build.

Because regardless of it were something good, something bad, or even nothing at all, she’d still scrutinize it. Trying to search for any cracks or holes she could possibly find and break it apart until it was nothing but rubble.

It was a questionable tendency turned rotten that had started growing within her from the tender age of 12; a bad weed left unnoticed by her parents until it was a little too late.

She still remembers the very day she realized how words and quiet persuasion didn’t work as much as a show of blatant strength and destruction did. The moment she realized that the anger in her could be utilized for something more than just tantrums and hissy fits.

[“Malecha! What did you do?” Her father said, grabbing ahold of a bloodied and bruised Freya. The tiny girl in his arms someone he could not recognize.

“They made fun of you… Said you were a traitor for wanting to make peace with the humans… So, I—”

“No matter kin or human, Freya, you do not hurt others.” Konstantin warned, but as he looked at his little girl and the ways her eyes burned with a fire unlike before, he knew his warning would ultimately fall on deaf ears one day.]

And deaf ears did it fall on as time went by. But what she didn’t expect was for her strength to turn into a double-edged sword — this flame that burned within her. It was now no longer a flicker but a molded weapon that had begun to thinly slice at her. A prick first and then a scratch and now, a neverending caress that left long, draggy burnt marks.

Freya knew one day it could (would) likely get her killed but perhaps before it does, she could still live life the way she wanted - free, unyielding, escaping fighting reality for a cause she believed was true. Was right in her eyes. To go along with the wind than against it, despite what her father or mother may have taught her. Who cared about the questions that surrounded her in the quiet mornings if she never thought on them.

Regrets and what-if’s were simply not her style.

As she pulled away and created distance between them, Freya quietly observed Dmitri as he continued to go back-and-forth with the assignment given to him.

The way he struggled to respond, the way he hesitated when her enthusiasm for a spar was made obvious. She wondered how and why a person like him would shy away from a fight as much as he would willingly jump into one with reckless abandon. He was, much to her dismay, a paradox she couldn’t quite grasp. A jagged line that sharply contrasted the straight ones she was so used to. If she could pick his brain and claw her way into his heart, what would she find? What would she see? Questions she should have had answers to by now are still left unanswered. And like a child with an unsolvable puzzle in her hands, she was constantly on the verge of throwing it against the floor, hoping the pieces would magically click, and trying to solve it all over again despite knowing she may never be able to.

“Oh, is that a challenge, Dmiya?” She hummed, stretching her arms. “I’ll have you know, I quite like challenges.”

Her smile is genuine this time, her eyes never leaving Dmiya. From the first time she saw him and witnessed him in his highest and lowest moments as he came to terms with the current happenings, she knew he held great strength. It was beside the mere fact he emitted an aura, a presence, a smell, that made them turn when he went by. It was the way he held on, persevered, never giving up even if he was on the brink of defeat that made her knew he was more than just a reckless fighter.

Dmitri had potential. And while she would never tell him that, it was definitely something she could appreciate. Possibly come to like, even.

“About what we’re going to do today… Well. Nikolav gave me the freehand to choose whatever I think is best and so… How about this?” Walking around, her eyes surveyed the gym they were in. “You have 20— no, 15 minutes to strike a hit. If you hit me once, you win. But if I manage to hit you three times, I win. Simple, yes? Especially since I’m giving you quite the advantage here.” She smirked, slowly stopping in her tracks.

Adrenaline began rushing through her veins as she prepped herself, eyes flitting to the clock. If everything went as planned, they’d likely be done by 10:30, and regardless of if Dmitri won or not, the main prerogative was to have him stay in control and hone his skills to a level where he could fully manage them. A burning flame like him would learn self-control best in an environment where it would be the hardest to do so. And for Freya, what pleasure and joy would it be to watch a wildcard like him try.

As her eyes turned crimson red, and ice shards began forming and pointing straight toward Dmitri, she motioned at him with a smile. “So, Dmiya. With that said… Hit me with your best shot.”

With that, ice shards spun and flew toward Dmiya, sparing no mercy or hesitation. If he could not dodge either her or her powers, then he had no right to stand where he stood.

[dmitrikurylenko]

You know what she's like the other ghoul had said. It was a warning that spread through the building like a wildfire. Anyone who dared to seek it out would end up burned, their skin sizzling as they tried to escape it. They had uttered the words when he had first ventured into this building, his legs still shaking from the endurance test that had been joining the CCG.

He hadn't expected it to hold any weight. From the moment he had met the other ghouls, they had thrown around lofty threats that had always boiled down to an emptiness he felt in the depths of his heart.

But then he had met her, with her cold gaze and the sharp gleam in her eye, and he had seen that there was finally a threat that held weight.

["Who are you?"

"That doesn't matter right now. What does is what happened a few nights ago."

He had reached for his knife, a permanent fixture on his being, but had swiftly found that it was no longer there. He had patted his side, only to find the scratch of bandages and a dryness on his tongue that would not go away. Even now.

"You're a reporter?" he guessed. He could not afford it, having his image out in the open like that. He had to stay hidden. "I don't talk to reporters."

The man who had walked into his room had not been amused. He crossed his arms, looking down at Dmitri with an expression that had caused a sensation in his gut that he had only ever known twice; when he had been a child and that night a few days ago, when he had been ripped to shreds.

"I'm not a reporter," the man said. "Neither of us are."

Confused, Dmitri looked for the knife once more. The hospital bed hid nothing, not even his damaged form, so he had known it was not on him.

Then he had remembered.

He reached for it the moment her white teeth had elongated into fangs but he had been too late. His father had always told him he was too slow on the draw.]

His eyes settled on Freya, his own narrowing until her form had come into focus. She was shorter than him but that by no means meant she had been weaker; he hadn't spent his entire life pressed under the thumb of the smaller man to believe in such nonsense. If he hadn't known it before, then the incident with the old lady have proven it for him. Her approach was sharp and jagged. Already, she was angry at him.

He hardly knew what he had done this time.

"Hi," he said. "That's how you greet people, Freya." It would not matter. People did not greet him properly these days. He wondered if they thought his name was halfling instead of Dmitri. There had been so many changes to his person that he would not think it'd matter if they did. "No interrogation?" he repeated but the words had been more to himself than to her; questioning her was the easiest way to turn her temper on him but that was no fun. He had enjoyed stripping back the layers until he could find the right triggers too much.

But if there was no interrogation, the line of work he had become used to, then what did that mean for —

Fighting. She wanted them to fight. She does not think he can fight properly. No one here does.

["What are your experiences?" the woman had asked.

He hadn't bothered to ask their names. "I've been interrogated before."

"I do not mean that," she grimaced. "Combat. What is your combat experience?"

His eyebrow raised. What did the want him to say? That he had been taught how to handle weapons from a young age? That hand to hand combat had been enforced on him no matter what he wanted? That he had felt the blows that were promised to make him stronger?

They did make him stronger. They also make his hands shake.

"I don't have combat experience," he lied. "I've gotten into fights but I've never had combat experience."

The woman's sharp eyes narrowed at him. She then turned her head. "We'll have to teach him how to fight, then."

"Not us," the man answered. "She will."

"She's going to need a lot of luck."]

"Fighting," he repeated, both her words and his own thoughts. "This is the worst kind of training. I don't want to fight you." The word bounced against the walls of the training room, echoing back to his chest in such a way that it rattled his bones. "How about you let me go back out there and find that ghoul — What was his name? Something stupid." He scoffed. "I'll fight him. And show you what I can do."

But it would not be to her standards. They were violent beings but they did not seem to want him to give in to that side of himself. Something that did not make sense to him. He would not harm a human, even if it was his last option, but a ghoul he could harm.

"Am I cool with that?" he scoffed once more and rolled his eyes. "Don't you think that —" Her form shifted closer to him, her eyes sparkling in such a manner that he knew she wanted this. She wanted to fight him, though he couldn't be too sure that he hadn't seen it would come this way.

And he would fight her too but —

["Oh, young man, you have been such a great help tonight..." she said slowly, her breath laboured. "Ever since my family moved away, I've been left to do this myself... Grocery shopping has always been so hard..."

"Yeah, ma'am," he mumbled, his gaze sliding around the dark city. A towering apartment building sat to their right, with metal ladders on the side that looked moments from crumbling away from the brick. "Is this your home here?"

"Oh, it is... What good luck..." she mused, then turned. "Do you think you could help me with another thing, young man?"

He began to nod, the kindness of his mother too deeply rooted in his veins to do otherwise, when her bony hands latched onto his forearms. Despite the jacket he wore, her nails dug into his flesh. A sharp current of electricity ran up his spine.

"I'm really hungry..." she groaned, her eyes shifted up to him. They were crimson, like the colour his fingers had turned after he heard the trap snap shut. She drew into his face, the thick scent of powder filled his lungs. "And you... smell... delicious."]

"I —" he faltered, his gaze landing on Freya once more. If he said no, she would think he was weak. He wasn't weak. He could fight. He could fight. Dmitri forced a laugh, his mouth tugged up on one side until he was smirking. "I don't think you want to try this, Sonechko. But I will give into you, if I must..."

He drew back a few steps, curling his fingers into a fist. "What are you teaching me today?"

As she sat in the car, keys twirling and jingling in her hands, Freya began wondering how on earth did it come to this.

Mistakes were rarely made on her part, but whenever she did make one, she knew how to cover it up well; polish things up to the point they looked spotless again. But this… This was a mistake— No. An ugly stain she couldn’t remove no matter how hard she tried. It was a glaring mishap that wouldn’t stop baring its teeth at her, reminding her that even she was fallible. Like the fragile humans she so despised. Like the weaklings she so hated. 

So how on earth did it come to this?

Another resigned sigh tumbled out of her lips as she looked out the window, the building of their organization faintly lit. She knew very well she’d have to leave the car and enter the building sooner or later, but the very thought of having to face her moment of weakness, the human boy turned ghoul whom she, of all people, helped, was enough to make her stop in her tracks (it was funny and grossly ironic how, in that moment of chaos and conflict, it wasn’t her voice that she heard first in her mind; neither was it of her peers or  higher-ups’. It was, instead, of her father’s. His firm yet warmth-filled tone saying solnyshko, do the right thing. Please, do the right thing.).

“Do the right thing, huh…? But… where did that get me?” She tsk’ed, finally exiting her car. Memories from that fateful night -a night that started white as snow but ended deep in red- began flooding in as she walked, each step feeling heavier than the last. It was supposed to be a simple job, really.  She, Clint, and Rina were informed about a rogue ghoul running around town, deceiving humans with its appearance – a frail, old lady looking for a little bit of help from anyone who’d be kind enough to give it. And they were tasked to take it out as its body count was growing by the day, a definite sign that not only was it unmerciful to anyone who approached, but that it was also unfeeling and utterly selfish toward their own kind.

Ghouls like these are often categorized as lost cases. Ones that were so deluded by their own selfish desires and insatiable lust that they would do anything and put anyone at risk. Be it themselves or the people around them.

She could still remember the way it snarled at her, laughed even, as it narrowly escaped their trap; as if taunting them that since they’d chosen to pick a fight with it, it’ll leave a wonderfully irreversible mess for them to clean up.

(“Freya, what the heck happened?” Nikolav had sighed exasperatedly, throwing the stack of papers onto the desk. “One small job. That’s all this was supposed to be—“

“How in the world was I supposed to know this could happen? Don’t blame me for a mistake I didn’t do, Nikolav. You think I’d want this?” She’d countered back, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Where is he anyway now?”

“The hospital.”

“The hospital.” She laughed in disbelief. “That means we are…”

“Yes, we are taking him im. And you,” Nikolav pointed at her, and though she had deep respect for the man, she nearly ripped his finger in that moment. “As well as Clint will meet with him when he awakes.”

“No.”

“Yes, and he’ll also be under you, if everything goes as planned. Understood?”)

Freya could still remember the way her world began turning upside down ever since that day, her once calm and still life completely shaken to its core. If everything goes as planned, huh? She wondered, turning the corner and ignoring the many curious eyes and quiet whispers surrounding her. But what if everything does not? Then what?  These questions that Nikolav could not answer then still plagued her thoughts until now, like a pesky insect she couldn’t quite kill, always lingering just out of reach.

Finally reaching the large hall,  Freya scanned the room, still deep in thoughts when two, obnoxious men came into view.

“Man… You shouldn’t have stopped me like that. You saw him, didn’tcha? He was ready to go!” The bigger man, named Bongo from what she could recall, exclaimed as he walked past.

’Him?’

For some reason, the only person Freya could think of was him. 

Because it’d been like this within their organization ever since news broke about the incident, afterall. Everyone wanting to know how on earth did he, Dmitri Kurylenko, not only survive the horrific accident, but turn into a half ghoul from it. Some wanted to know him, some wanted to stay away, and there were others who found him to be the perfect target for fights and provocations.

There was no denying that Freya herself was somewhat curious -bemused even- at how this came to be. A human turned half ghoul simply from a mere accident. She would have laughed in disbelief if someone had told her a tale as ridiculous as this but… It was real. For she had seen it for herself. A stranger who didn’t seem to fit quite right in their world. A boy so unpredictable it gave her migraines whenever they collided with each other and a being who, though had the scent of a ghoul, still had the reminiscence of a human. 

He was truly unlike anything she’d ever known. And her world that was once so filled with order, rules and an understanding of how things should go now completely broken and bent because of a single individual. It was both intriguing yet equally as jarring - to know that, perhaps, she has finally found a force to be reckoned with. Someone whose presence demanded attention even when they never asked for it themselves. In a lot of ways, it perturbed her. To know she could be in a crowded room, filled with noise and chatter and countless beings, and still only have eyes trained on him. As if his very being was enough to cancel the rest of the world out. Was it due to the fact she didn’t trust him? Or was it something more than she’d like to admit (intrigue, vexation, curiosity) ?

Questions piled upon questions, all ultimately left unanswered. Thus, as she finally spotted the culprit of all her recent problems, all Freya could feel was a fire burning within her as she walked toward him, her face twisting into a scowl, as if studying a piece of art that was beyond her comprehension.

“Dima.“ She responded, the tone of her voice teetering between a warning and a greeting. "Nice to know you’ve gotten used to the routine. I was wondering when you’d be the competent partner I so dreadfully need.” Expression icy and cold, she knew how this would go. It was like clockwork now, the way he’d try -whether intentionally or unintentionally- to push her buttons. As if he found it thrilling to get a rise out of her. Parts of her wondered if she should fight him there and then, but she knew patience was a virtue, and the reward for waiting just a little bit more would be so, so worth it.

“No, it is not another interrogation this time. But it will be a long night if we continue to dawdle here with mindless chatter. Come.”

Turning around, something about him mentioning being a ‘good cop’ nearly brought a smile to her face, because their assignment today would likely require him to be anything but good.

”Today, you will be doing what you’ve been wanting to do all this while.” Freya hummed as they made their way to a large gym-like room some ways away from the hall. “You’ll be practicing your skills or, to put it in simpler terms, you’ll be fighting.” For the first time, she found herself relaxing around Dmitri as she led him into the open space area, a small smile forming on her lips. “And your opponent will be me. You cool with that, Dima~?” She smiled, taking a step closer toward him, almost challengingly. Almost threateningly. You can back out now, if you’d like. I can have the whole gym to myself that way.”

@dmitrikurylenko

[dmitrikurylenko]

I’ll walk you home. 

Four words. That was all it took. Four simple words to irrevocably change his life forever. Four stupid words and he stopped being himself forever.

Dmitri is used to change. Change happens all of the time, it was his only state of being. He is change but this — this is different. This is bone deep, changing every cell within his body, and burning through sinew and tissue until his charred remains were taken up to be reanimated into something new. 

A surgery to save his life, scars over once smooth skin, and a hunger so hellish he thinks he would rather be dead that deal with it. He had to politely refuse food from the nurses who tended to him and he had to ignore the ones who would give him odd looks and mutter things to the doctor in charge of him. The ones who thought it odd that he had survived, whispering about how that much damage should have killed a person three times over.

All of them except the night nurse who had tended to him.

( “What’s your name, ridnenka?” she had asked him, smiling politely. 

“I don’t have one,” he’d answered, curled up on his side. Half asleep and half gone. “I’ve never had one.”)

But the nurses aren’t on their own with that train of thought. 

He thinks he should have died too, which isn’t exactly a new state of mind for him but this — this he shouldn’t have survived. It took days, some curled up in the hospital bed, others laying flat on his back staring up at the ceiling willing the morphine to finally start working on his ruined body. 

He isn’t who he used to be, a different being now inhabited his body and while that isn’t anything new, what he is is different now.

Ghoul. It’s an impossible term. One he didn’t think was real, was an actual thing until the small woman he’d offered to walk home had turned out to not be so small and he’d felt the metal from the construction site tear through something within his stomach. Until he was beaten and his body was broken and he tasted metal on his tongue and he knew that this was it for real this time. All of those years stuck in that little remote cabin hadn’t done what a ten minute walk from the train station had. 

When he’d been laying on the concrete — so much blood pooling around him and he knew this was it because it felt blissful and he was laughing (though it might have only been in his mind) because fuck, this little woman had done what the man hunting him had never been able to do, in all twenty three years of Dmitri’s life.

( “blyat’ boy, you’re going to get yourself killed one of these days,” he had said, the stench of whiskey on his tongue. “I might be the one to do it.”

“I'm sorry, bat’ko,” Dmitri Kim had mumbled. He had been eight this time. His hands had hurt from prying the rabbit trap open. “I was just —”

“Enough.” He hates how it feels when someone grabs his arm. When the pads of fingers press into his bicep and nails indent crescent moons into his pale skin. “I’m late. Do not let anyone in this house. Got it?”

He hates the smell of whiskey now. Hates the reek of cigarettes and the creak of floorboards.)

He was no longer Dmitri now. A new one was in control now. Again.

He’s hungry now, which isn’t any surprise. He’s always hungry these days. He’d tried to eat something in his small apartment with its fully stocked fridge — so much food that had been left to rot — but even the smell had sent him running for the toilet. It had been that way ever since he was discharged with a prescription that doesn’t work on his new body and he realised that the foods he once liked were no longer appetising.

There was only one thing that was appetising and it makes him feel nauseous now to think about it ; he had — he had to because even someone like him feels that terrible tug in their gut when the prospect of dying a preventable death is presented to them. And it had tasted great which was just awful and he hadn’t cared about territory or how he could be killed for it but he’d eaten the arm and then the leg and blood was streaked down his chin and over his hands and he’s been covered in blood before but not like this. Not like this. 

And he tries to avoid it where he can. He’s skipping meals he vitally needs but the thought of flesh makes his stomach roll, so he only eats when he gets light headed and the room sways and he worries that she will slap him for being so reckless. He only eats when he thinks of dark eyes and a scowl and how he’d be leaving her alone, which really is just the hunger speaking because who cares about Dmitri Kim — no, he’s Dima Kurylenko now.

But at least he isn’t alone in this plight. In fact, he isn’t alone at all anymore.

There’s more of him, people like him. Things like him. They found him, somehow, and he was just glad that he had sobbed uncontrollably — “Stop crying, idiot, stop it, stop it, you’re stronger than this, stop it, stop it, st-stop it!” — the night before because it would have been embarrassing to be found like that. They were... decent to him. Not nice but he doesn’t expect it from them and they don’t expect it from him and he’s just glad to finally have some sort of grip on all of this.

He’s a ghoul. That’s the word they’d used and kept using. He found it funny and laughed when he’d first been told, earning a frown from the person telling him and another scowl from her. He hadn’t apologised because apologising was weakness and he only apologises if he’s scared of what’s going to happen to him if he doesn’t. He isn’t scared anymore. He hasn’t been since he was a teenager.

He thinks they’re all stronger than him. They have to be. Their power vibrates in the room and when he pushes them into cracking their fists against his jaw — you’re fucking insane, halfling — both of their eyes glow that vibrant, dangerous red.

Only one of his do. The right one.

He watches two of them pass him now, footsteps echoing through the room, and he narrows his eyes. He thinks he could try it again because he’s bored of waiting and his boredom has always been volatile that way. And he feels like that’s all he does these days. Wait for guidance. Wait for the next rumble of his stomach. Wait for this terrible thing inside of him to finally devour his heart.

As it were, he doesn’t need to do shit. They start it for him.

“Hey halfling,” one of them sneers. “Walk any old ladies home today?”

Dima pushes his mouth to the side. His tongue slides over one sharp canine. He could devour them, he thinks. He’s smaller than them and a halfling, as they keep saying, but he could fight them. He knew how to fight before but now — now there’s more power in his muscles, his veins thrum with abilities he never thought he would have. He peels himself off of the table he leans on, eyes narrowed.

Then a lurch in his stomach when he sees just how bigger they are than him.

(”Don’t run from me, dytyny.”

“Please, please, I didn’t mean to.”

“I don’t care.”

“Please, bat’ko. Please.”)

His hands curl into fists. They might be bigger but he’s got the advantage of speed. He’s always been able to run fast.

“Leave it,” the second one speaks up, hand on the other’s arm. Ends it for both of their sakes. “That’s Yamaguchi’s dog. You know what she’s like.”

She. Freya. His partner.

He thinks he might be the unluckiest ghoul in the world to end up paired with her. Something about her discipline and control. Something about her helping him because he’s a threat to their secret world and not the ghoul who had tried to tear him apart in the moonlight. 

No. Some little Ukrainian boy is the issue. 

As he watches the two ghouls leave, he leans back on the table, arms crossed. A gentle frown forms on his mouth and he considers what would happen if he ran away now. It wouldn’t be so hard, though he wonders if the ghouls here are much better at tracking down people than the man he’s spent half his life running from. 

Then, footsteps. They come towards him. They sound angry. They probably are angry. He knows exactly who it is just from the way her heart beats as she draws closer to him. It’s not gentle but vicious. Pounding in his ears like the rush of blood. it’s fast and broken, like it’s missing the second thump. It makes him feel like he’s burning alive.

The she-wolf herself steps up towards him. Freya.

She’s beautiful but cold. Very cold. Her eyes are dark and she never stops scowling at him. She’s almost always wearing that same expression, like being around him is her divine punishment for the acts she committed before they became entangled in each other. She never smiles when they’re together and he doesn’t think she does when she’s alone.

He thinks she would look beautiful if she smiles. 

(”When you see someone smile, that’s when you find out how you feel about them.”

He’s curled up in her lap, an old knitted blanket wrapped around them. They’re outside on the wooden porch, the stars twinkling over the snowy forest but he’s not cold.

“How can you tell that, mama?” he asks.

She smiles, pressing her hand to where his heart beats. “When they make you burn here.”)

He doesn’t peel himself away from the table. His arms do fall down, however, because it’s the polite thing to do. His hands curl over the edge of the table until the metal bites into his palm and joins the crescents he didn’t realise he’d been pressing into flesh as he waited for her. 

He looks at her, at Freya Yamaguchi, and wishes that he was back in that snowy forest, the same one that would become soaked in blood one day. Some of it his own. Most of it his own. 

He can’t go back there again because that’s the one way road to all of this ending but he misses it. He misses it terribly and it makes his heart ache. And even more terribly, he thinks he would take Freya there, if she would allow him to.

But she hates him and he’s not exactly the good guy in their dynamic either. So he just stares down at her and tries not to let his torn up, drifting mind get the better of him.

“What do you have for me today, boss?” he quips. He doesn’t smirk but he might as well. He knows how this goes now. “Let me guess. It’s another interrogation? How fun. I’d almost missed being good cop.”

He picks at the skin by his thumbnail. “Is it going to be another long night?”

@freya-yamaguchi​​

[dmitrikurylenko]

New me, new perspective 다른 시선으로 바라보다 Go beyond and over #휠라 #방탄소년단 #RM #Jin #SUGA #jhope #Jimin #V #JungKook #FALL #FILA #BTS #GOBEYOND @BTS_twt