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milkhakyeon · 7 years

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love is a nightmare [7kpp day 3; dreams]

title: love is a nightmare

pairing: lyon-centric, lyon/mc

rating: pg-13

summary: he doesn’t believe in dreams, because they’re illogical and baseless and he can’t make sense of them, and the endless possibilities scare him.

a/n: sorry this is so late ;A; school is seriously trying to kill me so i had to take forever to finish this sIGHS,,, i hope it doesn’t seem too rushed orz it’s shorter than i would’ve liked it to be ;n;

he wakes up drenched in cold sweat, bedsheets clutched in his fists, breaths coming shallow and quick.

he can still feel the blood on his hands.

his tension-stiffened limbs won’t listen to him, so he lies limply on his side, hair matted uncomfortably to skin. already the details of the dream are beginning to slip away from him. but he can’t shake the tremors off, can’t forget the way her mouth had hung open in a silent scream, her eyes blank and unseeing, her life trickling out of a gash in her neck.

he closes his eyes but it only makes the images burn more vividly into his mind’s eye. they won’t go away. neither will the tears brimming behind his lids or the scream lodged in his throat.

it had felt so real.

it’s illogical. lyon knows that. it’s illogical, irrational, impossible for him to be so affected by something as insignificant as a dream. dreams have no standing in reality, and reality is all that matters.

reality also means that he has to get ready in fifteen minutes or risk being late, and while he knows kei will be understanding as always, he really doesn’t want to make her wait.

sluggishly, he pushes himself up, forcing himself to stand on shaky legs. his hair keeps slipping through his trembling fingers, so he forgoes the topknot in favour of a cloak, pulling the hood up to hide his tangled hair and the redness around his eyes.

he ends up being two minutes late.

as expected of kei, there’s already food spread out on the table. he offers her an apologetic smile as he settles down opposite her, and she easily accepts it, launching right into the lively conversation he’s grown to love.

he knows she can sense his inner turmoil, but he doesn’t make any mention of it and she doesn’t press the issue, even when they’ve slipped into a comfortable silence on the walk back to her room.

and if she realises he’s holding her hand just a little tighter than usual, she doesn’t comment on it, and he’s so, so thankful to have her.

on their next date, he finds himself in the garden, lying on kei’s lap as she braids his hair.

they’re seated under a tree, gentle sunlight filtering past the canopy of leaves, casting dappled shadows on his face. from this angle, the sunlight casts a warm glow around kei, and he sleepily thinks that she looks like an angel.

"done!" with a triumphant chirp, she secures the braid with a hair tie, slipping small daisies along the length of her handiwork. lyon closes his book in favour of gazing at her, the corners of his lips curling in a small, shy smile.

he must have saved the country in his past life. it's an old saying, one he thinks doesn't make sense, but it's the only way he can explain how he's so lucky to have a blessing like her in his life.

he wouldn't give her up for the world.

then it all comes crashing down.

he returns to his room to find a letter placed neatly on the table, and it would be completely innocuous if not for the single rhododendron stalk lying upon it. rhododendrons represent a warning, his mother had told him, it’s best not to give them to anyone.

with a sinking feeling, he opens the letter, stiff parchment rustling in his quivering hands.

the stage is set. tonight you lose the person who is now most important to you. it will be a performance you will never forget.

it’s unsigned. lyon reels, stuffing the letter into his pocket as he dashes out of the room.

i have to save her.

he's never run faster in his life.

he can't stop thinking of how he had been a few steps too late, how the blade had sliced her throat open and she'd bled out before his very eyes, even as he desperately tried to staunch the gaping wound with his bare hands. how he’d been unable to save her. how she'd died in his arms.

he can't let that happen. not when this is reality and he doesn't have a second chance.

he flings open the doors of the grand hall, tumbling into the room in a mess of panicked limbs. his muscles are aching and his lungs are burning and his heart feels like it's going to burst out of his chest, but he doesn't allow himself to stop.

not until he can be sure she's safe.

then he sees her. sees the tail end of a braid laced with daisies disappear into the storage area, and he screams her name, only to have his voice catch painfully in his throat as he chokes on his erratic breaths.

no. no. he can't lose her again.

he takes off running, fuelled by pure adrenaline and fear, his legs moving as if of their own volition.

he makes it into the storage area just as the play's prized set lets out an ominous creak, hanging precariously off a fracturing plank. splinters of wood crack off and fall to the ground in a brown mist, and lyon knows he doesn't have enough time.

and it's illogical, irrational, impossible, but the only thing he can think to do is to run forward and push kei out of the way.

the balcony smashes into his back right as she stumbles aside, and all he can think is i did it. i saved her.

pinned to the ground by the hard, heavy structure, it's all he can do to look up at the blurred silhouette of the person he loves most and smile weakly.

“no. no! wake up, lyon. you can’t leave me alone.”

dimly, he registers her voice, raw and quivering. feebly, he reaches up to cup her face, then tries to pull away when he realises he’s smearing blood on her. but she holds his hand in place, linking her reassuringly warm fingers with his rapidly cooling ones.

“y-you’re…safe…now,” lyon ekes out, voice breathy and hoarse, energy draining away as the numbness spreads, cold tendrils piercing into his flesh.

not all dreams are happy ones. luckily, not all dreams come true.

“i lo—“

but not all realities are happy ones, either.

#7kppweek #7kpp #lyon #lyon/mc #lyon/kei #kei #oc #fic #protectlyon2k17 #i'm honestly so whipped for lyon #also you don't see much of her here but kei is precious

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milkhakyeon · 7 years

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my heart is still remembering [7kpp day 2; sacrifice]

title: my heart is still remembering

pairing: jasper-centric, kade/jasper

rating: g

summary: it starts to dawn on him that maybe he’s been sacrificing the wrong thing.

a/n: apologies for the super late post! real life has been a pain lately ;-; anyway here's my first 7kpp fic! i only started playing the game three weeks ago so i apologise if they're ooc (i'm taking artistic license with their teenage selves though bc pRECIOUS CHILDREN ;A;)

one of the good things about being a butler, jasper thinks, is that he gets to observe.

he has always liked watching from the sidelines, catching the uncertain waver at the tail end of a sentence or the nervous quiver of a finger. the split second of vulnerability in someone’s eyes. things that no one but him sees.

it is what he is supposed to do, after all. it is his duty, his path, his purpose.

but there are…times. times he wonders why he does the things he does.

times like today.

he gazes at the necklace, lying forgotten at the far end of his drawer.

no, perhaps forgotten isn’t the right word to use. after all, he’d hadn’t been able to truly forget about it. he hates to admit it, but he’d been pushing it as far away from him as he could. but as hard as he’d tried, it hadn’t worked, not really. not when his heart isn’t so easily deceived.

tentatively, he picks the necklace up, fingers brushing over the glass locket. save for the dust that’s settled in a thin film, it’s exactly as he remembers.

maybe that’s the thing. he can try his hardest to block his mind, to force himself not to recall the memories by force of sheer willpower. he’s trained his self-discipline enough that he doesn’t think of him anymore, not unless absolutely necessary. but he can’t control his heart. can’t stop it from twisting painfully when he sees things that used to be special to them. can’t stop it from being drawn to him like a moth to a flame, even as it knows the dangers of playing with fire.

even now, his heart is still remembering.

“found you, kae!”

at six years old, his lips are still unable to enunciate his best friend’s name properly, the word tapering off in a triumphant lilt instead. he’s always been better at hiding than seeking, so victory as a seeker is always extra sweet.

kade shushes him, eye still glued to the tiny crack in between wood panels. jasper pouts, and crouches down next to his best friend.

“what are you looking at?”

kade motions for him to come closer, moving away from the peephole so jasper can see what he’s been staring at.

“do you see it?” kade whispers, voice quick and eager.

jasper’s about to shake his head when a tall, slender girl steps out of a room, dressed in a off-shoulder chiffon gown and heels so high jasper has no idea how anyone can balance in them, much less walk a few steps.

jasper turns to face kade, blinking quizzically. “who is she?”

“doesn’t matter. look behind her.”

jasper peers through the hole again, and this time he sees the man, dressed in formal attire, broad shoulders filling out his blazer nicely.

“see him? that’s my uncle,” kade says smugly, puffing up. “he says i’m gonna become a butler like him when i grow up.”

jasper tilts his head curiously. “you want to become a butler?”

“yeah,” kade nods, leaning against the wooden fence and looking up at the clear sky. “uncle says it’s one of the better, if not the best, jobs on the isle.”

jasper scoots closer, imitating kade and leaning against the fence, though he looks at kade instead. kade turns, and smiles.

“say, jas, how about we become butlers together?”

jasper’s eyes light up, and he nods enthusiastically. kade grins.

“it’s a deal, then.”

before they know it, years have passed, slipping past them like sand through their fingers.

the library is silent, save for the scratching of pen nibs and the rustling of endless sheets of parchment scattered across varnished wood. jasper’s used to silence, especially since it somehow always manages to find him in every conversation he has, so he doesn’t attempt to break it.

kade, however, has never been one for staying still.

so it’s not really a surprise when kade speaks up, baritone voice slicing through the thick silence that had settled over them, though jasper does allow himself to raise an eyebrow at the decidedly unique question.

“jas, do you ever wonder why we're even doing this? why we have to sit for a test that evaluates us on criteria some old hag probably created decades ago?"

for all his incisive remarks, kade has never asked him this before. neither has jasper ever thought about it, for that matter. he has always bought fully into his job, his supposed duty.

“why do you believe so readily in what they tell you? why are we trying to hard to ace a test created to evaluate our worth based on terms they set?”

jasper wants to correct him, wants to defend the values he’s always believed in. but that wouldn’t answer the question, not really. what his friend seeks are reasons. reasons he can’t formulate, reasons he can’t provide. reasons he doesn’t even know.

he knows he has to explain himself, but he doesn’t know how it’s possible to explain something he doesn’t understand.

his mind is a whirl as he tries to piece together his fragmented thoughts into coherent explanations, eyes staring unseeingly at the far end of the table. his pen lies forgotten in his hand, a dark stain slowly spreading where the tip meets parchment.

it takes him a while to organise his thoughts, but he knows kade is used to him and his slow pace by now. after a few long moments, jasper sets his pen down and turns to face kade. looking up to meet his gaze, when—

when kade swipes across his face with ink-stained fingers, laughter bubbling past his lips.

jasper freezes, the sudden streaks of cold moistness on his cheek enough for him to realise what has happened. kade’s eyes have already disappeared behind crescent curves, his laughter a resounding staccato.

he must have stayed silent for very long, because kade slowly sobers up, regarding jasper warily, cautiously, as he leans in closer, raucous laughter subsiding to an awkward chuckle.

“wait, jas, are you mad? i—“

jasper doesn’t wait for him to finish his sentence before he reaches into the ink pot and smears the contents on kade’s nose with more speed than he’d thought he was capable of, his lips betraying a small smile.

kade’s lips curl into a cheshire grin, and jasper has about half a second of a head start to leap out of his chair before kade is chasing him around the room, ink on both his hands, ready to be transferred onto pale unmarked skin.

jasper is still no match for kade, only getting a few smudges in for every five or so marks kade leaves on him, but he finds that he doesn’t mind when it ends with kade pinning him to the table, drawing silly patterns on his face as they laugh, clear and uninhibited and blissful.

later, when they’ve calmed down and realised the mess they’ve made, jasper takes kade’s hands in his, gently rubbing the ink stains off with a handkerchief.

“i can do it myself, you know,” kade sulks, eyes looking everywhere but at jasper.

jasper smiles, breath escaping his lips in a soft chuckle. “yeah, and you’ll only rub off the edges of a few stains before you lose your patience and resign yourself to a woeful fate of spending the rest of the day with ink-stained hands.”

kade scowls, but it doesn’t last long, his lips quirking up in a tiny smile by the end of it.

jasper never does manage to tell kade his answer, but he thinks it doesn’t matter anyway, not when they’re happy and content in this moment and that’s really all that matters.

(isn’t it?)

one day during self-study time after breakfast, kade charms his way through a hallway of servants and sneaks into jasper’s room.

jasper’s always had a tendency to unconsciously block out everything when he works, so he doesn’t notice kade until a flash of silver enters his vision and there are hands fastening a chain at the back of his neck.

he looks down to see a clear glass disc hanging on a woven cord, its thin silver rim encircling bits of dried purple and white flower petals.

“sweet pea and white carnations,” kade mumbles, hovering behind jasper even after he finishes fastening the necklace. “wanted to give you some luck before the test.”

jasper smiles. “they’re our birth month flowers, right?”

“yeah.” kade fidgets awkwardly, eventually shoving his hands into his pockets. “yours mean thank you, as well as blissful pleasure. and mine... when white, they represent good luck.” kade pauses. “well, there’s another meaning, but that one isn’t important."

jasper’s known kade long enough to know he won’t be able to get anything more than what he wants to share out of him, so for all his curiosity, he doesn’t say anything, just runs a finger over the glass almost tenderly. “thank you, kae. it’s beautiful."

“yeah, well, it’s nothing much,” kade says, dismissively, even as a light pink dusts his cheeks. “i’m going back to my room. gotta study to beat you."

jasper laughs, calling out “keep trying!” as kade makes a hasty exit, almost crashing into a servant on his way out.

once he’s alone, he tries to go back to studying, but he soon finds the margins of his notes filled with sketches of flowers.

(kade would've thought that on a place like the isle, with all its concealed nooks and crannies, people would find better hiding spots to discuss their secrets. but no, apparently people like to talk in places that aren’t exactly that obscure.

like the small library.

he’s there searching for books on the isle's rules of conduct, because jasper had complained about needing to find and memorise every single one of them, and between the dark circles under his eyes and his appalling tendency to forget to eat kade decides it's a better idea for him to help him out. though he does have a backlog of work from all the times he skipped self-study time to explore the isle, but well. he'll figure something out later.

he's found the fourth book and eliminated the thirty-seventh when he hears muffled voices carrying over, filtering through the gaps between crisp pages on shelves. he can't quite make out the words, so he edges closer, curiosity piqued.

"...this year's trials will be interesting, don't you think?"

"yes, certainly, though i still can't quite understand why ren decided to sign up for the chef trials instead. he'd make a fine butler, if i do say so myself."

gossip, then. kade's about to turn and leave, disinterested in such inane small talk, only to be stopped in his tracks by something a lot more relevant.

"say, talking about butlers, jasper's practically a shoo-in, isn't he? given that he's our leader's descendant and all."

"yeah, of course. how could we possibly not select our isle's golden boy? even if he were to flunk the test, we'd probably still accept him anyway."

the books fall from kade's arms, tumbling to the ground before he even realises he's let them go. then he's striding out of the library, gaze steeled into a hard glare, tension pulsating in his veins.)

seventeen minutes before the test, jasper finds himself allowing kade to lead him to the small pier, a strong hand wrapped firmly around his wrist.

“i need to talk to you,” kade had said, and jasper had allowed himself to be pulled along, like he always had.

they’re back at their usual hideout, a secluded spot on the far end of the beach, where the wind’s rustling both drowns out the surrounding noise and masks their voices from any eavesdroppers. it’s a mystical place, magical even. jasper would question it if not for the fact that the rest of the isle is equally mystical, and he’d end up having to question the entire basis of his existence.

regardless, he likes this place. whenever they’re here, it feels like they’re the only ones who exist, like they’re the only ones who matter.

but they’re not here for that today.

“i’m leaving the isle,” kade blurts, blunt as always. “come with me.”

jasper pauses, looking up at kade. any other person would either have laughed it off as a joke, but he knows kade, knows him well enough to recognise the look in his eyes. the steely determination burning bright behind violet irises.

“why?”

kade laughs, hollow and haunting.

“i'm sick of this isle, jasper. why not? why do you even want to take the test? why do you want to live under someone else’s terms?”

jasper stares, stunned, before replying disbelievingly, “because it’s our duty. you told me that yourself when we were kids, remember? it’s passed down from generation to generation. it’s more than just culture, or tradition, or beliefs. it’s who we are. who we’re supposed to be.”

kade rolls his eyes. “and who gets to decide that? who has the right to dictate how we should lead our lives?”

“this isn’t dictating! it’s what we were born to do. if we don’t do it, who will?” jasper pleads.

“i don’t know. i don’t care. i don’t want to be a part of it.”

jasper lets out a short, exasperated noise. “kade, what’s gotten into you? why are you needlessly rebelling against our beliefs?”

kade scoffs. “and why are you blindly following in your ancestor’s footsteps? acting like some pet pathetically tagging along wherever its master goes.”

“it’s not called blindly following if i know where i’m going,” jasper says, his face darkening. “what are you trying to do, play around? i don’t know who gave you these ideas, kade, but you need to grow up."

the next thing he knows, kade’s punched him, knuckles connecting hard with bone.

the finger jasper raises to his lip comes away bloody.

“you don’t understand me at all, do you,” kade snarls, voice low and caustic.

jasper doesn’t respond, just looks at kade, gaze laced with hurt and disbelief.

this isn’t the kade he knows.

kade laughs scathingly. “well, i’m leaving,” he says, eyes cold and cruel, "since clearly i’m not good enough for you, mr. golden boy.”

then he stalks off without so much as a second glance back, shoulders set in an angry line.

and jasper’s left alone, wind whipping loud in his ears. too loud.

kade doesn’t show up for the test, because he’s kade. jasper aces it, because he’s jasper.

even after the exam ends, the other candidates are still gossiping about the bloody cut on the corner of his lip, about kade’s absence, about how visibly shaken and distracted jasper had been throughout the test. mostly it's about how they must have fought and what must have happened. whose fault it must have been.

all the candidates get a long break as a reward for studying so hard. jasper doesn’t have the energy to deal with other people, so he retreats to his room and proceeds to spend the rest of his time locked in it.

the days pass by in a daze, sunrises blending into sunsets until he can’t tell the days apart anymore. the servants learn to ignore him when they bring him food or take his laundry or clean his room. he doesn’t notice them anyway, his mind far too focused on something else entirely.

then one day kade walks into his room. he doesn’t say anything, just stands in the doorway, so jasper tries to comfort him. tells him that he can still study and pass the test next year. instead, kade scoffs. tells him that he doesn’t even want to become a butler anymore, and leaves without saying anything else.

the memory is so fuzzy that jasper can’t remember whether it actually happened or not, so he tells himself it was a dream, as if that would somehow make it sting less.

he buries himself in endless silence and endless thoughts, and it’s only weeks later when the head butler personally comes to drag him out to begin his butler duties that jasper finally forces himself to leave the safety of his room.

after years of preparation, he’s gotten the position he’s always wanted. but he feels emptier than he’s ever had, eyes blank and heart numb, a walking shell of his former self.

and now, it’s been years since he became a butler.

it’s been years, and the system is starting to crack and collapse around them all.

the worst part is that jasper, bound by duty, can only watch as it happens.

he's powerless to stop it. he shouldn't be interfering, he should only watch and record as is. it is not his place to do anything.

and yet he desperately wants to. wants to help delegates who deserve it, wants to expose the corruption rooted within the isle staff. wants to ask the reasons why the isle is what it is.

but he doesn’t, because these were the exact things kade had been questioning before he shut him down so harshly, and he’d be a hypocrite to bring it up now.

but it’s been years, and jasper thinks all that time has taught him a little about courage.

the walk to kade’s room is longer than he remembers, but he steels himself to continue. he’s delayed this for far too long. he can't keep hiding anymore.

the locket hangs heavy on his chest as he knocks on the door, tentatively at first, then determinedly. swallows his pride because between the two, it’s the thing he’d rather lose.

kade opens the door, and regards him with an icy, doubtful look.

jasper swallows the fear and hurt and regret bubbling up in his throat. reminds himself to breathe.

“kae. can we talk?"

#7kppweek #7kpp #jasper #kade/jasper #fic #protectjasper2k17 #btw white carnations also mean pure love #which is rly cute???#kade & jasper pls just kiss and make up already #i mean what

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