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written-in-flowers · 2 months

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Her Soldier: Demon!San x Fem!Reader

Pairing: Incubi!San x Fem!Reader

Genre: Fluff, smut, angst MINOR DNI

Word Count: 14k

Summary: Injured during a mission to protect Lucifer's child, San begins to doubt his dreams of having his own someday. It's only your comfort that convinces him it's not all pointless.

Tags: polyamorous relationship (m/m/m/f) bisexual!demonline, graphic depictions of violence, serious injuries, scenes of child birth/child labor, blood, blood and violence, angels vs demons, religious imagery, underage storylines, mentions/allusions to underage violence, implied child neglect/abuse, crime, mentions of childbirth death and complications, fluffy vanilla sex this time, multiple orgasms, slight overstimulation, breeding kink, breeding.

Pretty Lady Masterlist

Previously on Pretty Lady

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***

He’d never seen anything like it before. The young woman laid on the stone table in the torch lit room, sweat gleaming on her body and blood oozing from her legs. Dark hairs sticking to her forehead, her face squeezed tight as she made attempts to push the child from her. Women wearing black cloaks stood around her, dabbing cold cloths on her forehead and encouraging her to breathe between pushes. One sat at the edge between her legs, gloves on her knobbly hands as she urged the woman to keep going. Around the room, monks in crimson cloaks held black candles. Her cries drowned out their low chanting, an incantation to welcome the new babe into the world. San couldn’t keep his eyes off the mother. She looked so young. She couldn’t be any older than you, and here she was harboring the greatest responsibility a servant of Lucifer can bear.

His seed.

He’d heard people around her say how lucky she is to be pregnant with Lucifer’s child; it is a high honor to carry the King’s child. They tell her that she will be the mother of a powerful lord, who will take over the world and rule as a living god. He heard one midwife talk of Lucifer’s other children, and how successful they’d become. Very few women have had the privilege to carry the new Antichrist. She should be thankful for this child’s birth is a slight upon The Almighty. San knew he’d be more worried about not dying during the birth than the honor of being chosen.

“Your first birthing ceremony, son?”

The soldier beside him leaned over and whispered, not catching anyone’s attention. San almost didn’t hear him. He saw more blood staining the mother’s white dress. San shed more blood than either of his brothers, but this was different.

“Yes, sir.”

Hector chortled. His former commander stood in bronze armor that popped against his green tinged skin. His horns, white and ribbed, curved from the top of his forehead and his wings remained close to his back. He stood several inches taller than San, and much wider too.

“Is it always this…bloody?” he asked, watching the midwife reach forward.

“Yes, sometimes bloodier depending on the woman,” he replied. “It is an honor to be here, Choi. Not just anyone is chosen to protect The King’s offspring.”

“I know.”

The messenger came to the Black Keep with a royal summons from His Majesty to San. San thought it might be to perform a demonstration in the frozen palace in the ninth circle, since he’d done it before, but he’d been wrong. Lucifer had impregnated another follower, who was due any day. They’d chosen him and others to protect the mother and child. His brothers begged him not to go.

“You could die, San. You could actually die if an angel gets their sword in you.”

“Please, decline. You can tell him that while you are honored, you cannot accept. San, you’d be going to the living world and you’d be facing holy magic. That can actually kill us. Do you hear me? A holy blade can and will kill you.”

“Sannie, don’t go.”

Your plea had been the softest of them. Even if you didn’t fully understand the gravity of the situation, you didn’t like the sound of it. The look of concern in your eyes haunted him as he stepped through the portal into the living world. He found himself memorizing your kiss when they arrived at the church. Standing in the circular room, watching a young woman give her life for her master, you kept rushing to his mind. It was possible that this birth would be successful and he'd go home to you. But, the likelihood of a fight was also possible. Every soldier faces the risk when they head into battle. San knows once he picks up his sword, he agrees to the fight. There’d been a time in his life where he’d join without hesitation, but that changed when you arrived.

The image of you sitting across from him, laughing at one of his jokes and engaging in conversation, brought comfort to him. In a world of blood and pain, you’d become a beacon of warmth; the candle in the window or the light in his valley of darkness. When he first looked at you upclose, seeing you in the soft firelight, he felt you slip through the chinks in his armor. He still thinks about the vision of you on the soft sheets, soundlessly sleeping next to him the morning after. He’d wanted to stay holding you a bit longer. San wanted to know the beautiful “human” who’d wandered into his life so unexpectedly. He’s thankful you’d decided to stay so he can keep digging for more.

“Father,” the midwife turned to the coven leader, “There’s something wrong.”

“What’s wrong?!” the mother panicked hearing this, eyes wide with fear as she looked between them. Neither priest or midwife answered her, but instead quietly spoke to one another. “What is going on?! What’s wrong with my baby?!”

San’s blood ran cold. He watched the pair continue talking before the priest went to retrieve a black bottle from a nearby altar. He bid the mother to drink it, telling her it’ll save her child. San saw him bring the bottle to her lips, and she gulped it greedily. Thin crimson trails leaked from the sides of her mouth, not going to waste as she wiped them. Suddenly, she screamed. A terrible, painful scream ripped through her chest and out into the world. Bony fingers gripped the sheets underneath her, and her toes tightly curled inwards. The midwives encouraged her to keep pushing, even as her screams turned into guttural snarls. San’s eyes widened as that final push ended in high pitched squeals drowning her out. The coven members awed and praised her as the head midwife pulled the squalling babe from her.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Hector asked, wiping his eyes. “I always cry at these things.”

“Yes. It’s wonderful,” San said in a monotone voice.

The midwife wiped the blood and matter from the baby, and San finally caught a look at it. Skin the color of snow, he saw small hands and feet kicking around before being swaddled in a blanket. The mother beamed happily, laughing as she held her baby to her naked chest.

“She’s beautiful, Francesca,” smiled the midwife. “You’ve done well, my child.”

“What’s her name, Sister?” asked one of the attendants.

“Gisella,” the mother sniffled, unable to stop her happy tears. “Her name is Gisella.”

Francesca kissed her daughter’s forehead, not bothered by her small claws or dark red eyes. San knew once the child grew, the human features would start appearing. He wondered if any child you two had would be the same. His heart fluttered imagining you in her position, holding his child and crying tears of joy. It was unlikely you’d want children or a family, since you never showed interest in having them, but he knew you at least liked babies. You smiled whenever you saw one in the street, and some friends of yours had them. The dream of you carrying his children, being a mother to them would be a dream.

“Choi,” Hector called to him from the birthing bed, “Come see her.”

In timid steps, San approached them. The stench of blood grew thicker, but the sight of the newest Antichrist took his attention away. The baby had His Majesty’s sharp nose and round eyes, but her mother’s lips and chin.

“Congratulations,” San said kindly.

“Thank you,” she smiled, immediately looking back at her baby.

“His Majesty must be informed at once,” the priest said.

“I’ll have one of my men go inform him…” Hector said, but San tuned him out right away.

An unnatural breeze blew in from the nearby tunnel entrance. His entire body moved into action. In an instant, a figure in bright gold armor appeared from thin air, raising their longsword to slash at San. He blocked it with his own sword, then swiped at them. The angel, with their large feather wings, lifted into the air and more of them appeared. Then, the battle began. San and Hector stood by the table while their fellows fought off those at the entrances. The angel who’d attacked San came at him again, but a swing of his sword to the midriff and then to the back of their wings wounded the celestial being. San then blocked another angel’s sword, kicking them right in the chest and stabbing them in the gut. All the adrenaline he’d held back came at him full force. It fueled his fast, precise movements, causing his heart to pound in his ears and made him hyper aware of his surroundings.

“Beat them back!” ordered Hector, who blocked an angel’s sword. “Protect the babe!”

He could not fail. If the angels managed to get their hands on the baby, they’d never see her again. One angel flew and landed on top of the table, reaching for Gisella, but a slice at the back of their ankles crippled them. San then stabbed them right in the neck, blood spurting from the wound and the angel clutched their neck as they fell. He had no time to observe.

“Can you stand?” he asked Francesca, who shook her head.

“Take her,” the young woman cried, handing Gisella to him. “Please, take her.”

“Take the baby and get out, Choi,” Hector ordered.

He gently took the baby from Francesca, and held it close to him. Due to all the noise and commotion stimulating her senses, little Gisella’s shrieks nearly blew out his ears. San, unable to use one arm, swung his sword at any enemy he came across through the tunnels. The portal back home was on the other side of the church, underneath the Vatican streets. Urgency pushed him forward, and panic had him holding the child close to his chest. He moved through the caverns until he reached a large room where seven demonic statues stood facing the center. Yet, right as he reached the very threshold, one of the angels grabbed him by the metal arm guard and spun him away. San lost his grip on Gisella, who floated in the air before being caught by an angel.

“No!” he screamed, scrambling to stand and rush at the man holding Lucifer’s child, but was then countered by another soldier.

The burning heat of a holy blade seared his skin, sinking further into his body. All the air in his went out in a single gasp. His muscles constricted, but he maintained his own strength. As the pain took over, San reached for the dagger on his belt. The handle carved with serpents slithering towards the rose pummel, San sunk his blade into the angel’s exposed neck. Blood poured out from the angel’s mouth and artery, while more bled out from San’s side. The angel fell first, laying flat on their wings as they struggled to stay alive. Demon blades held the same power as holy ones. Falling to the ground, San took deep breaths on the stone ground. Each one burned, and he felt them start to choke him. He grabbed at the wound between his ribs. His vision started to blur and blacken, but he blinked it away. Images suddenly flashed before his eyes.

Hongjoong smirking and winking as he stole a grape from San’s bowl.

Seonghwa smiling widely, a book in his lap and the sun beaming behind him.

The three of them sitting in the lounge, chattering and laughing together.

And you. Wonderful you. Your eyes are bright with happiness as flowers grow all around you. Face down on the floor, the stone scratching his cheeks and arms, he held onto images of the four of you. The sounds of his enemies fleeing with the squealing baby became muddled and inaudible to him. He thought of your laugh, sweet and cheerful. He’d promised to come home. More pain shot through him as the magic took over, sapping more life from him.

“Choi!” he heard a voice say from nearby.

Before, he would’ve been glad to be dying for his king. He’d feel honored to die fighting. Not anymore. Now, he wanted to live. San only groaned, rolling onto his back. He struggled for a breath, clutching onto each one as it may be his last. He told Seonghwa he’d be back in no time. It’d been almost a month. Hands grabbed at him, and he left the ground.

He told Hongjoong not to worry; that he’d been in tons of battles before.

He told you he’d be fine. He said he’d be home before you knew it.

Promises he’s unable to keep. San clung on to every breath, feeling the pain it brought and the hollowness of his chest. The sudden nothingness of the portal sucked more precious life from him. He heard voices all around him. Bright lights burned his eyes. Where were you? He wanted to see you. He wanted to see his brothers. Several hands laid him on a firm surface, and small wheels could be heard underneath him.

“You’re going to be alright, son,” he heard Hector’s voice. “You’re going to be alright.”

His Darling, who brought so much comfort to him. He’d never known real comfort until he ended up in Hell. The couple he’d been given to gave him the bare minimum. The witch, Hyeon, and her servant, Heechul, took him in as a baby and never told him about his true identity. He’d only learned what a family was when his brothers took him into their home.

Darkness came over him the moment the cart stopped. He forced himself to stay awake, despite the blood filling his lungs to choke him. San wanted to see you. He needed to see you one last time.

“YN…”

****

“Wake up, you stupid boy!”

The world came to him in a blur. He blinked back the rays of sun peeking in between the cracks in the curtains. Outside his doorway, he heard the other tenants starting to rise from their corners of the shared room. The stench of sweat, illness and filth sunk right into his nose at the first breath; he coughed it out as he did every morning.

“I said ‘get up’!”

A swift kick to his ribs took the breath from his chest. San curled inwards on the thin mattress, groaning as the pain subsided into a dull ache. Kicks to the stomach hurt more without any fat protecting it. Immediately, the boy stood up from his bed on heavy legs. Ahead of him, a skinny woman with messy black hair in a bun walked away from him to a rickety dresser. He watched her start slipping into a ragged chemise and stockings. In a corner of their small area, a man in rags sat passed out against the wall. The dark bottle beside him told San he'd drunk too much gin again. He recalled Hyeon and Heechul’s argument last night, and the latter likely drowned his sorrows in the drink. The yellowish puddle around him made San’s stomach churn.

“Daniel!” Hyeon screeched from her cot, using his English name.

“I’m up.”

He picked up the gin bottle from Heechul, and finished it off. The pure liquor stung his throat, but relieved his thirst and woke him up right away. All around him, he heard people starting to rise from their beds to begin their day. He saw Mrs. Cimorelli pulling on the top layer of her dress. His eyes scanned over her slim figure, taking in her soft curls and olive skin. A shudder went through him when he recalled a few nights previous, when he’d offered her his last bit of coin for a suck. His age, fifteen, didn’t matter to a whore like her. San snapped back into reality when a sharp hand hit the back of his head. This caused Mrs. Cimorelli to turn her head. It took her a moment, but she smirked when she realized he’d been watching her.

“Filthy lout,” Hyeon scoffed, pulling on her worn out boots. “You’re going to catch a pox one day, boy. You mark my words.”

“Ah, shut up, you ol’ cow,” he snapped back, rubbing where she’d hit him.

“You're lucky I got work, or you'll get more than a clout on the ear. You get yourself right and get going. The overseer will deduct your wages if you’re late.”

San glared at her. He'd grown used to it since arriving in New York. Whenever she started barking about work, he thought of telling Hyeon they’d do better starving back home than starving in a new country. Though, she’d quickly retort with, “There aren’t any jobs at home.” He’d then tell her fortune tellers and mediums did just as well in Korea as they did in New York.

When Hyeon turned her back, San quickly snatched the lump of bread she had hidden under her blanket. Taking a bite of the hard lump, he glanced back at Mrs. Cimorelli as he passed her. Her small wink and smile warmed his blood. If he made enough, he’d give her another go if he caught her on the street that night. San walked past the other tenants in the small apartment space, nodding to those he knew and turning from those he didn’t and walked outside. In the stairwell, he heard the hustle of the morning crowds. He heard and smelled everything around him. He heard babies crying behind closed doors; he caught Mr. And Mrs. Wang arguing about Mr. Wang’s drinking again; he saw Daisy, Irene, and Sarah walking up the stairs from their night on the streets.

“Morning, Handsome,” Daisy, straight black hair in a messy braid and dress slightly askew, smiled at him. “We missed you last night.”

“Sorry ladies, I had places to be,” he said apologetically as he walked down past them.

“Will you be out tonight?” asked Irene, a red blotch starting to bruise on her peachy skin. “You know I always save space for you.”

“If the boss lets me,” he winked, walking down the steps to the next floor.

The best thing about New York? The girls. Back home, girls shared the conservative, modest views of their parents. The women in the brothels looked tempting, but they didn’t service teens. The ladies he’d met in America did him as long as he had enough money.

Coming out into the street, San took in the sights and smells of New York’s Chinatown. It wasn’t strictly speaking only Chinese people. A melting pot of different ethnicities and races lived in the small community, working and surviving off meager wages. Those with a bit more sand did jobs for the gangs around the city. When he first arrived, San got a job at the textile factory working the looms. It was a dangerous job for a skinny boy who barely spoke English, but it was better than the street. Of course, any money he made went directly to Hyeon, who claimed to spend it on ‘keeping them above ground’. Heechul worked in the fish market, coming home stinking of fish guts and stagnant water every day, while Hyeon was a seamstress who told fortunes on the side. It was when he beat down two thugs trying to rob him that he caught the attention of crime boss Lee “Benny” Siwon. Siwon led the gang known as the Black Lotus, a gang known for smuggling, theft, and drugs. He offered San a place in his gang.

San had been working for him ever since.

Making a right turn down an alley, he passed through a market street where vendors peddled their wares. His stomach growled seeing the fruits and vegetables being left out. He bypassed a fruit vendor, and with a deft hand, took up the topmost apple in the pile. The vendor never noticed. Nobody noticed. He waited until he’d gotten a good distance before he sunk his teeth into it. The sweet juice filling his mouth pushed back the constant seed of hunger. San could never take food home, otherwise Hyeon split it and gave him the small pieces. One might think a new country with better opportunities would make the old witch turn over a new leaf. It’d done nothing.

San finally reached a small restaurant nestled between a butcher’s shop and a chemist. The black lotus sign hanging above the door told people who ran these streets. He walked in with a small smile, seeing people already at tables and servers taking orders. The boys sitting at a nearby table took notice of him first, all of them smiling and greeting him. He shook hands, and took the shot of gin that they offered. As the boys went back to talking about their various runs, San lit a cigarette and took his first puff of the day. Any minute now, Siwon will send one of his thugs to give them various jobs for the day. Everything from passing on messages, picking up or dropping off products to theft and beating people up could be assigned to any of them. San hoped he’d be sent on one of the more important jobs for once. Things like stealing from rival gangs, picking up money from extorted business owners, or roughing up people who owed money paid much more. Siwon promised he’d give him a chance one day, but ‘one day’ is too far away.

“Hey boys,” a tall man with square shoulders and an oval face approached them. In his tailored pin-strip suit, he looked like any ordinary gentleman.

“Shoiming!” the boys cheered, clasping hands with the older man.

“I got your jobs right here,” he said, holding up a few papers. "You know your streets. You know your marks,” he began passing items to certain boys, “Get the job done fast, you get paid even faster.”

Shoiming handed everyone a slip, and San looked at his. From the scrawled handwriting, he saw mostly pick ups and drop offs. He sucked his teeth. Pennies again. He supposed low wages were better than none. He stood up from the table, holding his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, as he tucked the paper into his pocket. It was then that Shoiming stopped him by the shoulder. For a split second, San thought he’d get a scolding for his reaction, but the large man didn’t seem angry.

“Do your work quickly,” he said, “Siwon has a big job for you tonight.”

“Really?” San’s eyes lit up. “What is it? Smuggling? Roughing up?”

“Something like that,” he nodded. “Go on, now.”

San walked with a pep in his step the rest of the day. While Hyeon thought he was at the factory, he was really jumping from place to place. He handed off packages and messages that couldn’t be sent through official channels. He bought and sold the items given to him by various vendors. San even took time to go into the fancy part of town where he picked pockets. He’d gotten away with a decent loot: a gold pocket watch, a few coins, three rings he lifted from a shop, and a snuff box he stole from a fancy lady. Siwon will be so impressed, he’ll take him on the big jobs. By nightfall, San felt nervous and excited. He came back to the restaurant with his loot and messages.

“Good haul,” nodded Shioming. He took the pocket watch, two rings and the snuff box. “Siwon’s not here. He told me to tell you to meet him at Flannery’s Hall. It’s on King’s street, not too far from here.”

“What’s that? Some kind of club?”

“Yes, now hit the bricks. Don’t be late.”

He left right away, going down all the alleys and side streets until he reached King’s street. The nightlife started buzzing to life around him. New York never slept, he’d come to learn during his time there. Back home, everything grew quiet once the work day ended. That wasn’t the case in this new country. Life kept going even as the moon reached high into the sky. He liked that. He never grew bored or anxious in the hustle of the city. Walking down a row of clubs and bars, San stopped outside the one with the sign ‘Flannery’s Hall’ written on it. He only stopped because his stomach twisted tightly. A pair of women’s boots hung on the newel post leading down into the building’s basement. San tried not thinking anything of it as he walked through the doors.

Once inside, a new world unfolded in front of him. In the small bar, he saw men sitting and drinking at tables with pretty girls. Except, most of the ‘pretty girls’ weren’t girls at all. They were boys in girls’ clothes and wigs who’d powdered their faces. In various stages of dress, they moved about the room to their marks while one “girl” sang up on a stage in a falsetto voice. San’s insides told him to run, but he knew better. Siwon didn’t like people who didn’t follow orders. He walked up to the bar where a young man stood handing out mugs of beer.

“Excuse me,” he said to the man, “I’m looking for Siwon. My boss said he’d be here.”

“Nah, I ain’t seen him,” the barman replied.

A lie. He likely didn’t trust San. Most white people didn’t. He huffed and turned to the room. San tried not noticing the boys around him. He found them to be beautiful in and out of their dresses. He supposed them dressing as girls made it easier for their customers to stomach their desires. San preferred boys who looked like boys and girls who looked like girls. Of course, he kept that bit to himself. If Hyeon knew, she’d kick him out for sure. She’d rather he be stealing than selling himself to old men.

“I know where Benny is,” someone said to him.

In a very short night dress and stockings, there was nothing hiding the fact that they were a boy. Blond hair cropped short, he wore a thin robe that barely hid the naked flesh exposed underneath. He sat on the bar stool next to San, light blue eyes sultry and flirtatious, and leaned closer.

“I can take you to him.”

“What’s it going to cost me?”

“For you? Not a dime. I’m Lucy,” he said, “Benny and I are pretty close. I can get you in with him.”

“He asked me to come,” San said.

Lucy paused, his seductive stare breaking for a brief moment, “Huh, alright. Come with me, handsome.”

Lucy walked him through the bar’s main floor and up the stairs. He tried ignoring the workers servicing their clients or sitting in their rooms waiting for the next one. San enjoyed a good brothel, but something about Flannery’s Hall disgusted him. Not the boys or the girls, but the clientele. Old, wrinkled men who want things that real girls would not do. He saw one man in just his trousers come out of a room holding his shirt. Even after being with the person inside, he still sized San up with hungry eyes. He nearly vomited before moving onwards. Lucy led him to a series of rooms on the third floor. These rooms weren’t much quieter either. His body grew numb. He regretted coming here.

“Do you know what he wants?” he asked Lucy, keeping the nerves out of his voice.

“What every man that comes here wants.” He brought San to the last room and turned around, “Just relax. It’ll be over a lot quicker than you think.”

He blew San a kiss, and walked away. San could run. He could turn tail back home and pretend he’d gotten lost. He can say he got picked up by cops. But, he knew Siwon. The old man would see right through him. It wouldn’t be his first time with a man, but those had been different. He didn’t do it for money or by force then. San turned the knob, took a deep breath, and went inside.

“-And I told him, ‘Sure you can have it, but let me tell you, this snuff bites back!’”

Siwon sat in a well furnished room with a group of other well-dressed men. He stayed frozen by the door, counting down the seconds before someone saw the young, good-looking boy in the doorway. Siwon lifted his head first, gleeful and sucking on the end of a cigar, and smiled at San.

“San! There you are!” He stood up and walked over to him, patting his shoulder. “I worried you might’ve gotten picked up.”

“I ain’t a whore,” San heard himself say defiantly. “I ain’t sucking anything I don’t want to suck.”

Siwon appeared stunned by his words. “What?” he said in disbelief, but then it came to him and he laughed. “No, no, Sannie. You don’t have to worry about that. That’s not why I called you here.”

“It’s not?”

“Hell no,” he said. “You’re a good looking kid, San, but my girls have to be delicate and pretty. You’re too rough for that kind of work. Nah, I got a better job for you.” He put his arm around his shoulders and brought him closer to the men, “You see these men?”

San nodded, and he immediately noticed their fine suits, pocket watches and shiny shoes.

“They’re some friends of mine from uptown,” Siwon continued. “I told them I’d show them a good time while they’re visiting our little corner of New York. Now, I got the ladies and the booze, but we need the entertainment. That’s where you come in.”

“I ain’t following, Siwon.”

“This,” he gestured to another boy on the other side of the room, “Is Tiny.”

Tiny stood much taller than San, with muscular arms, legs and chest. In nothing but a pair of trousers, he might’ve been mistaken for a grown man if the face didn’t give away his age. San saw the faint scars on Tiny’s bronze skin, and the scab on his lower lip. He gulped down his nerves when the truth came out.

“And you’re going to fight him.”

****

“San? San? Can you hear me?”

The voice came to him through a blurry haze. A gentle hand touched his face, and he instantly swatted it away. He pictured Siwon, the old man who’d caused his death, hanging over him with disappointed eyes. He’d lost the fight. Tiny beat him to a bloody pulp and he landed in the hospital. It explained the pain coursing through his body, starting at his torso and radiating across the rest of him. A low groan escaped him as a rough hand cupped his face.

“San, wake up,” a familiar high voice said, not in the usual forceful tone but tender and calm. “Wake up, Sannie.”

“I’m sorry,” he coughed, the breath he took hurting his chest.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” they said. “We’re just glad you’re home.”

“San,” a female voice spoke to him. Hyeon? No, not Hyeon. Someone whose voice calmed every nerve in his body. The other person moved away as the woman came closer. “It’s me,” she said, “It’s YN.”

Opening his eyes at last, he saw you next to his hospital bed. Your eyes, puffy and red, stared at him worryingly. The girls in New York looked nothing like you. They had bruises or scratches from rough customers, and they carried that New York bred toughness about them. You had sand, but softness too. If he’d met you then, he would’ve tried keeping it straight and narrow. He’d get an honest job and marry you. That’s what couples did back then; they got married. But then, he wouldn’t know who and what he was.

“YN…” your name left him in a hoarse croak.

“Yeah, it’s me,” you sniffed. “We’ve been so worried about you.”

“I’m okay,” he said unconvincingly.

“You got stabbed in the lung and started choking on your own blood,” said Seonghwa. “You aren’t okay.”

“What?”

Then the truth came to him. The birth. The angels. The baby. “Where’s Gisella?” he asked, panicking. “Did we get her back?”

“Gisella?”

“He means the baby,” Seonghwa told you. “They lost her,” he answered San’s question. “The angels got away before we could get her back.”

He’d failed. Once again, he’d let somebody down. “What happened after?”

“Don’t worry about that right now,” he said. “You stay here and rest.”

“What happened?” he asked more forcefully.

“They brought you here,” Hongjoong answered. “Hector told Lucifer they’d taken the baby, and, well, losing a kid isn’t great news.”

“You’re lucky he doesn’t blame you,” Seonghwa said. “The guy’s lost so many Antichrists that he isn’t surprised when the angels take them away.” He paused, looking down at his younger brother. “Let’s give San some breathing room. We’ll come back later, Brother.”

A pair of lips touched his forehead, and another hand ruffled his hair. San reached out for you, grabbing your sweater. “Stay,” he said, though felt himself dozing off again, “Don’t go.”

“I’ll stay here.”

“Until they kick you out,” noted Hongjoong.

San heard footsteps cross the linoleum floors and a door softly close. The scent of oranges caught in his nose, and he inhaled it until his lungs hurt. Your fingers pushed hair from his forehead, giving him a way to catch your hand.

“I thought you’d died,” you said in a whisper, afraid to break the quietness of the room. “When you didn’t come home after a week, I thought something happened to you.”

“The birth took longer than expected.”

“It made me think of what it’d be like without you,” he heard your tears thicken your voice. “I don’t like it.”

“I wouldn’t prefer it either.”

“Don’t ever do that to me again,” you said, sniffling. “You hear me?”

“I’ll try.” He felt you rest your head on the bed, still staring at him with watery eyes. San hated seeing his Darling cry. “Please don’t,” he said. “I’ll be okay now, Darling.”

“I can’t help it.”

He cupped your cheek and wiped a stray tear. Whatever painkiller they’d given him slowly took over again. He didn’t let go of you, worried about where he might end up.

“Just sleep, Sannie,” you said, kissing his inner wrist. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

****

He should be in pain. The bones Tiny broke with bloody fists should be cracked and poking through his skin. Blood should be dripping from the broken teeth and cut cheeks onto the floor. His jaw, his arms, and shoulders suffered so much pain that they must be in pain. Yet, when he opened his eyes, he felt barely anything. Only a dull stiffness in his muscles remained. A soft groan pulled itself from his chest, which did not feel broken or torn apart. He forced himself to open his eyes, but immediately regretted it.

“Welcome,” a man’s voice said from nearby. It didn’t sound like anyone he knew. “Name?”

“Huh?”

“Your name, son. What is your name?”

“Daniel,” he answered with his English name.

“Your true born name, please.”

“San.”

“Surname?”

“Choi.”

He blinked the pain from his eyes, and took in his surroundings. He found himself on a cold, hard floor. Looking around, he saw empty chairs in a carpeted room. When he glanced upward, he saw a man in a purple suit standing behind a window like a bank teller. Except, this wasn’t a bank.

“Choi San, Choi San, Choi San,” the suited man looked through a thick, leather bound book. “Date of birth?”

“July 10th, 1910.”

He sensed the man’s silence when he finally stood on his stiff legs. The man, dark skinned with tight black curls, looked at him in astonishment. All the breath came out of him at once, and he fixed up his suit jacket.

“My-My Lord,” he said, “Forgive me. We weren’t expecting you so early. You had four more years until you came of age. This is, I’m sorry to say, quite irregular for us.”

“What’re you talking about?” he asked, confused. He touched his lip where Tiny slammed his fist last, and felt the split skin. “Where am I?”

“You’re home, sir,” he answered. “I am Charon, ferryman of souls.”

“Okay, and what’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you’re in Hell, my lord.”

San’s eyes widened, and his heart jumped into his throat. “I’m where?”

“In Hell,” he repeated. “Since you are a demon, you came to my station instead of the forest.”

“Look,” he walked up to the window, “I know I wasn’t the best kind of kid, but I couldn’t have been that-” then he stopped. “Wait, what did you say?”

“I said that since you are a demon-”

“-What? I ain’t a demon.”

“Yes, you are. Look for yourself.”

Charon turned the book around to show San a list of names scrawled in black ink. He pointed to San’s name, “Choi San, birth date July 10th, 1910. Mother: Kim Youngmi. Father: Asmodeus, Prince of Lust and Lord of Depravity. You’re a Duke of Lust, my lord.” He paused, “Did you…Did you not know that?”

San stared at the names. That couldn’t be right. Hyeon and Heechul were his parents. As terrible as they were, they’d tolerated him enough to feed and house him. Hyeon always told him she’d given birth to him in their house in Korea. Heechul claimed to have delivered San on his own. No Youngmi or Asmodeus came looking for him.

“I can’t be. I just can’t.”

“But you are,” he closed the book, “You’re a very important person down here, my lord.”

“I ain’t a ‘lord’.”

“Yes, you are. Come with me. The ferry for Depravity hasn’t left yet.”

Charon walked out from behind the window and walked him to the front door. He led San out into what reminded him of the ferry back in New York. Thousands of people moved in straight lines towards the different colored ferries. A melancholic, dreadful feeling carried through the air. San thought he’d stepped into the most miserable place he’d ever been. He followed Charon down a flight of stairs opposite the one leading down to the crowds. By the ropes separating this line from the others, San guessed he’d gotten special treatment. Charon led him past the flowing black river, the crowds thinning the further they walked from the main ferries.

“Are all those people demons too?” he asked.

“No, these are reluctant sinners or those who received no baptism or funeral rites,” he said. “They’re taken across the river to Inferno’s port where they’re shepherded to Limbo. That’s where the sin seers figure out where to put them. Don’t fret, my lord. You’re not going to Limbo.”

“Where am I going?”

“Home.”

“Home?”

“The Lands of Depravity, located several circles above the circle of lust,” he said. “Your older brothers will explain more.”

“Brothers?” San gulped, “I have brothers.”

“You didn’t know that either? Whoof, whoever raised you certainly did you no favors,” he huffed.

Charon led him to a smaller dark green ferry. At the bottom of the ramp leading onto it stood a soldier in bronze armor. Charon approached with a self-important smugness.

Charon turned to him. “Here’s your ferry and your ticket,” he handed San a ticket from his inner pocket. “Hand it to the guard, and he’ll let you on board. It’s a short trip, but there’s plenty of food and drink there.”

“Thanks,” San said, reading the white ticket.

“You’re welcome, and I hope you enjoy your new home.”

San nodded as Charon left his side. Anxiously, he walked up to the guard.

“Ticket, please,” he said. When San handed it to him, he checked and then stamped an approval. “Welcome to Hell, my lord.”

“Thanks.”

San took careful steps up the ramp. It reminded him of the ferries back in New York, except this one didn’t have any people. An attendant in a purple vest and pencil skirt smiled brightly when he walked into the sitting room. She offered him refreshments, but he declined. He might vomit if he digested anything. Sitting on a chair, he kept an eye on his surroundings. He wanted to think he’d entered a sort of coma-induced dream. Right now, he’s really in a hospital bed. Any second, he’ll wake up and it would’ve been a big dream.

He figured out he was wrong once the ferry reached port. The attendant led him to the ramp and gave him the typical customer-service farewell. At the bottom, he spotted dozens of people leaving their own boats to come ashore. He might as well be in New York, coming off a ferry from one part of the city to another. San had no clue where to go from here. Charon gave him no directions, and the attendant told him nothing. Staring around, he saw certain people in suits holding up signs. He spotted a tall, broad-shouldered man in a suit holding a card with his name on it.

“Um, hello?” San approached him slowly.

“Choi San?” the man asked with bright eyes.

“That’s me.”

“Oh, wonderful,” he laughed with relief. “I’m Yunho. I work for your brothers. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, sir. We weren’t expecting you for a few more years.”

“Things happen,” he shrugged.

“As they do,” he agreed. “Come with me. I'm going to take you straight home.”

“Where is ‘home’?”

“The Lands of-”

“-Depravity, yeah, the Charon guy told me that. What is home? Who is there?”

Yunho guided him towards the turnstiles, “The Black Keep. Well, it isn’t so ‘black’ anymore, but the name’s endured the centuries. Your brothers, Lords Seonghwa and Hongjoong live there. When they received Charon’s message, they were overjoyed.”

“They don’t even know me.”

“That’s not important. You share a mother and father. Do you understand how rare that is for a demon prince?”

“My dad’s a prince?”

“Yes, Prince Asmodeus. Charon didn’t tell you?”

“He glossed over it.”

“As usual. I suppose it’s excusable since he has a lot on his plate. Things have been heavy for him since Lucifer added more ferry boats…”

He brought San over to a motorcar. Black with white leather seats, San hesitated to get inside. “I ain’t never been in a motorcar before.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

The car ride distracted San from the city around him. He hardly noticed how much it reminded him of the big cities of the world. He held onto the side of the car as it bumped and rode through the streets. Soon enough, they’d left Inferno and ended up in a vast countryside. It looked nothing like what he expected. Evergreen trees lined the rolling hills and fields of tall grass. The sun shone bright in the clear skies. This was “rich people country”, as Hyeon used to say. Street rats like them didn’t live in big houses with lots of land and fresh air. He knew it must be nice, but not like this. Yunho drove up the country lane to a large gold and white gate. Golden serpents slithered down from the bars that resembled flower vines. They opened on their own, letting them drive onto a circular roundabout surrounding a floral bronze fountain.

“I ain’t ever seen a place like this…”

More snake motifs molded into the cream colored walls, with a long balcony above the tall doors. San stayed frozen in the car as he continued taking in the grandeur of the mansion. The people who lived here came from old money, like Siwon used to say. Their home didn’t appear brand new by any means, but it was not decrepit or unkempt. It amazed him. Not even Siwon could afford a place like this. His sleazy uptown buddies would never own a home like this.

“Behold, my lord. The Black Keep.”

“It’s…”

He saw gold roses winding through the rails of the balcony above, and more clinging to the columns holding it up. San felt tears in his eyes. He’d never seen a more beautiful place, and this guy was saying he’d be living here. Impossible. Not even in his wildest dreams could he make up a place like this.

“My lord?” Yunho opened his door without San realizing it. “We’re here.”

“Nah,” he shook his head, “This can’t be it.”

“You’re right. There’s more inside.”

San couldn’t picture the inside. Slowly, he stepped out and onto the gravel driveway. Yunho led him up stone steps to the front doors. More roses.

“They must like roses, huh?” he joked, trying to hide his anxiousness.

“They’re part of the family crest.”

“What’s a crest?”

“Like a little picture representing the family. Seonghwa will explain it should you want to know more.”

Yunho opened the doors and San stepped inside. He’d been right. He could not have dreamed up this place. High ceilings, paneled walls, expensive paintings and drapes with a grand staircase could not be of his own imagination. He gazed up to the ceiling to see a garden mural with a naked woman standing next to a tree holding an apple. He’d never seen a more beautiful painting.

“You’re here!”

No fantasy of his could create them either. At the top of the steps stood two men: one with thick black curls hanging to his chin, and the other with dark red hair slicked back from his face. They weren’t New York boys. They weren’t human. Their beauty surpassed any boy or girl he’d paid for back home.San saw the golden pins on their chests: a snake coiled around a singular rose. The dark-haired one wore a white shirt underneath an emerald velvet and satin vest with a nice tie. The red-head wore a similar fashion, except dark red rather than green. They were beautiful.

“You’re more beautiful than I thought you’d be,” the dark-haired brother grinned, eyeing him from top to bottom. “A bit grubby, but with a bath you’ll sparkle.”

“I don’t mind a bit of grubbiness,” said the redhead, also sizing him up. “I think it adds to his charm.”

The way they undressed him with their eyes didn’t bother him like it might have before. He couldn’t look away from either of them. He’d let them take a piece for free. The dark-haired one snorted with a smirk.

“Naughty,” he said. “I’m Seonghwa.”

“I’m Hongjoong,” said the other brother, still looking down at San's body. “He’s the oldest. I’m the middle child, and you’re the baby.”

“I ain’t a baby.”

“You mean ‘I’m not a baby’,” Seonghwa corrected him.

“But, I imagine you’ve done a lot of things kids your age shouldn’t have been doing,” Hongjoong winked, but stopped when Seonghwa backhanded his arm.

“He’s a child, Hongjoong.”

“You think the people up there care?” he retorted. “They force boys to dress up like girls and fuck them for spare change. They’re a bunch of animals. I bet he walked around with a painted face and gave blowjobs for two dollars-”

“-I ain’t a fucking whore,” San interrupted him harshly.

“It’s ‘I’m not a fucking’-”

“-Correct me again and I’m putting you on the floor,” San cut him off.

Seonghwa laughed rather than cower away. Hongjoong beamed, “Finally, somebody with some fire around here. Are you sure he’s our brother, Seonghwa?”

“Yes, I double checked. It seems he inherited Mother’s tough streak,” he said, amused. It was then that Seonghwa addressed the injuries left on San’s body. He walked up to him, and tried touching his chin before San flinched away. “Who did this to you?”

“A kid named Tiny.”

“What was he? Like four-feet but full of fire?”

“Six-feet with muscles that no kid should have. My boss made me fight him.”

San didn’t want to explain it to them. He still tried wrapping his head around the incident. He always believed Siwon cared about the kids who worked for him. Whenever one of them was mugged or picked up by the cops, Siwon sent men to take care of them. As he thought about it, he realized Siwon didn’t protect them. He protected the product the kid held for him. It saddened him.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Seonghwa said. “Men like him only care about themselves at the end of the day. If he’d treated you like scum, you wouldn’t have worked for him. I’m positive if you’d survived that fight, you’d end up doing it again with someone else.” He brushed his thumb on the split lip, “Nobody is going to hurt you here. Not even if you asked,” he glanced sideways at his brother. “You’re the son of a lord now. Demons around here would be marked for death if they put a finger on you.”

“We’d make sure of it,” reassured Hongjoong.

Their words should comfort him, but the comfort never came. He’d met plenty of adults who made the same promise. Hyeon was supposed to protect him, but she never did. Heelchul was supposed to protect him, but he never did. Siwon, Shoiming, his friends all meant to protect him and they didn’t. He meant nothing to them. He meant nothing to anyone.

“Come on,” Hongjoong touched his shoulder, and frowned when San pulled away. “You’re peaky. Cook will make something for you. What do you like?”

Nobody did things for free. “Nah, I’m fine.”

“You’re not. Let’s go.”

Hongjoong and Seonghwa led him into a fancy dining room. On the table, servants put a large spread of food. Meat, cheese, fruits, and small cakes laid about the table. San’s stomach rumbled. The two of them sat on the other sides of the table, watching him closely. A woman in a maid uniform served him pieces of chicken, potatoes and vegetables. San stared at the plate. It beat the bits of bread and cheese he managed to steal off Hyeon. He picked up one drumstick and bit into it. The juicy meat broke on his teeth, tender and steaming hot. The first bite preceded the next greedy bites. It was so good that San thought he might cry again. Nabbing a bread roll, he wiped up gravy to stuff into his mouth.

“Easy there,” Seonghwa chuckled. “The food isn’t going anywhere.”

“Or are you used to food disappearing before you eat it?” Hongjoong asked with a knowing look. “You aren’t the only person here who’s used to going hungry.”

“How could you get hungry? You live here,” San asked, food in his mouth still.

“I didn’t always live here. Neither did Seonghwa.”

“Did you know who you were?”

“Yes.”

“Wait,” Seonghwa paused, “Did you not know you were a demon?”

“Not until I got here.”

“You mean to tell me that not only did your caregiver treat you poorly, but they never told you who you are?”

“Yes.”

Hongjoong laughed gleefully. “They’re going to get torn apart.”

“Rightfully so. You weren’t supposed to be here so early. You’re still a child.”

“I ain’t a kid.”

“Yes, you are,” said Seonghwa firmly. “Just because you’re not twelve doesn’t mean you’re not still a child.”

“Nobody treated me like one.”

“Because they didn’t care. I care. Hongjoong cares.”

He’d believe it when he saw it.

*****

Nothing beats coming home. Whether from a vacation or a night out, walking through the door into the comfort of familiarity relaxed the mind. San breathed much easier when he finally came home. He smiled seeing his bedroom, neat and tidy as he’d left it, and at the softness of his own bed. Seonghwa told Cook to make his favorite dinner for his homecoming; Hongjoong pulled out the “fancy shit” from their cellar. He appreciated his brothers’ attempts to make the event special, but the person who eclipsed them was you.

“No fair,” frowned Hongjoong when you walked into the dining room, “Nobody said to look hot. Seonghwa just told me to wear my ‘nice shirt’.”

San couldn’t take his eyes off you. In a velvet blue dress, he saw the tantalizing off-the-shoulders and the way the dress slimmed down to your shins. You’d put on the diamond necklace and earrings he’d bought you for your four month anniversary. He stared down your body as you walked to him and kissed his cheek. A single whiff of your expensive perfume had him capturing your lips with his.

“You look divine, Darling,” he grinned, taking in the shade of your lipstick and your upturned lashes. “And all for me?”

“All for you,” you agreed, kissing him once more before taking your seat at the table. “I wanted to look nice for you.”

“Do we really have to eat?” Hongjoong asked Seonghwa. He looked over to you, “She looks better than anything on this table.”

“Back off,” San joked, throwing a piece of his roll at him. “You sleep in your own bed tonight.”

“Oh come on,” he whined, “We missed you too Sannie. I think we should all celebrate you coming back home alive together.”

“We can do that another time,” he laughed at the weak attempt. He took your hand, noticing the ring on your finger. “I want my Darling all to myself tonight.”

“I’m not the one complaining,” you replied, smiling coyly at him.

“First course, please,” Seonghwa told one of the maids, who bowed and went to the kitchen. “This reminds me of his first homecoming.”

“His first homecoming?”

“He’d gone back home for a special assignment,” he said, buttering a bread roll. “On their 18th birthday, a demon is allowed one free kill. They get their choice of prisoner, living or dead, and can torment them however they see fit.”

“I tormented a guard from my reform school,” Hongjoong smirked over his wine. “I put a box of rats on his stomach and-”

“-San,” Seonghwa continued, “Was offered the pass too.”

“You killed someone?” you asked, surprised by it. “Who?”

“Lee Siwon.”

“Who’s that?”

“He was a gang boss who cheated, lied, stole, gambled, raped, and killed. He sold young boys to seedy old men. He forced kids to fight each other until they knocked out or died. He was your classic asshole criminal,” he picked at the soft inside of his roll, “My dad gave me the torment pass as a gift for my birthday. He said it was a right of passage for demons. You can really exercise your powers and spread sin everywhere at the same time. I could only think of one person when he asked me who I’d pick.”

“Was he still alive?”

“Surprisingly,” he nodded. “I figured he’d still be in the same city, extorting the same families and fucking the same kids. I got my pass and went home.”

“And he saw you?”

“No,” San grinned, recalling his one year back home, “And it drove him insane.”

“How?”

“General ghost stuff at first,” he shrugged. “I would open drawers and cabinets. I’d move stuff around his house and office. I’d make random noises in quiet rooms, open windows, and make radio static during his favorite songs.” He then laughed softly, “Every night at exactly 3:42am I’d turn on his water faucet. Not a steady stream, but enough that he’d hear it dropping. It drove him crazy. Then,” he ate the soft part of his bread, “I revved it up. I’d make him think people stole from him by taking money and hiding it around his businesses. I’d leave messages to make him think people in his gang were conspiring against him. Whenever he went to a drug deal, I’d either take money or damage the goods.” He laughed softly, “He finally spiraled when the market crashed, and he lost everything. Without me, he might’ve been able to survive with the money he’d kept hidden in one of his warehouses.”

“But you happened?”

“A huge fire started in the warehouse and destroyed property and the goods inside. By the time Siwon put the gun to his head, he’d completely lost his mind.”

San pictured his killer: Siwon, his hair streaked with gray, kneeling in his dusty apartment, sobbing as the agony took over. He remembered the man’s luxurious apartment having been stripped of anything valuable. Without a maid, and his wife having left him, Siwon surrounded himself with filth. Stuck in an apartment of trash, no money to his name with only the clothes on his back, Siwon had fallen. By the time San finished with him, nobody feared or respected Lee Siwon. He only revealed himself in those last few minutes, disguised as his fifteen-year-old self. Believing himself to be in a delusion of despair, Siwon didn’t question it when San made him see more children: the ones he forced into prostitution, the ones he put into fighting rings, and the ones he sacrificed on his path to fortune. The visions surrounded Siwon as he put the shotgun in his mouth.

“No talking gore at the table,” said Seonghwa as the first course was served.

“My favorite part was when he came home,” Hongjoong smirked, hardly noticing the soup bowl in front of him. “Seonghwa and I used to peep at him through the holes in his walls. We didn’t want to force him into anything, since we weren’t sure if he liked boys. Imagine our delight when Sannie walked into the lounge and,” he held back a laugh, “And told us if we wanted to see him naked, we could have just asked.”

“And then you guys fucked?”

“And then we fucked,” San confirmed, starting to eat the soup. A creamy chicken soup he’d fallen in love with when he first tried it. “What did you do while I was gone?” he then asked, wanting to change the subject.

“What happened between you and Siwon?”

“Huh?”

“You could have picked anyone, but you picked him.”

San’s eyes met Seonghwa’s from across the table. He preferred not to think about how he ended up in Hell in the first place.

“He killed me,” he said. “Well, indirectly. He put me to fight this kid that was twice my size and he beat me to death.”

“You've taken out guys bigger than you though. Jongho and Mingi have told me.”

“I was fifteen, skinny as a twig, and tired from running errands for him,” he answered. The image came to him as he spooned more soup. “If he and his friends wanted to watch a fight, they should have chosen grown men, not kids.”

“That's terrible,” you said. Like he knew you would, you picked up on his reluctance to continue. “I didn't do much.”

“Didn't do much?” Seonghwa said, astounded. “You learned how to make armor and weaponry with just your abilities.”

“You did?”

“It's not perfect. The bark is soft in some spots.”

“It can't be hard everywhere,” San said, “Otherwise you'll have trouble moving around when you're fighting. You can try filling up those weak spots with some kind of soft leather or mossy chainmail or whatever your flowery version would be.”

“What do you wear?”

“Breastplate, shoulder arm and shin guards.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s meant to be a costume as well as actual armor,” he explained, finishing off the small soup. “It’s in an old coliseum, so it has this Roman era theme to it. The armor protects most of the body, but leaves room for mobility. If every inch of me's covered in steel, I can’t move as quickly. The heavy armor would weigh me down because of my weight and-”

“-She’s been learning how to make living things with her plants too,” Seonghwa told him. “She’s managed to make flowers that sparkle like gems.”

“That’s great,” said San with a grin. “What have you made so far?”

You began telling him about what you called “gem stems': a beautiful range of different flowers that glittered and gleamed like gemstones. You’d managed to produce opal, rose quartz and amethyst flowers. Diamonds, rubies, and sapphires, you said, proved a bit more challenging for you, but you’d get it in the end. San found your creativity your most attractive trait. He saw the ensembles you wore, the way you redecorated your bedroom, and the plants you grew in your greenhouse. Everything you made turned out vibrant and beautiful. Seonghwa’s experiments might have had various shades of purple and red, but yours popped. He thought of the yellow-mouth flowers you’d made variations of in your greenhouse. Instead of only yellow, you had purple, pink, and orange-red ones. Octavius’s offspring came in hybrid forms now. Rather the purple hibiscus shapes, you’d merged them with sunflowers, roses, and tulips. Even the more dangerous flowers, who you called ‘Spike’ and ‘Rex’, bore interesting personalities and colors.

San wondered, as the conversation switched, about Francesca. He hoped Lucifer hadn’t harmed her. She’d already been in so much physical and emotional pain. Not only had she just given birth, but she’d lost her child. He’d thought someone might tell him what happened to her, but nobody breathed a word. The mother of Lucifer’s halfling children never seemed to matter to anyone. She was simply a vessel for the child who’d one day destroy the world.

He looked over at you, cutting into the steak dinner Cook prepared, and felt grateful. Demons could breed with other demons. Demons could not breed with humans, aside from Lucifer, the King of Demons. Demons and cambions did not typically reproduce because most demons considered cambions closer to humans. When he first entered you, he quickly thought about how you’d never have his children. He’d never met a woman he wanted to “mate” with until you. Knowing you better now, and knowing your status, it was possible. Not certain. It’d be difficult and there’d be many failed attempts, but not impossible.

But, what kind of father could he be if he’s unable to protect them? He’d been trusted to protect His Majesty’s child, and he could not do that. He’d failed in keeping the child safe. It’d likely been purified and turned into an angel by now. What if the same thing happened to you and he’d failed again? The image of you in Francesca’s place, laying flat on your back with blood pooling around your thighs and legs came to him. Some women died in childbirth. His mother claimed she’d nearly died giving birth to her last child, who’d come out deformed and sickly before passing a week later. He didn’t want that to happen to you. He didn’t know what cambion-demon pregnancies were like, but it could not be that different from normal ones.

“San?” your voice broke through his thoughts, and he saw you looking at him with concern. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Darling,” he said, pushing pictures of you lifeless and bloody from his mind.

You didn’t believe him. He saw your worry even as you went back to eating. San tried keeping up the charade by eating his own dinner. The meal ended with a variety of tarts San enjoyed. He devoured the peach tarts, while you’d dove into the strawberry tarts. Your appetite never ceased to amaze him. You told him in your past life, you’d waste time going on fad-diets to keep yourself from gaining more weight. Now, in a world where that doesn’t matter, you indulged more than you used to. Cook’s excellent skills made everything you tasted mouthwatering. San didn’t mind at all. He loved a woman who ate well; particularly the luscious curves that might result from proper appetite.

“I’m heading to bed,” you said once dinner ended, kissing each brother but lingering on his lips the longest. “This dress is nice, but not sleepwear. Right, San?”

“If you give me a few minutes,” he slid his hand down around your thighs to your ass, “I can help you take it off.”

“No, I want to keep it a surprise.”

You kissed him one more time before leaving the dining room. San downed the last of his wine before standing from the table. Seonghwa and Hongjoong instantly gravitated towards each other as they often did when alone. It reminded him of the first time he saw them together, and he shuddered.

“Looks like San is going to get a second dessert tonight,” smirked Hongjoong. Seonghwa cupped his jaw and kissed his cheek, “A nice, thick, yummy creampie.”

“Hush,” San laughed, cheeks turning hot. “I won’t be the only one tonight, it seems,” he said, nodding to Seonghwa. “You two have fun.”

“You too,” Hongjoong said, hazy from his tipsy state and Seonghwa’s full lips on his neck.

He walked out of the dining room to his bedroom. Sadly, he envisioned a child in the hallway. A beautiful girl with your eyes and hair, giggling and skipping joyfully. Perhaps a boy with his nose and jawline, playing with a wooden sword and pretending to cut down imaginary foes. San wanted to say you’d both be good parents, but could you really be? Andromeda was the kindest demon he’d ever met, who’d loved you with all her heart. You had some idea of how to be a loving mother, should you want to be one. But he didn’t grow up with such love and attention. Hyeon and Heechul despised him, and did nothing to hide it. He’d been another burden for them to bear. He never felt a mother’s warm hug and kiss or a father’s arm around his shoulders or patting his back. No fun holidays together. No cozy nights. Nobody comforted him when he cried or had a bad dream.

He didn’t have any of that until Seonghwa. Hongjoong might’ve been more of a sibling figure, but Seonghwa took on the parental role. He made sure San got a good education, that he ate well, bathed and tried making him the gentleman Hongjoong refused to be. He’d hated it at first because he saw it as a force to change. But, he soon learned Seonghwa didn’t want to change him, he wanted to help him. If San should imagine any father figure, it should be his oldest brother.

San walked into his apartment, not bothering to turn on the lights as he headed straight to bed. He pictured you, him and your child having come back from a family night out. You’d be in one of your lovely dresses, and he’d be wearing a suit and tie. Your kid would be put to bed first, wrapped up in soft pajamas and falling asleep as one of you read to him. Then, you’d both be alone. As he removed his jacket and unbuttoned his tie, the idea of domesticity between you both appeared to only sadden him. What if someone tried harming one of you, and he failed to protect you? What if he wasn’t quick enough? Strong enough? Brave enough? If he’d moved faster, he might have saved little Gisella. Lucifer would be delighted for another antichrist; lovely Francesca would be rocking the baby to sleep right now. But because of him and his hesitation, that had been shattered.

“This room hasn’t felt the same without you.”

San, unbuckling his pants, turned to see you leaning against the doorframe. You wore a lace night dress, a slit through the middle to reveal the matching underwear underneath. Your beauty usually distracts him from any thought in his mind, but not tonight. All he saw when he looked at you was Francesca and the baby he didn’t save.

“Has it?” he asked, knowing he had to say something to keep you from suspecting anything other than pure lust.

“It was empty,” you sauntered over to him, running your hands down his back and around his waist when he turned away. “And the bed was always cold.”

He felt your warm lips dot kisses on his shoulders, and your hands replaced his at his front. With deft hands, you undid his belt and fly, then lightly pulled at them until they pooled at his feet. In the mirror, he saw you clinging to him. He touched one of the hands on his chest, feeling the softness of your fingers and palms. Your fingers then intertwined. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing you.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, the temptress dropping in favor of the sweetness.

“Nothing,” he assured you.

“Liar,” you said, lips on his skin. “What happened up there? Who’s Gisella?”

“What?” He never recalled mentioning neither mother nor child to anyone.

“You said her name in your sleep,” you replied. You didn’t sound jealous. You sounded comforting, “Was that the baby’s name?”

“Yes,” he said, preferring not to lie to you.

“What happened to her?”

“She was taken. I…I didn’t get her back in time.”

“What do angels do with demon babies? They don’t…” you hesitated, then said, “They don’t kill them, do they?”

“No, they purify them,” he said. “They use their holy magic to sap out the demonic energy in their blood, and turn them into another angel. To Lucifer, that’s as good as death, but it’s more favorable than true death.” He stared at himself in the mirror. Even with all his muscles, speed and skill, he couldn’t protect the most important being in demonic history. “I’d nearly gotten her out. I was right there, YN. I was right at the exit into Hell, and they caught up to me. I…I tried fighting them off, and I did for a bit but then one of them caught me and she…” his chest tightened remembering the moment she slipped from his arms. “They caught her before I could. One of them stabbed me through my armor. I managed to stab my knife into their neck, but not in time to save her. They’d escaped through their own portal. I failed, YN. I was given one job. I had one job to do and I failed.”

“Just because you failed once doesn’t make you a failure. You did all you could-”

“-I have fought angels twice my size. I have fought against humans, demons, angels, archangels, cambions, and all the rest. I should have succeeded-”

“-You’re not always going to win,” you assured him, putting yourself between him and the mirror. “From what Seonghwa told me, the likelihood you would lose the kid was fifty-fifty. You might get the child away or you might not. It isn’t an indication of your skill or abilities.” You rubbed his arms comfortingly. While you have bite and bark, you also carried a gentleness he rarely experienced.

“I watched the birth happen,” he explained, “And the mother. She was so young, but carrying this big responsibility. I saw the pain in her eyes when she handed her baby over to me. She’d hoped I might be able to take her to safety, and I didn’t do that. The child she bore for weeks was gone, and she’d never see them again and it’s my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” you said bracingly. “She must’ve known what she was getting into when she agreed to get pregnant. Seonghwa told me all about it. He says every few years a woman is chosen to have his kid, and she has to consent before it happens. This woman knew there was a chance she’d lose them one way or another. Now, is it nice that it ended up happening? No. The kid getting taken is not your fault.”

“It is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is.”

“No, it isn’t,” you said more firmly. “You did the best you could.”

“I should’ve done better.”

“Stop that,” you cut him off. “Everyone always says what a great swordsman you are, but you’re not going to win every battle-”

“-What if that happens to you?” he said. He cupped your cheeks and looked into your eyes. Their shape and color had been his last thought before he slipped into unconsciousness. “What if something happens to you and you die because I wasn’t fast enough to act? What if we have a kid and they get hurt or die because I didn’t try hard enough? YN, you are the one person who matters most to me. I don’t want to lose you-”

“-Is there something that makes you think you will?” you said, touching the hand on your cheek. “I do have a shadow demon for a bodyguard, and Jongho and Yeosang aren’t weaklings either. There’s also two other demons who’d protect me just as much as you would. What makes you think something might happen to me?”

“The fear of losing something that makes me happy,” he said. “When I was growing up, nice things always got taken away. When I made some money, the witch took it from me. If I got a bit of food, she’d snatch it and give me the smaller piece. If I showed any sign of happiness, it disappeared somehow. I love you, YN,” he said, “And I don’t want anyone to take you from me.”

“Nobody is going to,” you assured him, kissing him lightly. “I’m not exactly defenseless either, you know,” you gave a small grin.

You extended your hand, and several thin vines extended from your hands and around his wrist. San hissed when the vines tightened around his arm, squeezing him until his arm seized up. As that happened, you flicked your other hand and out shot a spiked, magenta dart that lodged itself to the wall. San watched the barb start spreading a sizzling, black goo that burned a hole right through the stone.

“Where did you learn that?” he asked, impressed by the snake vines slithering back into your palm and the acid dart dropping to the floor.

“My Aunt Rhea,” you shrugged. “She’s been giving me self-defense classes. She says ladies need to know how to protect themselves from man-things. Gaia is the one who teaches me how to create and grow the flowers I work with now.”

“Your mother?”

He noticed your sad expression, “How to live again.” You held the hand you’d cut the circulation from, rubbing it gently, “How to feel whole and happy.”

“Were you not before?”

“Not truly,” you said. “I filled my life with meaningless, temporary happiness. I thought having lots of nice things and sleeping with good looking people made life worth it. But, now I realize how empty I’d always felt then. I never felt complete,” you brushed yourself up against him, “Until I met you and your brothers. I love you more than anything else, and not just because the sex is amazing.” The both of you shared a laugh, “I don’t want to lose any of you. I might have owned nice things, but the people I chose to share myself with didn’t stay long. I don’t want you to get bored of me and throw me out or trade me in for something better-”

“-There is no one better,” he reassured you. “No one.”

He stepped out of his pants, kicking them away as he cupped your bottom. This prompted you to leap into his arms, wrapping yourself around him tightly. He turned to the bed, where he laid you down gently before landing on top of you. Once your bodies met, his lips opened yours in soft caresses. The intoxicating natural drug in your mouth mingled with his own, and that familiar burning desire ignited between you. Usually, this sensation took him down a rabbit hole of overwhelming lust. Tonight, it didn’t seem to do that. This time, he felt nothing but tenderness as he slowly grinded himself into you. He wanted you, but not in the sexual, primal way. San didn’t want to fuck you until the sun came up. He didn’t want to ‘take you’ like an animal in heat. He wished to melt with you. After witnessing so much violence and blood, he wished every vein and muscle in his body sunk inside yours to make you one body.

‘You are the sun and I am the moon. Without your light, I am nothing.”

A quote Seonghwa read in a poem came to him as his hands slipped off the straps of your dress. Seonghwa was better with words. He grew up with poetry and literature while San could never get a grasp on it. He often forgot names of poets or authors or playwrights, but he understood their words. He felt them. This quote bundled everything he felt for you into two sentences. Now that he had you, he would be nothing if you left him.

“San,” you breathed his name between kisses, “Don’t be rough tonight.”

“I don’t plan to be,” he replied, pulling down the top half of your dress. He peppered kisses on your chest as your breasts spilled out of the cups. A nipple in his mouth, he sucked and licked softly. “I want to feel every inch of you.”

He exhaled deeply when your hands slid through his short hair and down his neck to his spine. Your hips slowly rocked against him, your thin underwear dampening between you. He wouldn’t use toys this time. He won’t call you dirty names, choke and slap you. San treated you with all the gentleness of a man holding fine china in his hands. He delicately handled your breasts, giving them gentle squeezes and sucking them until you whimpered. He did not bite them like he sometimes did. San teasingly wagged his tongue over each just to hear your soft gasps. He knew how much you loved having your nipples teased. It’s why they paid so much attention to them during those first few moments in bed.

Your excitement grew when he kissed between them and down to your pubic bone. Kissing along your hips, his arms wrung around your thighs so his hands massaged the inner sides. The mere scent and taste of you aroused him. He started at your knees before moving closer to your center, where you hitched a breath when he reached the very innermost corner. He kissed back up to your waist and to your breasts again. On the base of your throat he asked:

“Would you want one?”

You did not answer right away. You paused, staring at the ceiling. Right when he thought he’d ruined everything, you answered him. “Maybe? I never thought about kids before. I like kids, and babies are cute, but I never considered it. I never met anyone I wanted a family with, since most of them already had families.” Hands in his hair, you looked down at him. “But then, I met you.”

This brought you to his lips, where he kissed you as passionately as before. You both broke apart as if you’d just come up from underwater. You wrapped your legs around him as you kissed his neck. “Give me one,” you whined in his ear, rocking against him again, “Fill me up with one. I’d have one with you any time.”

He strengthened his arousal. His cock hardening against your inner thigh, he groaned as he pushed to your hips. His hands on your breasts, San moaned when a hand slid between you to his groin. He didn’t stop you from pulling him from his boxers to lightly stroke it. The pleasure it brought felt like nothing before. It might as well be the first time you two have touched each other. While he suckled your nipples, you took your time fondling his boner. He could feel your fingertips sliding over the most sensitive parts of his cock; he groaned aroundyour hard nipples whenever you gently squeezed the bulbous head. San knew he was larger than either of his brothers. They liked mentioning it whenever they shared a bed. The only thing that mattered to him was how much you liked it. Pushing into your fist, he thought of all the times you reached out and groped him.

‘I don’t know why. I just love having it in me. It hits the spot each time and makes me cum so much.’

San hooked his hand to the side your panties and slipped himself under them. The both of you shared a moan once his thick head touched your soft lips. He didn’t enter right away. San lifted himself up a bit more to see the two of you nestled together inside your wet panties. Your hands gripped his forearms for stability as you slid yourself up and down his tip and shaft. The sweet nub at the very top, hard and uncovered from its hood, dragged across the slit of his head. He took hold of himself just to move side to side over the sweet spot. You pulled your panties aside to give him a better view of your soaked pussy opening up to his throbbing cock. It made for a beautiful sight. He saw the need for him in your eyes, and he’d usually withhold it. San and the others enjoyed teasing you into madness, but not now. He sunk himself inside the tight entrance that clung to him. It brought a twinge of relief before he pulled out to keep rubbing.

“Don’t stop,” you said, moving your legs further apart to give him more room. “That feels so good,” your eyes fell shut as he sunk back in and pulled out a second time.

“It’s you that feels so good,” he groaned, sliding in and out a few times before withdrawing. He saw how wet you became each time he did it. “It’s your pussy that drives me absolutely insane,” he huffed a laugh, then groaned when he saw you stretched around his shaft. “It’s so tight every time,” he said when he pushed further inside, rolling his hips to get deeper, “It makes me want to breed you whenever we fuck.”

“Then breed me,” you said, head tilting back into the bed and hands gripping his arms tightly. “Cum deep inside until I’m bursting with it.”

Anything for you. Laying on top of you, arms sliding underneath your shoulders to keep you close, San fully plunged inwards. Even though his body begged him to go faster, he continued gradually. His lips found yours, and you each moaned into each other’s mouths. He never felt so close to one person, not even his brothers. Not a single soul alive made him feel the way you do. It was unlike any romance or feeling he had for anyone before. San needed you the way plants need sunlight; the way fish need water and birds need the sky. After what he’s gone through these past few days, he cannot be without you anymore.

Even when you managed to roll him over, you remained connected by a few inches. Arms on either side of his head, you kept kissing as you brought your hips up and down on him. The faint smacking of hips on hips joined your moans and groans. He felt down your back to squeeze your supple cheeks. He didn’t let go, but he didn’t spread or spank them either. He simply held you as you went at your own pace.

“San,” you whispered his name in the midst of your whimpers, “Sannie…”

“YN…” he replied, merely wanting your name to roll off his tongue.

You are the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Just like when he first laid eyes on the Black Keep, it nearly brought him to tears at times. He pushed his hips to yours, feeling his orgasm slowly climbing to the top. Your taut walls grew tighter as his tip hit that squishy piece inside, driving you to rock back and forth. He put one hand to your chin, thumb resting on your lower lip. The feeling of your tongue and lips around the digit made his jaw drop. You put his other hand between you to your clit, where he slowly rubbed it from top to bottom. He made sure you felt the pad of his thumb moving around over the middle.

He came right when you did. Your body stiffening, mouth hung open with his thumb still inside, you kept him buried deep as you shuddered on top of him. He removed his thumb to hear your moans uninterrupted, causing his own to drive further. He felt the distinct hot sensation of his cum shooting inside while yours covered him entirely. You planted yourself on him as his head stayed firmly on your g-spot, bringing overwhelming pleasure before it turned to sensitivity.

San didn’t pull out right away. With a bit of maneuvering, the both of you stayed connected against the pillows. You hugged him close as he continued pushing inside you despite his sensitive cock. More deep, passionate kisses resulted in him remaining hard for another orgasm. San lifted your knees up, curling you upwards to shove in at a different angle. When he broke away to look down, he saw thick white fluids mixing each time he slid outwards. This encouraged him to keep his strokes short and deep so nothing spilled too far out. He can’t breed you if he lets it seep onto the bed. That’s awfully wasteful.

“Fill me up with more,” you said, hands tugging at his scalp. “Please, San. Please.”

“As much as I can give you, baby.”

He did. He came inside until he felt empty. You enjoyed this part particularly because his orgasms also brought out yours. By the time he felt spent, he still did not pull out. Holding you to his chest, he brought the covers over the both of you as you kissed wherever your lips could reach.

“I love you,” the words escaped you in a single breath, staying as close as you could under the covers.

“I love you,” he said back, giving light kisses to your chin and lips.

While it was highly unlikely it’d take root inside you, San liked the idea of it happening. He’d do anything for you regardless of whether it happened or not. You meant the world to him. Seeing you fall asleep in his arms, San pictured it and smiled softly before kissing you one more time.

***

A/N: Such a fluffy good time! I kind of wanted to dial back on the kink for this one, so I hoped you guys still enjoyed it <3 Like and reblog! It keeps posts alive!

#pirateeznet #ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #choi san #san ateez #ateez san #san x reader #san x yn #san x you #ateez smut #san smut #choi san smut

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sorceresssundries · 10 days

Text

Until We Wake

Pairing: Gale/Tav

Warnings: Talk of death, afterlife, angst.

Word Count: 1000 words

A/N - I wanted to try and write something different, and move away from my usual overly-descriptive style.

I hope you like it <3

You are dead.

It was easy in the end. Like taking off a coat you’d been wearing too long.

There’s no confusion. You know you are dead, and it’s okay…Was okay? Is okay? Time is strange here. Slippery.

You are sitting at the edge of a great lake. Well, not really sitting, not really by a lake, but that’s how it feels. There is no sunshine, but you can feel the warmth of it on your—skin? No, not skin. There isn’t any skin. There isn’t a body at all. You just… are.

It’s nice, actually.

“God?” A voice, though not a voice, fills the space around you.

“Erm, no. Sorry. There may be one around somewhere, though,” you reply.

You sense a kind of exasperation.

“No,” it says, more insistently. “Which God is yours? Who did you worship?”

“Oh!” That’s funny. If you had lungs, you would laugh. “I didn’t really worship one.”

The silence that follows is heavy.

You’ve probably given the wrong response and are now going to drift here for eternity in silence. That doesn’t seem so bad. There’s peace in it.

“But, uh, I felt close to Selûne. I knew her daughter, actually. Aylin? I saved her once—no, twice! From an eternal cycle of ritual torture and sacrifice. Twice!” You pause, waiting for the weight of your heroism to settle in. “Can you write that down? Are you writing things down? I don’t really know how this works.”

“I am not writing things down.”

“Right. Okay.”

More time passes—seconds, hours, centuries. It is hard to tell. If experience has taught you anything, it’s that you should probably be a little hesitant about listening to mysterious entities who appear in your unconsciousness. But, for whatever reason, you have no doubt that you’re safe.

“Who are you?” you ask.

“Nobody.”

“Oh.” Another eternal pause. “Sorry, I don’t know what that means. I know you don’t have a body. I don’t either. What I meant to ask is... what’s your purpose here?”

“To help”

“Ah.” You think about that. It feels distant, though, like the thought isn’t entirely yours. “Can Withers bring me back? He usually does.”

“No. Not this time.”

That’s alright, you realise. Everything ends.

“Can you tell me how you died?” the voice continues, unhurried.

If sadness existed here, you would feel it.

“I failed somebody. I couldn’t convince him he was deserving enough to live. He sacrificed himself. I stayed with him.”

“Gale Dekarios,” comes the response. Even now, even here, the sound of his name warms you.

“Yes! That’s him! Have you met him? Is he here too?”

“He is not.”

You pause, a moment of confusion or relief, it’s hard to say. Perhaps he’s with Mystra.

He had followed her order, hadn't he? He had used the orb. Perhaps he was cradled back in her starlit palm. Perhaps he was finally fulfilled.

“He’s probably with his Goddess,” you say, matter-of-factly.

“He forgot his Goddess. At the end, he thought only of you.”

Right. He had said something like that once. On a boat he had built out of hope and stardust. It felt like a lifetime ago. You wish you had said more to him—something different. You should have been more convincing, made him see he was more than magic, more than martyrdom. He was kind. Funny. So very human.

Not anymore.

“Will I see him again?”

“Maybe”

This voice that’s not a voice is not hugely helpful. It feels distant. Somehow big and small. Like many voices, or none, all at the same time.

“I let him down,” you whisper, though no sound leaves you.

“He forgives you.”

What do they know of Gale? This mysterious spectre. Maybe it’s just your own thoughts, your desperation, trying to clutch at forgiveness. Maybe death has splintered you into fragments of yourself whispering back and forth. Maybe the afterlife is nothing more than talking to yourself in the quiet, with no one left to answer. A conversation in circles, where you are both the call and the response.

“You loved him" they say. It isn't a question.

“I did. I do. I always will.”

It's lucky you don't have a heart. It would be in splinters.

“Would you like to try again?” The voice offers.

Your thoughts pause, grasping at the idea. “You mean, go back? To the start? Is that possible?”

“Sometimes. Under certain circumstances.”

A chance to try again. At what? Saving Gale? Having a better life? A better death? Eventually finding your way back to this place, with no regrets holding you back?

You would like that.

“Will I remember this?”

“No.”

“Will he?”

“No.”

You could have had this conversation hundreds of times before, or perhaps it is the first and only. It is impossible to know.

“Ok. Yes, please.”

You can feel the pieces of yourself starting to come apart, like threads of a tapestry being unspooled by the oldest and gentlest of hands.

You reach out for those delicate, golden threads on instinct, but they slip away, and it is hard to know whether you are letting go of them or they are letting go of you.

Scratch the Dog. Karlach’s laughter. Night Orchids. Sunlight on scarred skin. Homemade cookies. Gale. Magic. A kiss.

You try to hold them tighter.

“How do I know I won’t make the same mistakes all over again?” you ask.

“You don’t,” the voice that wasn’t a voice says.

A silver sword. A man with horns dancing. Pipe smoke and bear fur. Taverns and temples and soft touches. Gale.

You’re trying to hold so many of them, you have to let others go. What is your name again? How old are you? Who were your parents?

Moonlight through shadow. A boat on make-believe water. A hand in yours. A purple dagger.

“Will I still be me?” You’re no longer sure what that means.

“That depends.”

The lake that wasn’t a lake, the warmth that wasn’t the sun, all of it begins to fade. You feel yourself pulled away, or maybe pulled together. You aren’t sure which—you just know you’re going somewhere, somewhen.

The voice speaks a final time as everything ends. As everything begins.

“Who are you?”

#bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale

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hedwig221b · 2 years

Text

“Where is he?” Stiles rumbled, glancing at each member of the pack in front of him, before settling his incinerating gaze on one person he once considered a brother. “Tell me, Scott, where is my husband?”

Stiles knew the moment it happened that something was terribly wrong. It was the middle of the night when he was woken up by a scorching hot fire, running up his entire body. It took him a full minute of panicked breathing to realize it wasn’t a nightmare, but the pain of his mate he felt through their bond. It stopped rather abruptly, but that did little to calm him.

He didn’t feel Derek. On the other end of the bond, blessedly still existing, there was no usual warmth and steady presence. There was nothing but agonizing emptiness.

Stiles knew, he felt that it was wrong to let Derek pick up their son from Beacon Hills alone. Eli whined all week that he missed his grandpa and Derek, who couldn’t for his life say ‘no’ to their son, volunteered to drive him over for a mini-vacation.

Stiles should have listened to his gut, tell his boss to fuck off and go with them.

It took one wave of a shaking hand to open the portal. He didn’t care about the magic exhaustion. He wanted his husband.

To say that BH residents were shocked to see the empty space in front of them tearing apart in a strobe of lightning…

“I couldn’t do anything,” Scott shook his head, looking up at him remorsefully. Stiles learnt long ago not to believe him.

“Papa!”

Eli.

Stiles raced to his son, who was sitting on the cold ground, reaching with both of his hands towards him. His entire face was red and wet from tears, though his eyes shined beautiful gold.

“Oh, pup,” he murmured, taking Eli into his arms. The boy put his forehead on his shoulder and sniffed silent tears. It was obvious he was in too much of a shock to tell anything — Eli clutched at his father’s back, digging into the skin with the claws, but Stiles paid them no mind.

As Stiles shushed his pup, scratching the back of his head, he looked up at Scott with murder in his eyes.

“Where is he?”

“Nogitsune,” Stiles’ father rasped. He looked almost as awful as his grandson.

“He sacrificed himself,” Scott interrupted him, clenching his jaw. “For the greater good. For the pa—“

Stiles shut him up with a growl he learnt from his husband.

“We have our own pack!”

“He helped kill the nogitsune,” Scott insisted, stepping closer, but then immediately flinching backwards at Stiles’ glare. “He died as a hero.”

Eli’s anxious and terrified breathing grew heavier.

“Shh,” Stiles muttered in his messy hair. “He didn’t die, pup, it’s alright.”

He didn’t know what the fuck happened that brought the fucking thing back, but apparently it had something to do with Derek’s disappearance.

Oh, he would never allow them to take another step in this forsaken place anymore.

“Nogitsune can’t be killed,” he grit out, taking Eli’s hands from him and standing up. “Dad, look after him. Take him to your house, make a mountain ash circle — he’s not in control yet.”

“Stiles…”

“Our bond is alive,” Stiles shouted, making everyone shut up again. “I don’t see a body, and I bet you didn’t scream, either,” he thrust an accusatory finger at the banshee, who just looked away in shame. “If I’m not back in an hour, call Kira.”

---

“Papa?”

“Yes, pup?”

Eli stomped in one place near the bedroom door, glancing nervously at Stiles. He was afraid to look at his dad’s scarred face.

“Is he gonna live?”

Stiles looked up from his husband’s burnt red skin on his torso, but didn’t stop moving his glowing golden-white hands in an intricate pattern of healing magic. Derek already looked better than fifteen minutes ago. By the morning, Derek wouldn’t feel an ounce of pain and all his scars will be gone.

“Of course,” he smiled tiredly. “You know dad’s a tough cookie.”

Eli shuffled towards the bed and fell on his knees in front of it, putting his chin on the bed. He leaned on his side, putting half of his weight on Stiles’ legs. His big eyes didn’t leave his dad’s still body.

Stiles wanted to hug his little boy so much, but it will have to wait. For now he just nudged Eli with his toes, making him look up at him.

“I’m proud of you, Eli,” he said quietly. Eli squeezed his eyes shut and put his temple against Stiles’ knee, breathing harshly. “You shifted. That’s amazing.”

“Lot of good it did,” Eli muttered. “If I was faster…”

“Nuh-uh, the guilt wagon is stopping right now,” Stiles shook his head. “Dad wouldn’t have risked taking you with him back to that inside-out place. None of this is your fault, kiddo.”

Eli sniffed.

Suddenly, Derek grunted something under his breath. All attention instantly zeroed on the wolf, both his mate and his son waiting with bated breath for another sign of consciousness. One of Derek’s hands, lying closest to the edge, moved bit by bit, until it reached Stiles’ knee.

Eli sniffed once again, then carefully took his dad’s hand, mindful of still healing burns, and put it on Stiles’ knee, then laid his head on top. Clever pup, letting his Alpha know his pack was here.

“Eli,” Derek breathed out, his eyelids fluttering.

“Shh,” Stiles shushed immediately, lightly caressing his cheek with his glowing hand. “He’s alright.”

“Stiles.”

“I’m here, love. You’re safe.”

Derek relaxed once again, falling into much needed sleep.

“See,” Stiles said with a relieved smile, looking down at Eli, who finally had some hope in his puppy eyes and a wobbly smile on his lips. “Everything’s gonna be alright.”

ao3

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scribble-dribble-writes · 1 year

Text

Ponderings

---

Pairing: Miguel o'hara x female reader

Word count: 1000

Warnings: none, pure fluff

Content: emotional vulnerability, He confesses his love for you hehe

For the vibes:

---

“Tell me.”, he coaxed you as he rubbed your back.

Your mind had been miles away, lost in thought about what the future could hold for you. But his soft voice brought you back to relish the warmth of his arms and breathe in the same rhythm as him.

“Nothing.”, you said as you turned to him, resting your chin on his collarbone as he looked at you. You were comfortable where you laid, over his body and he didn’t seem to mind either. This was how he preferred it, to always be near you or hold you because with every breath you took, it reassured him of the present, that he was in the only universe that mattered.

“Don’t lie to me, mi corazon.”, he grinned as though he knew every thought in your mind or that he could boast that he knew you extremely well. You scrunched your nose at his accuracy because it was true, he knew you best.

“I was thinking about what lies ahead.”, you confessed to which he hummed, his hand never leaving the extent of your body, but now he leaned forward to kiss your forehead.

“My area of expertise.”, he spoke and you could feel his smile against your skin before he pulled away.

“el futuro del mundo?”, he proded as though your answer hadn’t quite satiated his curious mind.

“O la nuestra?”, as much as he was relaxed, you could see the tension behind his eyes.

“Ours.”, you responded, not wanting to keep him waiting or scare him off. This topic was a hard conversation to have, especially when this was your first time being in a relationship. But the moment he sensed change, or over thought about the worst outcome, he would push you away and that made it all the more difficult to convey your wants and desires.

You could see his throat bob as he gulped and it often made you wonder how someone as fierce as him could be scared of anything, let alone to have a conversation about feelings.

“Why worry about it, mi vida?”, he shrugged.

“Why question it when it’s still good?”, he glanced away and you could sense his unease. The panic had begun to rise.

“Miguel.”, you cooed his name as you sat up, your legs straddling his abdomen as you slipped your hands into his.

“It is good.”, you tell him, letting him calm down as he intertwined his fingers around yours.

“I’m… I’m new to all this.”, he said quietly, not meeting your gaze.

You smiled, this was a break through, he wasn’t running away.

“I am too.”, you reassured him, holding onto his hands because you needed some courage as well. Confessing what you felt, it felt scary all of a sudden.

“Then what is it?”, he pleaded, his brows knitting together in worry.

“Do you want to – he paused as he began to muster strength to finish the sentence.

“break up?”, he asked, his chest deflating and almost instantly everything made sense. His evading responses, his starving touches and longing glances, he feared you wanted to leave.

“No.”, you exclaimed as though he had said something blasphemous.

“Never.”, you settled back into the quite rhythm.

“Ok.”, he replied, easing into the cushions, his thumbs drawing absent minded circles over your knuckles.

“Ok.”, he repeated but more quietly. As though that was for himself.

Your fear gripped you, about what you were going to say. But it also let lose the butterflies and the magic, your heart beating faster than it should. You couldn’t keep still under his gaze anymore, so you rested your head under his neck as he adjusted himself to wrapped his arms around you.

“I was pondering about our future because,”, you paused as you felt his hand rise up to cup your cheek, to pull you away and make you meet his sugar brown eyes.

“because?”, he asked, his eyes now dipping low to see your lips before meeting your eyes again.

“because I want us to be more than what we are now.”, you took the jump.

You closed your eyes because you caught the volatile change in the colour of his eyes. It did that when he was excited or over joyed and you knew you would forget the words if you continued to look at him.

“because I’ve fallen in love with you “, you said it quickly and rested in his hold, waiting in the silence for his response.

He was well known for being a recluse, for never indulging in long relationships. So you stood at the edge of getting rejected, a common fear you both shared and yet you were sure of one thing, that being with him was more important than succumbing to your anxiety.

He laughed and you pop open your eyes. Miguel o’hara, was laughing and you weren’t sure if you had to be hurt by it. But the rich sound of his joy filled the room and you didn’t want him to stop.

“I'm being serious.”, you laugh along, feeling surprised and confused.

But when his eyes found yours again, you gasped. They weren’t red, they were hazel and his pupils were heart shaped, his cheeks flush with colour as he paused to look at you as though you were the only one to exist, the only one he had chosen.

He pulled you closer, your lips an inch away from his as he whispered, “Dilo otra vez, cariño.”

You smiled as you repeated what you said.

“I love you, Miguel o’hara.”, you nuzzled his nose with yours.

“The new question is, do you feel the same?”, you asked. He was loved by many, revered by all.

But would he ever love someone like you?

Your heart beat in your throat as you waited.

But your very question had set loose something within him as he kissed you blind and anywhere he wished.

Your cheeks, the tip of your nose, under your jaw, the length of your neck as he proclaimed, “te amo”

“te amo, te amo, te amo …”, he chanted as if that was the only incessant thought that ran through his mind, that he had mulled it over and kept it a secret which now was finally free to see the light of day.

His lips found yours and you held the sides of his face, your fingers getting lost in his hair as he deepened the kiss, that there should be no doubt in your system of what he felt for you.

“sólo te quiero a ti”, he spoke against your lips.

“I only want you.”, he repeated it as though it was the only truth that remained the same in all languages.

You smiled, your eyes fluttering to a close because there was nothing else to ponder or worry and think about. There was only him, his beating heart beneath your palm and the sound of his voice telling you he loved you.

“Good to know.”, you whispered as you pulled the ends of his collar to kiss him again.

---

His eyes turn heart shaped for a second when he's watching the old videos of his past life, so I chose to use it here because it made me feral when I saw it the first time.

#miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel x reader #miguel ohara #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara fluff #miguel o'hara fanfiction #spiderman 2099 #into the spider verse #spiderverse #across the spiderverse #Spotify

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weirdsht · 2 months

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Hello! Good morning lol. I hope you're doing well :₱ i gotta say ur writing is good and addicting. I keep coming back it's eating me alive

I have a thought abt ur recent yan!cale post :₱

What if Cale actually got sum magical jewelry on the reader that prevents their risky, suic1d∆l powers from working? The reader realizes it's basically stuck to them and is unable to take it off, remaining stuck unless someone powerful in magic, like Eruhaben, removes it personally. They feel off about it at first, though they eventually accept it because it was Cale who really wanted it on them, and they believe that he's someone who wants nothing but the safety of his loved ones. But then---

Reader gets kidnapped, gets harmed in the worst way possible-

Lol sorry, idk why but yandere cale is so-

😆💞

Blood-Red Garnet - Yan!Cale/Reader

notes: my visualization for the bracelet

tags: gender-neutral reader, yandere cale, torture and injuries (nothing too graphic), hints of possessiveness, hints of unhealthy relationship and dependency but reader doesn't realise it

English isn’t my first language so there will be grammatical errors

Pls don't repost my work anywhere without my permission

Constructive criticisms and any kind of interaction are more than welcome

Requests are currently closed but my ask are still open (read navi)

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A shiny gold bracelet with a piece of blood-red jewel in the middle was dangled in [name]’s face by Cale. It was a gift, or so he says. Told the ability user that it’s both an accessory and a preventative measure.

“Preventative measure? For what?”

“For your abilities. I don’t want you dying on me because of your reckless power.”

[Name] wore the bracelet even though they were hesitant at first. Their ability was their primary way of fighting. However, Cale was right. That ability is too dangerous. Plus, they still know how to wield a sword and fight hand-to-hand combats so they should be fine.

“By the way you can only use your abilities if I allow it or if a dragon dispels the magic on that thing.”

Right..?

Apparently not.

[Name] desperately stares at the three pieces of garnet in their bracelet. As if it would magically come off if they stared at it hard enough.

When the ability user first got the bracelet they were happy whenever they looked at the garnet it holds. The colour reminds them of Cale’s hair. Reminds them that the young master gifted it to them because he was concerned for their well-being.

However, now the jewel brings them frustration. The enchantment was placed on those three small circles. If only [name] can remove them.

Then maybe they won’t be subjected to this torture anymore.

“Your beloved commander won't save you. Just tell us where he is right now and whether or not his unconscious. We’ll let you have a quick death once you do.”

“If I’m gonna die either way then I’ll gladly keep everything to my– AHHH!”

[Name]’s words got cut off as another one of their fingers was broken by the torturer interrogating them.

“Are you sure you can take more of this? I can still break your toes if you’re so adamant.”

The torturer mocked them. Gently caressing his fingers over their feet before looking back again at their messed-up fingers.

[Name] merely laughs. They might be beaten up and have no way of fighting as their ability is suppressed, but they won’t say anything. Not now, not ever.

“Torture me all you– keugh! All you want. You won’t get an ounce of information from me.”

Despite being beaten up and coughing up blood, the ability user still had a smile on their face. A mocking smile that seems to rival their torturer’s mocking tone earlier.

The torturer’s face contorts in anger. He looked as if his ready to kill the ability user. Honestly, [name] thinks that would be better. They were getting tired too, they didn’t know how much more pain they could take.

Craaaaack! Psshhh

Just about when the torturer was raising a sword to inflict more pain on [name], a red thunderbolt suddenly fried the man. He was thoroughly burned to a crisp, almost like chicken deep fried in oil.

It was so strong that everyone within the vicinity could feel the anger of those thunderbolts.

And [name] didn’t need to see where it came from to know that it was Cale who did that.

“[Name]! We’re here to rescue you! I’m sorry for being late, I’m sure Saint Jack can heal you…”

Raon spoke in their head while supporting their back. His voice sounded as if he was crying. [Name] could also feel their back becoming wet.

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine”

The ability user comforted the toddler. They want to pet him but it’s impossible due to the state of their hands. Raon nodded, his cheeks squishing on [name]’s back. Once he regained his composure he used flight magic on them so they could get out of the cell.

Crash! Bang! Tak!

Outside was chaotic. At the centre of that chaos was Cale and all of his ancient powers running rampant. His face was contorted in something that can only be described as fury. All their other friends had to keep their distance because it almost looked as if the redhead was not in the right state of mind.

“The human has been like that ever since you got kidnapped! I don’t think I’ve seen him that angry.”

Raon tattled as they went closer to Cale. Despite looking like his out of his mind he had enough sanity left to create a path for [name] and Raon.

Cale’s face softened for a moment when he was face to face with [name]. However, it didn’t last long once he saw their state. There’s blood flowing out of their mouth. Wounds of varying degrees littered across their body. Not to mention the absolute wreck of a state their hands are in.

“I’ll be fine.”

[Name] tried to assure Cale who was stroking their cheek. But he isn’t having it. He could see how the ability user is using every fibre of their being to not wince. Probably so that Raon won’t cry anymore.

“Yes, you’ll be fine.”

Cale will make sure of it.

But for now, he must take care of these lowlifes that dare touch what’s his.

“Sleep. When you wake up we’ll be back home.”

Following Cale’s words, [name] closed their eyes. Succumbing to sleep as if the chaos happening behind them didn’t exist.

“Raon, Saint Jack is down there with Rosalyn. Tell him to make sure not a single scar will remain on [name]’s body.”

His negligence already allowed someone else to take his [name], he’ll be damned if he allows another man’s mark to linger on their body.

“Once we get home let’s ask Eruhaben-nim to put some defensive spell in that bracelet.”

“Let’s do that human! We’ll be going now! Be careful, I know you’re angry but you can’t cough blood!”

With that, the toddler used his magic to [name] to where Jack is. Leaving Cale to run wild.

Best to say that no enemy got out of that place alive after Cale was done with them.

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bonecarversbestie · 3 months

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It seems like the Inner Circle has a "wait and see if it magically gets better" approach when it comes to the Archeron’s mental health.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Feyre came to them when she was at her lowest and being around them made her better because she was with her mate, she was training, she had friends who gave her power and that was exactly what Feyre was looking for.

And that was great for Feyre, but it seems the IC and Feyre expect this same tactic to apply to her sisters too, and they become either resentful or complacent when it doesn’t.

Winter solstice is a good example of this. Feyre paid Nesta to come to a holiday that she did not want to attend. Nesta attended and was polite, sat quietly, thanked her sister for her presents and left, and everyone acted like she was so rude and that she's stubbornly refusing to get over what happened in the war. I think that bias comes from that scene being written in Feyre's POV. Feyre is a character without much empathy. She simply doesn't understand why being around her precious Inner Circle isn't magically healing Nesta like it did for her.

This goes for Elain, too. In ACOWAR when it was clear Elain was suffering, who tried to help her before Lucien got there? The IC seemed to decide not to try and do anything with Elain and Nesta until Feyre got there to tell them what to do. And when Elain started to do better, they kinda just forgot about her trauma. Like they assumed she was healed just because she has an easy life in Velaris amongst the ✨IC✨💕.

You could also argue that Feyre didn’t heal in Spring for related reasons. Tamlin clearly wanted very badly to help Feyre, but none of his attempts were working and it made him neglectful and short tempered. But truthfully, I’m not sure there was ever much he could have done to help Feyre. He could have done better than he did, don’t get me wrong, but I think he’s often given credit for damage caused by Amarantha and Feyre needed her Mate and new home and new family to heal, and Tam could never be that.

And isn’t that kinda the pattern that SJM is following? Woman finds her mate and found family and they help her heal? For Feyre, it was Rhys and the IC and for Nesta it was Cassian (kinda 🙄) and the Valkyries. I have no doubt it will be the same for Elain. Lucien will undoubtedly be the only one who bothers to notice she’s still suffering and she will find healing with him and her own found family (whoever they may be).

It is mentioned several times that the Archerons were never a close family. I think they were always destined to go their own separate ways in the end.

#elain archeron #nesta archeron #Feyre archeron #pro elain #pro nesta #feyre critical #anti ic #ic critical #feysand #nessian #elucien #feylin #tamlin acotar

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motherfuckingmaneater · 8 months

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I hate when writers make Bellatrix this weird short curly haired goth girl who everyone bullies because that’s so out of character. Like, she’s literally the first of the newest generations of Blacks to go to Hogwarts, everyone would be in awe of her because of the rumours they hear about Blacks, even the other families in the sacred 28 — and damn does she live up to her reputation. She’s snooty and arrogant and up herself but she’s so proficient with a wand there’s no way she hasn’t been learning magic since before she could walk or talk. She’s intimidating even at the age of 11 with perfect sleek black waves and the exact shade of dark grey eyes which are only known to the Black family. She’s from the most ancient and noblest pureblood house there is and she damn well acts it. Of course all the Slytherins want to be her friend and the rest of the school despite being high-key very afraid of her want to either be her or be with her. She comes back after summers with a subtle tan and an aura of dark magic surrounding her, the most mysterious girl at school. She has the most thrilling laugh, mostly because she doesn’t laugh often, but it captures everyone’s attention. She’s no brute either like mulciber, crabbe, goyle — she’s too arrogant, disdain marking her features because if you’re not worth talking to she won’t (unless to utter a hex or two if you’re really truly unlucky). She has an exclusive circle that’s impossible to get into without invitation, but she’s so so charming. She plays her professors so beautifully, playing nice with Slughorn when he invites her to club dinners and parties. Even Dumbledore can’t help but like her despite her particular proclivities for dark magic. She’s a prefect too and she’s always scoring top marks in classes. She’s even thrown Tom riddle off a few leaderboards. Those kids who do hate her? They hate out of jealousy, anger, resentment — she’s not afraid to put them in their place, but they rarely speak out. Why would they against a Black witch? They’re known for their dark magic and curses, they won’t risk her wrath, she could curse their entire bloodline and look gorgeous doing it. She’s intimidating as all hell anyway, tall and with a dark beauty, privilege and nobility written across her face, so it’s not worth their time. Don’t tell me she was bullied or a bully, there’s no way Bellatrix fucking Black was anything less than the most infamous pureblood princess to grace those unworthy halls.

#sorry like #I fucking hate the way she’s portrayed in some of these fics #so cringe #bellatrix lestrange #bellatrix black #bellatrix black lestrange #the most noble and ancient house of black #the ancient and most noble house of black #Maneaters headcanons and studies

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soobrat · 2 months

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fuck up my life; hjs

milestone celebration masterlist

MINOR CHANGES MADE TO PREV ACT!

˗ˏˋ🎧´ˎ˗ pairing; han jisung x afab!reader

˗ˏˋ🎧´ˎ˗ words; 9.7k

˗ˏˋ🎧´ˎ˗ genre; this isn't your average every day angst, this is... advanced angst (+ a smidge of smut)

˗ˏˋ🎧´ˎ˗ warnings; very toxic relationship, two deplorable dirty cheaters, violence, graphic descriptions of injury (not for the squeamish), vague PIV, flashback mini smut, let me know if I missed anything, they're just cruel okay?

↻ ◁ || ▷ : I've never rewritten something as much as I've rewritten this. It's a big chapter (in terms of what happens) but it's still... well you'll have to read it. There's a reason the only smut is a flashback.

act ii ➻ glimpse of us

“Are you sure about her, Minho?” Something about Chan’s tone told you he wasn’t going to respect Minho’s decision either way.

Minho sighs, you can tell he’s already sick of this. “Her and I have been together since we were freshmen. You guys don’t know her like I do.”

“I know her.” You inch a little closer, dangerously close to the doorway. Is Changbin there? Why the fuck is Changbin there?! “The amount of times I’ve been in detention with her, I know her plenty. I know she used to flirt with every guy there. Including me.”

Fuck, fuck. Minho doesn’t know about that, he doesn’t know about any of the shit Changbin saw. They never crossed paths in high school, so why the fuck is he here?

“That doesn’t matter, it’s been years since then. Ever heard of maturing? Bet you haven’t.”

You wince. You’re happy he’s sticking up for you, but his tone reminds you of your first time meeting his family. The way they reacted to his tone showed you this wasn’t normal for him. You gut clenches. Was his mom right?

“I know her, too.”

Your heart had effectively fallen out of your ass at the sound of Seungmin’s voice.

“I probably know her better than you. I say get out while you can. You can’t fix whatever she’s got going on.”

Your eyes glaze over, facing the wall but not focusing on anything. You’ve never heard Seungmin talk about you like that. This is it. There’s nothing he could use to paint Seungmin as unreasonable. Chan was an unlikable, judgmental asshole far before you came into the picture and Changbin was a drunken imbecile who flunked out of high school. But Seungmin… Seungmin was the only thing you and Minho had in common before you met. He’s a great person and even better friend. Not the type to talk shit about people or judge them unless it was truly warranted.

The type to properly convince Minho that his mother was indeed right about you changing him for the worse.

“Hey Seungmin,” You hear a chair get pushed back, the legs screeching against the wooden floor agonizingly slow. You hear the impact and the sound pulled from Seungmin because of it. You hear all of Minho’s friends react in shock and anger. You hear them order him to leave, hissing that he’s throwing his life away for a toxic bitch.

You stand there stunned, forgetting to skitter away before Minho walks out of the door. He looks down at you numbly, but you can see the regret seeping into his expression. He throws an arm around your shoulder and the two of you walk away from all his friends.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

Jisung thought this would be the perfect environment.

“What compelled you to make that choice?”

Jisung asks himself that every day. He couldn’t dig for an answer, so it wouldn’t magically come to him now. But when he looks around after several minutes of quiet introspection, he sees a circle of impatient faces. It doesn’t distract him enough that his brain will stop flashing images of what Jiwoo will look like once he tells her this, but the words materialize nonetheless.

He’s anxious yet determined while he reevaluates these words before he speaks them into existence.

“Jisung. Jisung wake up!”

He shoots up, brain on red alert as he looks around. Jiwoo’s jaded sigh sends fury coursing through Jisung’s veins. He looks down at his soiled underwear.

“Again?! It’s so– it’s so fucking disgusting! Clean it up!” Jiwoo kicks the comforter away before storming out of the room. Jiwoo has gained a lot of colorful language lately. Despite that, she is still shaking him awake for a drizzle of jizz. The two of them don’t even face each other in bed anymore, so she doesn’t have any on her. She wakes up at the crack of dawn, fucking rolls him over to check if it happened, and sounds the alarms like it’s defcon goddamn one. And if it’s that urgent for her and only her, why doesn’t she go sleep on the couch and leave Jisung the fuck alone? Now he’s going to function on less sleep at his job that provides sorely needed income for their new home.

Jisung snatches the bedding off the mattress, obeying her wishes like he always does. Fuming silently.

The memories crackle under his eyelids like torturous fireworks. All the moments that nudged him again and again and again until he was teetering off the edge of his admiration for Jiwoo.

After a quick inhale and beat of hesitation, the words are close to flying free like newly unshackled birds dancing in the wind.

“My fiancée is a... m-my fiancée and I just need work.” Jisung cracks an awkward smile, reeling those angry thoughts back in and locking them up. He can't say things like that in a room full of strangers.

He looks around to see a room full of confusion and indifference. The instructor gives him a sympathetic look.

"Any one else wanna share?"

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

“We might as well get some bleach.” Jiwoo gestures half-heartedly at a bottle of bleach on the shelf. Jisung glares at her, knowing she’s not going to even look at him to give her demands. He rips the bleach off the shelf and drops it into the cart with a loud, heavy thud. She finally looks over at him, agitated.

“Why don’t you get extra detergent while you’re at it? Maybe two bottles since the washing machine has been working overtime.” Jiwoo is looking now, her eyes posing a challenge. She’s noticed the pissy attitude that Jisung has by now. Instead of getting upset that he is constantly annoyed in her presence like he thought she would, she goads him to do something about it.

Jisung tongues his cheek, knowing he could drop a bomb on her that would send her crumbling to the floor in tears. She’s gotten too comfortable with disrespecting him. It started with the sheets, but there were certain jabs and insults that revealed her true feelings.

“Maybe if you went for a jog or even to the gym, your brain would have something else to think about other than sex, sex, and sex.”

“Look at the bags under your eyes. It’s 9 am for god sakes. You didn’t work late yesterday either, you’re just sleeping half the day away.”

“This house is a mess every time I get back! I mean— how hard is it to put the cereal box back on top of the fridge? And your snack wrappers are beside the garbage can. Trash goes in the can.”

“What happened to those hobbies of yours?”

He should’ve told her then, but he really wants to tell her now. He goes to look her in the eye but notices she’s looking past him in confusion. He turns, flinching when he sees a face he recognized. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t know who he was after such a reaction, but he couldn’t fool himself into believing he didn’t recognize him either. He could never forget a face that exhibited such rage, pain, and regret.

“Do we know you, sir?” Jiwoo asks, voice losing its intensity from earlier.

Minho… that was the name you pleaded for in your sleep. The one you whispered in fear when he found out about the two of you. Right now he just has rage in his eyes.

Minho walks away without a word. When Jisung looks back at Jiwoo, her face is softer. She looks at him with doe eyes, the ones that appear when she’s not aware she resembles a fawn. Moments like these twist Jisung’s stomach even more. Times where Jiwoo is like her old self, no defensiveness or agitation. It’s the Jiwoo he fell in love with, whose image is eroded through his eyes in favor of someone else. No matter how much he forces himself, he doesn’t remember that moment when she broke his favorite anime figure when she makes that face. He remembers the first time he caressed your face after he finished doing unspeakable things to you. The way you looked at him in adorable horror, horror he couldn’t really decipher then.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

You could kind of smell his body wash, but the smell of mildew was overwhelming. Not enough for you to peel the towel off your pillow.

Minho left the house spotless. He cleaned up after your tantrum, and despite hours of back and forth with yourself, you can’t figure out whether he did it before or after he decided to leave. Did he clean it out of empathy? Picking up the glass with his bare hands and not caring if it cuts him because he’s so torn up that he hurt you? Or did he do it with a smile he couldn’t hide, skipping as he moved around the apartment he’d finally be abandoning for a better life?

You took a lot of time opening cupboards and drawers trying to find one sign of him ever being there. The only thing you found was a towel he used after a shower and left on the sink.

After some time in a psych ward, you decided to leave that house before it killed you. So you never did find out if he came back for it.

You let the older woman who owns the complex know you’d be moving out. She was confused, unaware that Minho had left.

“I speak to him all the time and he never told me.”

Light swam in your eyes for the first time in months. You take a quick inhale, darting your tongue out to moisten your cracked lips as you think through your next move. You could ask her to tell him that you’re okay. That you miss him. That you love him so much. But he wouldn’t be able to see your face, that there’s no shit eating grin or feigned regret.

“Tell him that I’m moving out, so he doesn’t have to pay for the apartment anymore. Please.” The smile you force flickers off your face immediately after. You breeze past her with your bags before she can pry.

The view from your window is less bleak, and you’re no longer faced with empty areas that used to be filled with Minho. This is the place you and Minho used to talk about leaving to. He was frantic because his friends were urging Seungmin to press charges. You saw Seungmin not long after that, one side of his face swollen and bruised. That visual made you sick, so you didn’t mind Seungmin glaring at you and turning the other direction.

Thankfully, Seungmin never pressed charges.

You laugh, the silly manner in which you do so pushes you to laugh more. You spoke about leaving to this very place with two different men and you’re still here alone. You’re truly amazing.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

Another day, another useless, petty fight.

“It’s not normal, the way you are. I don’t care what your bros say, I don’t care what those dude movies tell you, most men aren’t like this. They aren’t animals who go feral at the sign of a tit!”

Jisung chuckles, he can’t help it. Jiwoo uses her new naughty words like a child. He gets more pissed off looking at her smug face, so he’s glad it’s fading after he laughed.

“Something funny? There’s nothing funny about you being a pervert.”

“You don’t even know.” Jisung mutters before laughing again.

Jiwoo moves closer, her brows lowering until they are perched right on top of her eyes. “What did you say?”

“I said what is the goal here? You bitch at me every day and I’m still the same.” The words fly free and Jisung feels lighter because of it. Jiwoo looks offended, the goading she’s been doing for weeks now finally working.

“I bitch? Is that what I do?”

“Yes! You bitch at me at the crack of dawn–”

“9 am isn’t the crack of dawn!”

“I work late! My sleep schedule doesn’t just change because I don’t work two days out of the week! I’m! Tired!” Jisung’s volume goes flying against his will. Jiwoo flinches, this sudden change from Jisung pushing her to be incensed. She opens her mouth to fire back but Jisung is on a roll.

“You call to bitch at me at work, you bitch at me when I come home, you bitch to yourself about me when I’m in the other room. All you do is bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.” It’s Jisung now that sounds like a child discovering naughty words as he hurls them at his fiancée.

The breath Jiwoo exhales is shaky, her eyes glassy. She raises her hand, jaw dropping open to say her response but she stops. She hesitates in silence and Jisung’s anger builds while he watches her. Is she really hurt because he retaliated? Isn’t that what she’s egging him on to do?

“Go on! Say what you were going to say.” His volume still high, he causes Jiwoo to flinch after standing in silence for so long.

““You don’t even know”... That’s what you said, right?” Jiwoo’s goading face is back. It’s mixed with hurt, and she doesn’t even know what to be hurt about yet. But she’s asking for it, and he’s going to give it to her.

He does what he always does, imagine her reaction. He’s entertained the scenario that she crumbles to the ground and begs to know why, shatters every dish against the ground, guts him like a fish, et cetera. Whatever happens, there’s only one way to find out, right? He just hopes he’s able to go in his room and read comics in peace without her–

His room. Their room. Suddenly he’s thinking back to the day they bought this house. She was only a little snippy then, so Jisung was a little excited. He could stop seeing you sprawled out, completely exhausted on his bed as he crawled over you. No amount of exhaustion ever stopped you from begging for more. Because of his guilt he didn’t accept Jiwoo’s offer to let her family pay for the house in full. He felt that weight off his shoulders for a little while. Then they move in and all traces of you move to Jiwoo. Even now, the hurt on her face only aches his heart because he sees you the moment you realized he was going back to Jiwoo. He only soiled the sheets more often after they moved and his thoughts of you became more shameless. Of course Jiwoo would be aggravated by him. Telling her the truth will morph that aggravation into something that could get him kicked out.

“What don’t I know, Jisung?” The look in Jisung’s eye makes her ask with more urgency. Jisung wonders about you in this moment of pressure. He wonders if you were serious about your proposition, or if it was just the two of you fantasizing that you betrayed your significant others just to get off. You asked the night after Minho ended things and he laughed mid stroke. If you were serious, you were probably hurt at that moment and somewhere alone right now. Would you let him stay with you after Jiwoo kicks him out? After he chose her over you?

“Hello?!”

“I get off on you being disgusted by me.” Jisung shouts, rendering Jiwoo speechless. This is what he’s been waiting for. She’s silent, the bitching has stopped, but he can’t help the disturbed feeling he has. Words leap from his turbulent stomach, stumbling from his lips.

“I… hump the bed thinking about you with semen on your body… and being distressed by it–”

Jiwoo gasps in horror, rushing away from Jisung like he’s a monster and not the man she’s marrying next month. She shuts herself in their room. The slam of the door and her shocked sobs echo torturously in his brain. He sits on the couch and clamps his hands over his ears. He should be consoling her, she’s going to be his wife.

What can he say? He told her the truth and now she’s sobbing because of who he is. That’s how all this shit started. She yells at him at the beginning of every day because of who he is. Because he’s dreaming about you. About how your eyes light up when he reveals who he is.

Next month he’ll be stuck in a constant state of being ashamed.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

You press “play sound”, following the beep until you find where you tossed your purse before passing out last night. You fetch it from the bathtub, picking up all its contents that spilled into the basin. You fiddle with the case of the airtag, flipping it over and brushing your thumb over the exposed metal. You peer at your phone, noting the “shared with Minho❤️‍🩹”.

Can he willingly remove himself? Did he even remember that your tag is in his phone? Would he look for you–

You close the app, inhaling deeply to distract yourself from your thoughts. In your mind you reopen the app and hit the “stop sharing” button. You replay the action over and over. It’s the healthy thing to do, right? And it’s so easy. Instead, you go back downstairs and lie on the now dry towel. The smell of mildew has gotten stronger now. There isn’t even a hint of his body wash anymore. Looking at his pictures was a little too painful, this towel was the only thing that comforted you. Now it was just smelly and empty.

The emptiness left room for the thoughts to come through and terrorize you. Would Jisung come? Unlikely judging by his and his fiancée’s social media. The wedding was full steam ahead. Maybe if the two of you had kept in contact during all this time it’d be different. But you deleted all your socials and changed your number. There’s only one way for him to see you, it was perhaps too much to fly here for someone he just saw as a booty call.

You shiver, pulling your blanket up over your shoulders and clenching your eyes shut.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

“I’m staying at my friend’s house.” Jiwoo emerged from the room hours later. Not half asleep and asking him to come to bed, fully awake and with a duffle bag of clothes in hand. He thought maybe they’d be able to cuddle it out. He always loved cuddling Jiwoo. But that’s just like her. She’s not vulnerable, and if she is, she doesn’t show it to him. She’ll come back in a few days with her eyes nearly puffed shut from crying the entire time she was there, pretending like things are normal.

She was never the pitiful one.

The next morning, she’s not back. Jisung decides to head to the grocery store since their last trip ended early after Jiwoo got spooked by Minho. He walked around aimlessly, trying to think of things Jiwoo would get. Every item he picks up, he imagines how Jiwoo would scold him and make him feel stupid for buying it.

He ends up storming back out of the store and storming toward the bus stop. Jisung loses steam once he notices he’s heard footsteps right behind him since he exited the store. Footsteps are a normal thing to hear when you’re walking down a sidewalk. Even if they seem to keep speeding up. That’s what Jisung keeps telling himself.

He’s afraid to face the truth and even more afraid to turn around. Because of this he’s shoved into an alley, already receiving a strike to the face the minute he recognizes who’s doing it. His glasses fly to the ground which accentuates how unfocused his vision becomes. Jisung staggers backward, shakily trying to use the brick wall behind him to straighten himself back up. Minho delivers another punch straight to Jisung’s jaw, sending him to the floor this time. Jisung writhes in pain, muttering ‘stop’ while moving his sore jaw as little as possible. His feet slip against a rancid liquid seeping from the dumpster and he lands on his bare forearm, scraping it as he raises his other arm in a vain attempt to stop Minho.

Minho digs his fingers into Jisung’s much frailer arms and flips him over with ease.

“You moved out with her? Gave her a ring? Hm?”

Before Jisung can even begin to understand or ask what or why, Minho continues his onslaught. Minho grips his shirt with one hand and balls the other, sending it into Jisung’s face over and over.

“How long have you two been together?” Minho grits, but his tone still has this faux questioning tone. His brows are furrowed, trying to hide the fury in his eyes with the confusion he’s trying to sell.

A punch to the eye has Jisung’s vision fading to black. Fear for his mortality sets in as he tries to block strikes from this deranged man.

“What?! What do you want?! I’m not with her anymore!” Jisung yells incredulously, his voice cracking through his bleeding lips.

“Your fiancée?” Minho responds breathlessly. Through the fog in his brain and the throbbing pain, confusion sets in. His brain isn’t focused enough to decipher why he’s asking about Jiwoo.

“Are you sleeping with her?” Asks Jisung dumbly. He doesn’t mean it and it doesn’t come from jealousy. He physically can’t think and it’s spiking his anxiety even further. He wants Minho to get to the point but unfortunately Jisung just pissed him off even more. Minho’s nostrils flare, eyes blown completely wide as he shoves Jisung to the floor. Jisung’s head bounces off the pavement, sending him even further into a haze.

He’s brought right back with yet another punch. Blood fills his mouth. Minho mutters something about how he’d never do something like that to you.

“She’s not going to change because you want her to.” Jisung shouts urgently. He seems to have said the magic words since Minho lowers his fist. Jisung is wary, but his body relaxes anyway because it needs it. Any more agitation and Minho will induce a heart attack.

“She told you about us didn’t she? She told you what she put me through?”

“Yes! And I’m sorry–”

“Apologize to your fiancée, motherfucker.” Minho spits, raising his fist again.

“What do you want?! I can’t take back what happened!”

Minho lowers his fist to grab Jisung’s shirt with both hands, pulling him forward.

“I want you to be a horrible person on your own. Don’t drag her into it. S-she fucks random men because she doesn’t know how to properly ask for attention.”

If Jisung’s brain wasn’t practically mush right now he’d roll his eyes. This is how she got away with it for so long, because he treats her like a child. She’s a woman he couldn’t handle.

Jisung wasn’t aware he was glaring at the man until Minho yanked him closer. His breath was hot against his face and Jisung felt fear flood back into his body.

“But you,” Minho grabs Jisung’s face, one of his fingers digging into a cut on his cheekbone. Jisung whimpers helplessly. “You ruined everything! I could’ve helped her. She was close to tiring herself out and giving in. I would’ve taken her back to therapy… you made her comfortable.” Minho’s grip loosened the more he spoke, tears pooling in his eyes as his words lost their bite. As Minho got less angry Jisung felt more and more pissed, like it was transferring to him.

“That’s all bullshit. She told me the two of you have been dating since high school and you think she’d change now? You’re ruining your own life trying to fix who she is.” Jisung’s heart is beating rapidly like last night. He feels like he could take on the world. He’s already been glared at in disgust by his fiancée and beaten to a pulp by his mistress’s ex. Nothing can stop him from saying what the fuck he has to say, and they can divorce or kill him to stop. Jisung smirks.

“You don’t know shit. None of you know! She would never actually look at anyone else…” Minho loses more and more confidence and Jisung laps it up. He feels his body buzz once he realizes the information he has. Minho has no idea. Jiwoo has no idea. Nobody has even a fucking clue but they’re about to find out.

“Do you know that place she dreamed of moving to with you?” Jisung whispers, barely able to contain the laughter threatening to bubble up. Minho sports that look of sorrow from that day. If he thinks the fact you told Jisung about the secrets that were just for you and Minho was bad, he had another thing coming. The words rush out like a wave, sending a rush of sadistic joy through Jisung in its wake.

“She asked to run away with me too.”

Jisung drops the bomb and gives Minho a little time to process. Only a little, because laughter bursts straight from Jisung’s chest, spit flying onto Minho’s face. Jisung watches with vindication as Minho struggles to process his words. He grapples with the fact that you’re not here to confirm, but also the fact Minho knows that with you? It’s possible.

Minho’s fist trembles around the soiled fabric of Jisung's shirt. A tear breaks free from Minho’s eye as he sends his fist into Jisung’s face with a pained grunt. Jisung’s smile slowly fades as he feels his face be mashed in. If he dies here, he dies an innocent victim and Jiwoo’s memories of him are never sullied by the full truth. Minho will be punished by his own naivety and you…

“Hey! Stop!” The frantic voice sounds distant. “Someone help!! Call the police!”

Jisung is dropped to the ground. The impact is hard enough that his vision is slowly fading.

“There’s a beach right in the backyard! Ngh-!” You point to your phone, your hand falling to the bed as Jisung sinks in deep. He pushes in deeper, grinning at how hollow your noises sound when he does that. He leans over your shoulder, reaching for the phone to bring it closer to his face.

“This is niiice.” He purrs next to your ear. You roll your eyes at his exaggerated intrigue, unable to see how focused his eyes are.

“Give it back.”

Jisung bites his lip, swatting away your hand and grabbing your throat to keep you still.

“Don’t get distracted, now…” He warns with a roll of his hips. He grins at the wanton moan he earns. “But um… how are you planning to pay for this?” His tone wavers, his authority becoming hard to maintain the more he stares at the photo.

“I don’t do shit with my life. No hobbies to pay for, no dinners with family or friends, no girls’ trips.” Jisung flinches, glancing at your pinched features to see if that last part was pointed. Your eyes flutter shut as a pleased, wispy moan floats from your lips.

“Minho takes care of the bills and rent so I started to consider quitting my job. Instead I started saving. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that…” You trail off, Jisung can feel your body stiffening under him. Your peaceful noises get caught in your throat.

“T-that I wanted to do something nice for him–”

“Shhh…” Jisung clenches his hand tighter around your throat, trailing wet kisses on the shell of your ear. The light catches the tear that rolls down your cheek. Jisung tears his eyes away from it and returns to the listing. He takes note of the brick wall and black wood accents, how he can already hear the crashing waves while looking at the beach, how the house looks in the winter, the fairy lights, Aewol-eup, Jeju-si–

Jisung is hoisted up onto the stretcher. Whatever the people around him are yelling is beyond Jisung’s grasp. He coughs, blood gurgling in his throat. He blinks, his eyelids suddenly heavy. His body feels heavy. He exhales shakily, giving his body the rest it’s begging for.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

Your eyes blink open, aching from the brightness of the sun. You groan, cursing yourself for not closing the curtains before passing out again. Flashes of last night play in your mind. A guy propositioned you yet again. You couldn’t find it in you. Whether it was because you associate one night stands with hurting Minho or because you only crave sex the way you and Jisung did it now, you don’t know. Possibly both.

You groan again, rolling out of bed and straight onto the floor. Getting drunk without the follow up of sex was not nearly as gratifying. None of this was gratifying, though. Too many loose ends and questions unanswered.

You start your scavenger hunt for your bag. You don’t even bother using your phone, it’s always in one of three places. Not the bathroom, not the bedroom floor, so it must be the kitchen. You peer behind the island and surely enough, there it is. You pick it up, grasping at the airtag case out of habit. Horror floods your body once you realize the case is hollow. You turn it around as if the tag will magically be there. You turn your house upside down searching for the tiny thing, playing the sound over and over to no avail.

You sink to the floor, unable to come to terms with your burgeoning emotions. A tear crawls down your cheeks. You usually reserve crying for getting drunk on wine over the weekends, but it’s out of your control. Nothing comes after. No sobbing or anger. Just emptiness. You look back at your phone, seeing that the tag’s location was updated. Someone else is carrying it god knows where as it moves along the map. Further and further away from you.

Your eyes flit down to the one person the item is shared with. You click the tab and then his name. “View Friend” and “Remove” are the options presented. You feel another tear roll. Your finger hovers over “View Friend”. It slowly moves down, your thumb thudding heavily against the “Remove” button.

You remain on the floor, your vision blurry with tears as you go through and delete every remnant of Minho from your phone. You get to an especially old one, a laugh bubbling from your throat at the way Minho is attempting to block the camera with his hand. You smile, a bittersweet feeling slowly peters out as you delete the last image.

“Goodbye Minho.”

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

“Can you hear me Mr. Han?”

Jisung blinks, squinting at the bright lights above his head. He wriggles his fingers and toes, inhaling shallowly and painfully at the realization that he’s alive. A feeling of gratefulness washes over him as he clenches his eyes shut. He sees you behind his eyelids. He smiles, a warm feeling radiating from each memory of you that plays. He’s alive.

“Mr. Han?” Jisung vocalizes in response, wishing he wasn’t hooked up to fifty million machines so he could turn over. But he’s alive. You don’t have to be shocked by the news and have your getaway ruined. He imagines you getting the call and clenches his teeth. If you saw him like this… would you think differently of him? Have any doubts that he could dominate you? Take care of you? Or would you only see Minho that way? Minho… was he arrested?

Jisung’s eyes snap open, the pain suddenly peaking. The pulse reads 153 as the monitor beeps incessantly.

“Jisung?!” He hears a woman’s voice and smiles through the throbbing pain. Now he can apologize to you, ask you if you still hate him. Tell you you shouldn’t because you left him. Tell you not to look at him.

“Jisung oh my god!” Jiwoo leans over him between the rush of nurses. She covers her mouth with shaky hands as she’s pulled away. Some of Jisung’s tension eases away upon seeing her.

“He’s my fiance!” Her piercing shrieks grow distant as Jisung’s brain gets foggy again.

The next morning the fog is lifted. Jiwoo’s figure to his left nags at him. He strains his neck to look at her, unable to disguise the contempt on his face. Luckily the bandages on both his brows does that for him. He got a couple stitches for the cut on his cheek, a bandage on his nose, and gauze shoved up both nostrils. A dull throbbing ache becomes increasingly apparent in his skull.

“I spoke to the police.” Jiwoo speaks, deepening the throb.

Jisung continues his tried and true method. Met with silence, Jiwoo continues.

“His name is Lee Minho. He’s the same guy who was staring at us in the grocery store. The same guy outside our old house. He hasn’t said much, just that he’ll cooperate with authorities. That throws getting a motive out the window.” Jiwoo’s eyes are trained on nothing until the last part, when she shoots a pointed look Jisung’s way. He rolls his eyes to a different direction.

Jiwoo sighs shakily.

“I will be pressing charges. Our lawyer says we have a case since we saw him twice before the battery happened.”

“I don’t want to press charges.” Jisung says carefully, loaded with vexation.

“And I wonder why that is.” The urge to cry Jiwoo tried to suppress breaks free, her words unstable as her eyes moisten. Jisung craves the fog.

She waits again for him to explain. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t know where to start.

“Answer me Jisung!”

”I don’t know him, okay? Think about it, a strange man keeps appearing and just staring at us. Did he seem like he was running an errand and just happened to stop outside of our house? Was he shopping that day? Clearly he’s not right in the head, he needs help. Not to be incarcerated.” Before each word, Jisung’s mind threatens to stumble. "Even when we spoke the day he assaulted me... something wasn't right." His confidence skates along thin ice but still sails eerily smooth. He hazards a glance her way. She’s shocked, but her concern has considerably diminished. Her confidence slowly drains away until her head droops.

… Was that it? Is she back to thinking he's just a pathetic pervert instead of a sinister one?

“Well,” Jiwoo straightens her blazer, clearing her throat with a look of slight embarrassment on her face. “He’ll still face charges for the crime witnessed. There’s nothing we can do about that.”

The two sit in silence again, but Jisung can tell she isn’t waiting for him to speak. He can see her fidgeting in his peripheral.

“I-I’m sorry, it’s just… you really scared me that night, Ji.” Her voice wavers and Jisung stirs uncomfortably in his hospital bed. “I was scared that I somehow didn’t know you after all. I know I’m being paranoid. I just want you to know that I love you so much.” Jiwoo reaches for his hand and in a split second of horror, Jisung flinches away. She looks at him, confusion and hurt taint her features so harrowingly. Every second he doesn’t remedy this is painful but he can’t. Especially not when Jiwoo adds to it.

“Haseul and I talked about it, and I was being too harsh. Sex addiction is a real problem, and you can’t control what you do in your sleep.” Despite feeling like their relationship was hanging by a thread mere minutes ago, he watches in awe as Jiwoo’s expression becomes more… chipper. “I want us to start off our future on the right foot. I mean, we have a house now. Ji… we’re getting married.” She sits on the side of the hospital bed, grabbing his hands with glassy, hope-filled eyes.

“This is it.” She whispers. Her voice sounds sweet. She means well, but Jisung’s hands stiffen in hers. This is what he wanted. Things will be better from here, she finally sees how she was smothering him. They’ll go home, cuddle, maybe have sex with a little more understanding and communication. Have a healthy marriage. One where she willingly ignores the fact that he finds pleasure in her displeasure. Where she doesn’t know how deep that dynamic runs.

She looks a little worried when he doesn’t respond. She strokes the side of his head. His hand twitches, wanting to swat her away as if mere contact with him will speed up the destruction of her that he’s sure to cause.

“The doctor said you might be disoriented for a little while.” She forces a quick smile, to not worry him he assumes. An assumption that triggers nausea. The feeling builds until he’s jerking upright and covering his mouth. Jiwoo briefly panics before grabbing one of the emesis bags the nurse left. She hands it to Jisung just in the nick of time. She rubs his back, unaffected by the foul nature of it all. She collects the bag after confirming that he finished. The thought of getting out of there is unsubstantial. The lethargy overtaking him is anything but.

Sleep whisks him away and wraps him tight. He thinks he’s waking up but it’s another dream. He makes his bed, goes to work, pours a cup of coffee, takes a jog. He cycles through many mundanities before reminding himself that he’s still asleep. He cycles again and winds up in the snow. The cold burns his hands. He looks down to see them shaking and bright red, as if they’d just been pulled from the snow. His subconscious distantly tries to wake him, too distant to penetrate his unconscious.

It hurts, his hands are pulsing but he’s standing outside a house he has no clue how to get into the house. Rooted in place, he cranes his neck to try and find an entrance. His head reaches far enough that he can see inside. There’s a fire going, the room glows a comfy orange that his frigid body longs for. He sees a figure on the couch, huddled up as if they’re as cold as he is. He reaches his hand out, accidentally knocking against the window. When you look at him it brings about an incomprehensible feeling of dread.

You’re sobbing, yet still shooting him a bitter glare. You call out his name. His brain rattles, apologies spilling from his lips while he’s still rooted in place. You call him over and over, each call of his name makes his body jolt. He can hear his subconscious now and he’s sent into a frenzy to escape. Trying to wake feels like he’s being pulled apart in all different directions.

He wakes with a gasp, the fog over his brain too thick to bring him out of the snow.

“I’m sorry.” He sobs, realizing he’s being held by Jiwoo, still in the hospital bed. As she hugs him, chanting about how happy she is that he woke up, he’s punching himself for not speaking to her. Letting her know that he wasn’t disoriented when he didn’t speak to her. He should make up for leaving her hanging after she apologized and bared her soul to him. His brain might be foggy now but he has the ability to comfort his girlfriend in this time of concern for him.

“I know it’s hard, you don’t have to say anything honey.” She whispers tearfully, sniffling as she pulls away from him.

But he doesn’t comfort her, or come clean about willingly ignoring her.

The doctor explains to him and Jiwoo that he needs more time in the hospital. More time in what feels like purgatory.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

Jisung isn’t sure what all this activity in his brain means. Is his anxiety active because he doesn’t want to see Minho or because he wants him to come out already. He bounces his leg quietly as he looks around. The only other visitor stands from the chair in tears, leaving him completely alone. While his eyes are trained on the person leaving, Minho sits on the other side of the glass.

“You look like shit.” He speaks into the phone. Minho’s voice focuses Jisung’s attention back to him. Seeing Minho makes his face ache.

“You do too.” Jisung says with a sigh of irritation. When Minho narrows his eyes at him he wonders if they’ve already started off on the wrong foot.

“Coming here to gloat some more?” Minho asks, his eyes actually requesting information despite his retort. Jisung sighs as his eyes dance around the room. He reevaluates why he’s even here, if it was a mistake, and if he should just leave.

“We’re not pressing charges.” He starts, figuring he should at least tell him that. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be in there, or how waiting for the news of whether or not he'll be taken to court felt. He hopes that giving him the news now eases whatever concerns he’s hiding away.

“Is your head still a little fuzzy?” Minho smiles crookedly, looking him up and down.

“No, I’m completely conscious.”

The quick answer catches Minho off guard, his smug attitude dissipating as he readjusts in his seat.

“Well, thanks.” He glances briefly at Jisung, his expression reading confusion. “And wipe that worried look off your face. I think I deserve a little time in here if I’m honest.”

Jisung doesn’t want to unpack the sound of reflection in Minho’s voice. The fact that it sounds like Minho is referring to more than the aggravated battery. As far as Jisung knows, you were the only wrongdoer in the relationship. The deeply troubled look you sported whenever anything slightly related to her boyfriend was brought up made Jisung assume you were being abused. You quickly shot that down. He can’t even begin to understand how Minho came to the conclusion that he belongs in there.

“I want to tell her the truth.” Jisung blurts out, shame overwhelming him and casting his eyes to the floor. Minho is quiet for a moment.

“I only did it because I was so worked up, but it’s nice to see that I knocked some sense into you.” Jisung looks up to see Minho with no smile on his face. Jisung feels like he’s being looked down upon despite being on this side of the glass.

“So I should do it? What if… what if it just ruins her faster?” Minho continues to hold Jisung in his judgmental gaze, either torturing him or reflecting on his answer.

“Do you care about her?”

“Of course I do.” Jisung says, a little disappointed by such shallow reasoning. “She’s my fiancée.”

“Not her.” Minho hisses, as if it’s obvious. Jisung’s eyes slowly widen as it dawns on him. He thinks of you, spreading noisy color throughout his mind. Thinking of you is always so complicated but when faced with such a simple question, Jisung feels like he can finally make sense of it. He looks at Minho, cowering away soon after realizing what information he just relayed and to whom.

“Then don’t.” Minho states bluntly, a pinprick of venom piercing Jisung. It’s slow acting, leaving Jisung in a daze as he tries to make sense of his visit.

“And since you hit me with a truth bomb, let me help you out.” Minho cuts his reflection short, causing Jisung to look at him cautiously. "Stop acting like you care about your fiancée. You’re just lying to yourself.”

Minho watches Jisung process the truth, satisfied when no signs of fighting it crop up. Jisung hangs up the phone, slowly standing from his seat and leaving the room. Minho goes to stand himself after sitting in a little silence.

“Not so fast, Lee. You got another visitor.” The guard says, pushing against his chest. Minho turns around to see someone standing where Jisung just was, their head cut off by the wall above the window. He feels his heart fall before finally moving his feet. He sits down hesitantly, finally meeting your nervous gaze. Your eyes dart around before you grab the phone.

“I-I wanted to come in long enough after him that you knew I didn’t come with him. I wouldn’t do that.” You rush out, still standing and fisting your t-shirt. Minho smiles lazily, tilting his head toward the chair.

“Stay a while.” He jokes. Your stiffness melts only a little, offering a stilted smile before sitting down. Just like Jisung, your eyes don’t linger on him long, bouncing around the room.

“So?” He says, hoping he reminds you that you have a time limit. Your eyes finally linger, and the look on your face suggests Jisung wasn’t lying when he said Minho looked like shit. He sighs.

“Listen, don’t worry about me–”

“You’re a good person.”

Your words give him pause. His chest starts to ache and the sensation makes him grit his teeth. What are you doing here?

“I know that you’re probably looking back at… us and what I did to you and obsessing over everything you think you did wrong. Just know you did everything out of love and empathy. That’s who you are.”

It’s Minho now who can’t keep his eyes on you now. He balls his fist, huffing out of frustration. “You can’t fix this.” He warns.

“I-I know. I know we’ll never get back together and I know you’ll probably always hate me. In fact, I hope you hate me. Because you should.” Your voice creaks, your brows furrowing as you squeeze your eyes shut. “I used to look down on you for drinking yourself to sleep on the couch when you could’ve done much worse. You could’ve given me a taste of my own medicine, stooped down to my level. But you never did. And you hung on for so long.” Your voice gives way for the tears and the mucus that coats your throat.

“None of that makes you weak or stupid.” You take a tissue out of your pocket, drying your face and clearing your throat. “I know how it must’ve felt when you picked me up that night, after the news.”

“Stop.” He warns lowly. The ache deepens and threatens to make him cry himself. He tries not to think about that night. The way you looked after being utterly crushed and considering giving up on the world.

“I had no one left and you were there for me. But that was never your responsibility. I’m my own responsibility.”

Minho’s jaw quivers from clenching it so tight. Your eyes are steadfast, he can see that you mean it. That you’re not just saying this for sympathy or to pull him back in. His head droops over, unable to look anymore.

“If hating me helps you feel less responsible for me, please, replay every shitty action I’ve done until you think of me as the dirt beneath your shoes. But please never beat yourself up. You should’ve never had to deal with that.”

The silence seems to throw you off, judging by the way your eyes falter. You look down before standing from the chair.

“Wait.” Minho says just before you take the phone away from your ear. The way you look at him suggests you think he’ll take your advice and tell you how much he hates you.

“Thank you. Good luck with everything… I hope you find support.” He looks up at you, the both of you share an assured but hopeful look before you hang up the phone.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

Unforecast rain spooked Jiwoo earlier according to one of her younger brothers.

“Don’t tell her I told you this, but when Chuu gets all anxious it’s hilarious.” He elbows Jisung, his laughter faltering once he realizes Jisung is staring into space. “Are you nervous too?”

“Huh? No. Tell Jiwoo it only sprinkled for a little while. And we’ll be in the garden conservatory for the ceremony.” Jisung says in the robotic manner that has gotten him this far into this day.

Her brother rolls his eyes. “Okay, but I’m not going to be you guys’ messenger because of a stupid superstition. I’ll literally tell you what her dress looks like right now.”

Once he leaves, Jisung’s ears begin ringing again. People think he’s getting ready, when he really just holed himself up in building's office for some peace and quiet. Would he be able to slip out without anyone knowing? Should he leave after the vows? Or just before they sign the marriage license?

The sigh he lets out does nothing to ease him. He hasn’t had enough time to think on what Minho said. Should he have broken up with her? Or should he disappear quietly? Leave a note?

Jiwoo has been a wreck for the past few days leading up to the wedding. It’s been mostly happy tears, being so wracked with excitement to marry Han Jisung. To have Han Jisung’s children. To be with Han Jisung forever, happily ever after. Will they have kids before or after they stop speaking to each other around the house because she’s so hurt by what Jisung has done, but loves him too much to leave him?

It can’t get to that point. It can’t get to the point that Jisung is visiting her in jail after she murders you in a fit of rage. That she looks gaunt behind the glass with no light in her eyes anymore or no cheerful smile. Her family will hate him, his kids will hate him, he’ll hate himself.

“I’ve gotta get the fuck out of here.” He says shakily. He bursts out the door staggering to exit the building when her other brother stops him. He pats him firmly on the back.

“It’s that time, big man!”

He feels like throwing up again. There is no concussion this time to maybe break him out. Make him actually sick so he can trick someone into taking him to hospital. The color leaves his face as he’s guided to his spot at the end of the aisle. He can hear people whispering about him in their seats.

“How cute! Look how nervous he is!”

“Watch how his face changes once he sees his wife.”

“I’ll get a picture!”

He stands there, jittery and struggling to breathe as he debates if it’s too late. If he should just give in. Be complicit in her downfall.

The crowd stands and cheers as the doors open at the other end of the building. She pulls her veil out of her face, looking at him with tears welling in her eyes. Cameras flash as she slowly makes her way to him. All at once, Jiwoo’s expression flickers from pure joy to hurt confusion and everyone in the crowd looks at him. The music continues as people begin whispering again. This time there is no aura of excitement.

“Why does he look like that?”

“That’s no way to look at the love of your life.”

“What is wrong with him?”

Jiwoo cautiously walks forward, standing in front of her ghostly white soon-to-be husband. She looks into his blank stare begging silently for an explanation as to why he doesn’t seem happy in the slightest to be seeing her for the first time in her wedding dress. Why he’s continuing to just stare at her when he should obviously sense the atmosphere.

“Please be seated.” The officiant speaks. Whispers continue and Jisung’s eyes feel dry. “Thank you. Friends, family, and loved ones, we come together today, in the sight of you as witnesses to join Han Jisung and Kim Jiwoo in marriage. We gather around them now in this wonderful place, and we look on with love and hope as these two begin their new life together as one.”

As he stares into her face of horror, he imagines that this will be common in their lives. He feels disgust upon hearing the officiant describe their future. As one he says. His mind forces the image of Jiwoo being meshed into a grotesque amalgam with him to begin the rest of her miserable life.

“Jisung?” Jiwoo’s voice is frail as she jolts him back to the present.

“Huh?”

The murmurs get louder and unabashed in their condemnation of Jisung’s behavior.

“Ahem, I said. Han Jisung, do you take Kim Jiwoo to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you honor and cherish her? Love, trust, and commit to her, through joy and pain, sickness and health, and whatever life may throw at you both, until death do you part?”

Jiwoo looks miserable and sickly on her deathbed, contradicting the stereotype of women always outliving their husbands. No, Jiwoo drank her days away, smoking two packs of cigarettes everyday. She withered her soul away in tandem with her physical self by entertaining her husband’s cruelty with her own. Dedicating more time to that than her kids. She wastes away in front of him, dying in the home she shared with the man who ruined her life.

As if to make a point, his mind shifts to Minho’s face. He’s looking at him as if to asks:

“Is this what you want?”

“No!”

The gasps that come from the crowd and Jiwoo herself jolt Jisung like a bolt of electricity.

“What the fuck?” Her brother grabs his shoulder and yanks Jisung from behind. He ignores his mother scolding him for his behavior and language. “What the fuck did you just say?” He shouts, this time shoving him.

“I-I…” Jisung stutters.

“Please! He was just recovering from a head injury. Jisung, tell them!” His own mother stands from her seat, her eyes pleading with him to get it together. His mother and father told him time and time again that Jiwoo was someone he should hold onto. That she’s a great girl who would make a great mother. They’re right. But there’s a reason he hasn’t stopped thinking about you since he last saw you.

It starts with one step backward, the crowd silent as they wait for his response. He takes another step. And another. Then one forward. Then he’s running.

He hears Jiwoo scream after him in anguish, the crowd erupting in protest. He keeps running and running. He turns to see her brothers and her father tailing behind. His heart pumps with fear. The look on their faces is something he’s familiar with. It’s better this way, better than finding out he’s been in love with someone else the whole time. He tails a taxi, slapping the door for it to stop. It screeches to a halt and he nearly trips getting in. He falls over onto the seats, fearfully reaching for the door to slam it shut.

“Lock the doors!”

The driver looks startled, even more so when three men come banging on the window. He hears them calling him a coward, threatening to give him another concussion. He catches his breath, entering a coughing fit as he tries to calm down.

“Where are you going?” The driver asks incredulously. Jisung says the first thing that comes to his overwhelmed mind. He clears his throat, feeling hoarse after exerting himself. His head pounds as he leans back on the seat.

By the time the driver gets there, the Eve is open. Jisung fishes his wallet out of his pocket, his only belonging now. He pays the driver and stands in front of the building. He slowly walks in, drenched in sweat in an outfit way too formal for a place like this. He sits in the same spot he did when he first came here.

He remembers how he felt, and then thinks about what Minho told him. He wonders if he ever actually cared about Jiwoo or if he felt like she’d be good for him. If he was the same guy he was when he first sat here, he’d probably go camp outside of the house and wait for her to come home. Try to explain everything and hope selfishly that she’d forgive him. She’s better off never seeing him again.

Now what, he thinks as he orders a drink. He pats his pockets for his phone, wanting to look up nearby hotels. Or maybe he should look for ones far away. Maybe in Jeju-si…

Where’s his phone?

His heart drops, remembering that he set it on the desk in the office of the venue. How stupid of him to just run out like that.

“Can I use your phone?”

The bartender laughs at him, jokingly asking if he’s lamenting his lost freedom as a man.

“Tch,” Jisung smirks, accepting the phone with a shake of his head. He’s not the one who should be lamenting right now. Even if he did go through with it.

Instead of looking up hotels, he finds himself looking up a certain jail.

0:00 ───|────── 0:00

“I guess I didn’t knock sense into you after all.” Minho’s voice crackles through the speaker of the phone.

They could go back and forth all day about how Jisung acted too late and in the most destructive way. Jisung already spent all of last night doing that. He chews on his lip, looking down, trying to quickly find a way to bring this up. You’re the only thing that makes sense right now.

“Have you uh… spoken to her about any of this?” Jisung silently prays, peeking at Minho to try and guess his answer before he says it. He doesn’t expect to see Minho smiling to himself. He feels a distant ache in his chest.

”You didn’t see her on your way out from seeing me?”

Watching Jisung’s expression wither into dismay, Minho decides that he is truly fine. The possibility of you running to Jisung stings a little less knowing you weren’t lying about not visiting with him.

You were in Incheon? You… didn’t reach out to him. Maybe you forgot his number.

Jisung tries to find peace with that answer but anger bubbles up in his abdomen. He hangs up the phone, running out of yet another building. Are you even in Jeju? He laughs bitterly. He thought you said it as a way of putting your walls up, but maybe you did mean it when you said you didn’t care if he died.

After everything? After all of that?

Jisung has to find out for himself.

-> end of act ii

skz masterlist

milestone celebration masterlist

#stray kids #smut #skz #skz smut #fuml #jisung #han jisung #jisung smut #han jisung smut #skz jisung #angst

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melmedardasworld · 1 month

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Klonnie AU: Struggling to regain her magic, Bonnie turns to Professor Shane, who introduces her to Expression. Just as she starts to make progress, Klaus—who has been closely monitoring her and her friends—appears before her. He is determined not to let the young Bennett witch's magic regain her magic unchecked. Klaus reveals a shocking and dark truth about Atticus Shane that leaves Bonnie both doubtful of her new mentor and suspicious of the Hybrid's motives. Now, Bonnie is torn, caught yet again in one of Klaus’s schemes and Shane’s secrets, unable to fully trust either but wary of being used yet again. Season 4 AU.

That's when Bonnie felt it—a presence, watchful and predatory.

"Well, well," a familiar accented voice drawled from the shadows. "Quite the studious student, aren't we?"

Bonnie whirled around, her heart racing. "Klaus," she spat, tension dancing at her fingertips. "What are you doing here?"

Klaus emerged from the darkness, his trademark smirk in place. "Let's just say a little bird told me about your... extracurricular activities."

"You've been spying on me?" Bonnie's voice rose, indignation coloring her tone.

"I have people for that, love" Klaus replied, circling her slowly. "Nothing happens without me, knowing. No matter how insignificant." He looked Bonnie up and down and smirked. "Though I must say, your choice of mentor is intriguing. Tell me, what does a mere human know about magic that's got you so captivated?"

Bonnie's jaw tightened. "That's none of your business."

"Oh, but it is," Klaus countered, his eyes glinting dangerously. "I make it my business to know what my adversaries are up to." He smirked, his eyes narrowing as he stepped closer. "Just a friendly warning, love. You’re playing with fire by trusting Atticus Shane. He isn’t teaching you magic to help you; he’s using you."

Bonnie tightened her grip on the book in her hands, refusing to let Klaus's sudden appearance shake her. "And why should I believe anything you say? You don’t care about me." Bonnie scoffed, her voice steady despite the nerves simmering beneath the surface.

"True," Klaus admitted, circling her slowly. "But I do care about power—especially when it’s in the hands of someone who could become a threat to my plans."

Bonnie faltered, hostility flashing in her eyes. "So you're here to kill me?"

Klaus smiled, a cold glint in his eyes. "On the contrary, Bonnie. I'm just here to warn you. This magic you're dabbling in is not to be trifled with, little witch."

"Since when do you care about my welfare?" Bonnie scoffed.

Klaus's smile was sharp, almost predatory. "Noble intentions, as always. But tell me, little witch, have you considered that perhaps you're the one who needs protecting? Not from me, but from your newfound 'mentor'?"

Bonnie's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"Atticus Shane," Klaus said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The man who claims to understand and teach magic better than a witch. Quite presumptuous for a mere human, don't you think?"

"He's helping me," Bonnie retorted, "I know that’s a difficult concept for you to understand."

Klaus pressed on. "Is he now? And what exactly does the philanthropist professor get out of this arrangement? Have you ever wondered about his true motives?"

Bonnie took a step back, wary confusion evident on her face.

"Oh, sweet naïve Bonnie," Klaus's smirk widened. "Next time you have a cozy little session with your mentor, ask him about Caitlin. His wife. Ask him how she died... practicing Expression."

Bonnie froze, shock etched across her features. "What... what are you saying?"

Klaus leaned in, his voice low. "I'm saying, love, that perhaps Shane's interest in you comes from a very personal place. A place of loss, perhaps even desperation. And desperate men, well... they tend to be dangerous. Much like desperate witches, wouldn't you agree?"

Bonnie flinched, memories of her Grams' pain flashing through her mind. Klaus's words cut deep, playing on her worst fears about the path she'd chosen.

But when Bonnie looked up to respond and reply that it was his hand that forced her in this situation, Klaus had already vanished, leaving her alone with her swirling thoughts and growing doubts.

Klaus watched Bonnie from the shadows, he saw her once confident stance crumble slightly. She hugged herself, clearly shaken, before hurrying away into the night. A satisfied smile played on Klaus's lips. The seed of doubt had been planted. Whether it would grow into distrust or push Bonnie further into Shane's manipulations remained to be seen. Klaus knew she was too smart to trust him outright, but he had given her intuition a much-needed nudge.

Her vulnerability, stemming from the loss of her magic—a loss he was partly responsible for—presented an opportunity he couldn't ignore. Shane was clearly using Bonnie's isolation and grief to his advantage, and Klaus was not above doing the same.

As he melted back into the darkness, Klaus's mind turned to his future plans. This was all connected—Bonnie, Atticus Shane, the Hunters and an ancient tale of that predated even his own existence. More importantly, it invariably involved the Cure. And where the cure was concerned, Klaus would ensure no one stood in his way. Especially given the young witch's rather interesting connection to and the Cure.

For now, though, Bonnie alive and conflicted served his purposes better than Bonnie dead. Let her regain her magic, let her doubt fester naturally. Klaus could be patient when it suited him.

"All in good time," he murmured to himself, a plan already forming in his mind. Whatever game Shane was playing, Klaus intended to play it better. He was a 1000 years old and already several moves ahead. And Bonnie Bennett, whether she knew it or not, had just become a key piece on his chessboard.

#bonnie bennett #klonnie #klaus mikaelson #atticus shane #klonnie au

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elrondsscribe · 6 months

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Okay so here’s the thing. I freely admit I am Big Stupid. I forget things constantly. The Vampire Chronicles is a layered tale packed with constant retcons and gaps getting filled. Whole chunks of characters’ stories slip my mind on the reg.

So I understand I may be missing something major.

But.

From where I’m standing … I know that Armand was v upset when it happened, and given everything he’d been through to that point he’s absolutely allowed to be upset; but did Marius do wrong by turning Sybelle and Benjamin?

Hear me out: the rule of this universe wrt humans who tango with vampires is there’s only three eventual outcomes: death, madness, or vampirism. Obvs if Armand had his choice at that point in the series he’d have preferred them to have regular human lifespans and eventually die, but 1) given his history with Daniel, who knows if he wouldn’t eventually have changed his mind, and 2) it might not have been what they necessarily wanted for themselves. Cause the way both Sybelle and Benji talk makes it sound like they might’ve actually asked Marius to get vamped??

(And Pandora? Or wtf was Pandora even doing while all this was happening? She was there, what was she doing?)

Because here’s their response to it:

(…) Sybelle rose from the piano, and with her arms out ran to me. And Benji, who had been watching all the while, rushed to me also, and they imprisoned me gently in their tender arms.

“Oh, Armand, don’t be angry, don’t be, don’t be sad,” Sybelle cried softly against my ear. “Oh, my magnificent Armand, don’t be sad, don’t be. Don’t be cross. We’re with you forever.”

“Armand, we are with you! He did the magic,” cried Benji. “We didn’t have to be born from black eggs, you Dybbuk, to tell us such a tale! Armand, we will never die now, we will never be sick, and never hurt and never afraid again.” He jumped up and down with glee and spun in another mirthful circle, astonished and laughing at his new vigor, that he could leap so high and with such grace. “Armand, we are so happy.”

“Oh, yes, please,” cried Sybelle softly in her deeper gentler voice. “I love you so much, Armand, I love you so very very much. We had to do it. We had to. We had to do it, to always and forever be with you.”

Like, in the immediate aftermath, they’re both over the moon about it; they’ve even fed already. Later in the Prince Lestat era, they both seem fine; like I’m not recalling any major fledgling angst.

Claudia was eternally unlucky, and she was intensely lonely. Her relationships with both Lestat and Louis were complicated and strained (to the point that she tried to kill Lestat), she didn’t really have peers, and by the time she finally got a companion Armand was already engineering her death.

Daniel gradually went unhinged for a decade before becoming a vampire, and Armand might’ve blamed himself for Daniel’s full-fledged insanity afterward but it sounds to me like even if he’d somehow survived that horrible night he’d have lost his mind anyway. (By the way, who was it that kept Daniel fed while he was in that madness, huh?)

Benjamin and Sybelle are super lucky, relatively speaking; they have each other as peers, and Armand is somewhere between a peer and a guardian. From what we see in the PL era, they have their pursuits, they have a place in the vampire world — as fledgling vampires go, they seem to have as close to an ideal life as fledgling vampires get.

And like,, they got what they wanted: their Forever With Armand, with the sweet bonus of less physical harm to fear. And in the long run, after the … Veil-induced mania? wears all the way off, it seems like Armand isn’t that unhappy about it either.

So.

As much as Armand is totally allowed to have his feelings about it in the moment, all things considered it doesn’t seem like Marius “ruined” much of anything by turning them. At least not to me.

(Marius and Pandora? Tf was she doing?!)

#tvc meta #again i may well have missed smth #i know ppl super hate marius and everything he does #but idk this seems like one of his better moves?#marius de romanus #maybe the healthiest vampire family??

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mxtantrights · 7 months

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Bounded by shadow and blood (10)

let me tell you right now this part is on the big side. Not too big but it's big enough! Strap in y'all we're about to see the blood bender in action and the inner circle will get some answers!! happy reading <3

azriel x magic!fem!reader

You have about a month or so before you would have to return home. Two months with basically nothing to show for it. All you have is the fact you know your brother wasn’t and never has been in the night court.

You throw the blood blade into the tree. It hits the mark in the middle. Again.

You were getting no where.

You were getting angry.

As quick as lighting you raise you hand and ten blood blades fly into the tree, all making a ring around the mark. You let out a strangled breath, then another.

You put your hand on your chest.

Lars knows something but you would rather twist in the wind than ask him for help. Or got back to the night court.

A voice in the distance calls out your name. It’s familiar, it’s Thesan. You look around to see where it could be coming from. You eyes move around the trees and then towards the palace.

There at the entrance to the garden he’s waving you over. In his hands he’s holding a piece of paper. It must be important or he would have waited for you to come inside.

You lightly jog over to the garden entrance. Thesan holds the paper, which you can see now is a letter, out towards you.

“It’s for me?” You ask.

“Yes, it would seem someone wishes to strike a correspondence with you.” he answers.

You take the paper into your hands. It could be your brother. It could be the council. It could be Amren. It could be the night court. It could be any number of people.

Flipping the paper around to the back you look at the seal. Red.

Could still be your brother, the council, or Amren. She likes red.

You rip it open and unfold the letter.

“Do you wish to be alone?” Thesan asks.

You look up at him, “No. I might need your support for what’s in this letter.”

Thesan holds out his arm for you to take. You take it in yours and let him guide you to the nearest bench. You sit at the same time. You untangle your arms from his and hold onto the letter.

Your eyes run over the words quickly. You let out a shaky breath.

“What is it?” Thesan asks from your side.

“It’s my brother. He wants to meet.” You say.

“That’s great, isn’t it?”

You look at Thesan, your eyes starting to get watery. If your brother sent you this message, it meant he wanted to explain why he left. He didn’t want to go back. If the council ever found out about this they would install you permanently.

“Why would he need to meet with me if we wants to go back home?” You ask rhetorically.

Thesan hums in agreement.

You tuck your head into your hands. Thesan rubs circles into your back. You were teetering the edge to crying. All that has built up since you heard the bad news, you were well owed a good cry.

“When does he want to meet?” Thesan asks.

“In a few weeks. At the Day Court.” You answer.

“Why Day?”

You shrug your shoulders, “Who knows what goes on in his mind. I don’t understand him anymore.”

“What will you do?” He asks.

You pick your head up. The warm liquid finally falling down your cheeks. You probably looked horrible. Blood benders cry blood, something about the confusion of water and blood in the body for the first few moments. Thesan wipes the blood from your cheeks.

“Either I go and hear him out, or I turn him in for deserting. But no matter what I choose I’m next in line.” You answer.

Thesan nods his head, “We’ll think of something. I’ll call in a favor, I’ll call in the army if I have to.”

“Oh, don’t call your Captain. I don’t want to put him in the middle of this.” You mumble sadly.

“He wouldn’t hesitate for you.” Thesan adds.

You shake your head at that.

“It’s my mess. I’ll take care of it.” you say.

“I may have a mission for you, a stress reliever if you will.”

“Anything to get my mind off of this.”

The dress fit you in all the right places. It felt good to distract yourself. Instead of your usual red ensemble, you were in blue-ish white for tonight. It was better to blend in with the crowd who would no doubt be in all white. Normal of the winter court attire.

You had never been but you needed this. To go on a low-stakes mission and have a bit of fun. Who knows when the next time you’ll have fun will be.

With bated breath you press down on your dress. You look over yourself in the mirror one last time. You hair was done, so were your nails. You opted out of makeup for the night.

You grab your bag and your cloak. As you open the door you can feel it. The presence of another person in the palace. There were many people around the palace but you were used to them already. This person didn’t quite belong.

You close your door and track the new comer. The closer you get the more you recognize them. Night court. Inner circle. When you reach the door to the tea room you feel more. More people.

You open the door slowly. As you do you see them winnowing in.

Rhysand with Feyre. Cassian with Nesta and Morrigan. Azriel with the other sister, Elain, and Amren.

When Amren sees you she smiles and runs over to you. You hug. It feels like it's been forever.

“I still can’t get used to that.” Cassian says.

You pull away from her, “What are you doing here?”

“I figured a friend might be the best solution right now.” Thesan says from behind you.

Amren smiles at you, “I wanted to come alone but...”

“Right. Well, I guess we’re all going to the winter court.” you continue.

“Actually me, the high lady and her sisters are having dinner with Thesan and the captain.” Rhysand corrects you.

That ticked you off. He and Nesta would be here while you were out. It was already clear at this point that they wanted to figure out more about you. Whether they thought Thesan was the way to do it or to snoop around your room is unclear.

You looked to Thesan.

“I’m banned from talking about you.” The high lord speaks for himself.

You look at him with surprise. You weren’t expecting that.

“I’m on strict orders to take them home if anyone does.” Feyre says.

You nod your head once.

“Well all this waiting around is making me antsy. Amren your with me.” Cassian says.

Amren leaves your side without a word. Before you can even protest, she, Cassian and Morrigan are out of the tea room. Cassian winnowing them to the ball. Which meant that the only other person who was going, and the only way for you to get there, was Azriel.

You meet his eyes for the first time. He’s looking at you now. Maybe he’s over whatever it is that happened at the match. He clears his throat and offers you his arm.

You look back at Thesan, who nods his head, and you turn back to Azriel. You walk over to him and wrap your arm around his. The darkness surrounds you.

You can feel his eyes on you. It’s like whatever happened didn’t happen and he was back to watching you now. None of them seem to offer you any details about it. And you don’t want to ask.

Who were you to ask questions when you wouldn’t answer theirs?

You grabbed a new glass with the winter themed drink. It wasn’t even getting to you, they must be watered down. You take a sip and look over your shoulder. As soon as you do, Azriel who was looking at you from across the room, looks away and busies himself with something else.

“I’ve never seen you around.” A voice pull you from your thoughts.

You turn back and he stands in front of you. A tall man, blonde hair and blue eyes. He has a single braid in his hair, and a charming smile.

“This is my first time in the winter court.” You say.

It’s a lie. You’ve been here before for undercover missions. But you weren’t about to admit to that. Especially not to a stranger, no matter how handsome he is.

“It’s no wonder the lakes seemed to finally unfreeze this evening.” He flirts.

You can’t help the smile on your lips, you almost let out a laugh at his audacity.

“I’m sorry, it’s just—I’m not that good in social settings.” He rushes out.

You raise your eyebrows, “Then this ball is probably not the right place for you.”

He laughs.

“No it’s probably not. But I can’t go against my parents.” He says.

Parents, you think to yourself. His parents made him come here? Well that sounded a bit interesting. Where could this go, you wonder.

You hold out your hand and introduce yourself with your name. He takes your hand and places a kiss on top of it. He tells you his name is Elias.

Elias is fun to talk to. He sees the world a bit differently than other fae. He wants to travel different courts and also wants to travel outside of the continent. For such a free spirit, you wonder why he hasn’t just done it already.

“What ties you here? I mean, you seem like you want to go right now.” You say to him.

He puts down his drink on the table and signals for another. A server comes and gives him a new glass, taking his old one. Elias asks if you want another glass but you decline.

“Certain duties.” He answers.

It’s the most plain answer he’s given you all night. You struck a chord. It no doubt tied back to his parents. Maybe they needed someone to provide for them. Or they would miss him too much to let him go.

“Surely your parents would understand.” You speak.

“Oh they do, but it’s not really their choice either.” He answers.

It seems so vague. You want to know more about what he means. You form your lips to ask another question but the procession starts. The doors open and the high lord and his lady start walking into the ballroom.

Elias dips closer to you and whispers in your ear, “There’s my cue.”

You watch in amazement as he gets up and scurries to the back of the procession. Of course. He couldn’t go anywhere he’d like whenever he’d like because he’s the high lord’s son.

Elias looks over at you with a guilt ridden face. You smile at him. It’s not like you felt you were lied to. You were lying to him anyways. But the fact he seemed to worry that he didn’t tell you was the wrong choice really comforted you.

You watch as the high lord and his lady take their seats at the end of the ballroom. Elias is at the front of the crowd now.

Kallias starts talking to his guest. You take this moment to scan the crowd to find where the inner circle went. You can see Amren standing next to an older male. Morrigan is with Cassian, at the food table. And Azriel…is no where to be found.

You do another scan of the crowd to confirm that you can’t find him. Where did he go?

The high lord says something that makes the crowd applaud. You find yourself clapping to keep up with appearances. Then the high lord requests that the ball goes on. The crowd disperses a bit amongst themselves.

It’s not long until Elias finds you. It actually takes less than a minute. You smile when he appears in front of you with two skewers of what seems to be food.

“Frozen candy.” He says.

He offers it to you and you take it. You slide one of the ice crystals off the skewer and into your mouth. It tastes like cold sugar. It’s weird and tasty at the same time.

“Woah.” You speak with your mouth full.

“I know. I only come to these things for the ice candy.” He says and takes one into his mouth.

“Should I bite?” You ask. You realize how intimate that sounded and try to course correct but Elias beats you to it.

“That candy? No. Other things, maybe.” He quips.

You smile.

The night is winding down. Most of the guests have left or are still lingering around for the drinks. The high lord and his lady left an hour ago. Elias though, he stayed.

You, Amren and Elias were sharing a table. Talking about nonsense at this point. She was trying to get him to visit you in the dawn court. Something about a date.

That’s where you mind was when the man came bursting in with a body in his arms. A tiny body, a child. He screamed that he needed help. A few people ran over to the scene. Elias got up and you followed after him.

The man looked at Elias and recognized him as the high lord’s son. He begs him to help. The child in his arms is bleeding and freezing the wound may be the only way to get het to some real help. Elias kneels down to help the child. You place a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He looks up at you, lips parted in shock. It’s not like you wanted him to let the child die, but you know what it looks like.

You kneel down next to him and put your hand on the wound. Blood benders tried to stay out of the spotlight because of their abilities. If people knew the capabilities of your kind, you would never see peace. You’re lucky that the first was between blood benders and humans was way past your time.

You look at the young child, “What’s your name?”

He looked not older than ten. He was too young to die. He looks at you with faint eyes.

“Perrin.” He says.

You smile, “Perrin, I need you to keep your eyes open. Can you do that?”

You don’t wait for him to answer. You start to clot the blood inside of his body. His breathing slowly starts to even out. The older man holding onto him looks at you in disbelief. He can’t form words.

When the blood inside of his body is finished clotting, you work on closing the wound. It only takes a matter of moments. The blood cells work with the skin cells to close the gash. You remove your hand and inspect your handiwork. It’s like Perrin was never hurt. All that’s really left to show for it is the hole in his shirt. But that is all that remains.

You look down at your dress. It’s stained. Thesan is going to kill you. If he sees it like this. You stand back up and wipe the blood from your hands on your dress. Its only then, when you have finished, that you realize the crowd you have drawn around you. Morrigan, Azriel and Cassian looking at you with faced filled with emotions you couldn’t describe. Elias is still kneeling, but he’s looking up at you now, a slight smile on his face.

“He said you would help, but I didn’t believe him.” The older man says.

You look at the older man now, “Who said that?”

“Kynas.”

The mention of the name runs your blood cold like ice. You hadn’t heard it in a while. You suppose you shouldn’t be surprised. Your ex husband was exiled, not dead.

#blood and shadow #acotar x reader #azriel x reader #acotar imagine #acotar fic #acotar #azriel imagine #azriel fic

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pickles4nickles · 6 months

Text

So I’ve been watching playthroughs of Yakuza games for a while now, but when I saw that the newest game takes place in Hawai’i, the place where I was born, raised, and have lived in for nearly 30 years now, I knew that this was something I had to have first-hand experience with and not let some guy tell me how to feel about it, to put it bluntly.

I went on a month and a half long journey to finish this game, so I sat around for a bit like

Jesus Christ I should write a review on it.

So if you’d like to read about 5k words on what I thought about The Video Game™, here you go.

Overall, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a really really good game. However, as Hawai’i local it was kind of hard for me to turn my brain off to some of the cultural inaccuracies and as someone who tends to play smaller indie games, I clocked in about 110 hours on this and I burned out a little towards the end.

GAMEPLAY

Let’s get into Gameplay first because I think I have the most positive thoughts about it. If you haven’t heard my thoughts about Pokemon lately, it mostly boils down to “It’s the only RPG I’ve really been playing in recent years and the gameplay has been very watered down and I yearn for a decent PvE experience.” This game definitely scratched that itch in more ways than one.

Infinite Wealth’s turn-based combat system revolves around positioning. Some moves have an AoE of either a straight line or a circle. Positioning a character next to an ally will proc a combo move with them and positioning them near items will proc an item attack where you can beat a guy to death with a traffic cone or something.

The job system is robust. Every character starts off with a default class- Ichiban’s is Hero, an all-rounder that can pretty much do anything; characters like Nanba and Eric (I know the game calls him Tomi or Tomizawa, but I’m not the game and “Fuckin’ Eric” sounds way better than “Fuckin’ Tomi”) are magic-oriented, so they’re basically wizards by default. You can change their class to other jobs (Desperado is my favorite because it’s basically gun mage), which unlocks new skills as you level them up. You can also change jobs as much as you want and skills carry over between them, so there’s a bit of moveset mixing and matching that makes my brain feel good.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, (the Yakuza devs, which we’re just gonna abbreviate to RGG from here on out) have always been REALLY good at asset reuse (again, I cast a dirty look to Game Freak). They’ll make a whole-ass map of a region and reuse that same map for several games down the line. Not only do you spend a significant time in Ijincho again and not only do you go to Kamurocho for little bit… AGAIN, but there are two… what I can only call “macro” games that have the best asset reuse I’ve seen in, like, maybe anything ever.

DONDOKO ISLAND

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth comes with a whole-ass Animal Crossing clone that’s also kind of The Sims called Dondoko Island. In this, you rehab an island that’s being used as a dump for some trash pirates (no, seriously, they’re actually pirates, yar har and everything) back into a five star resort. There’s a whole-ass crafting system where you go around the island, harvesting resources, to build furniture and facilities, which include whole-ass buildings which have appeared in past Yakuza games. The crafting system is GREATLY improved over Animal Crossing: New Horizon in that you can skip the goddamn animation and craft multiple of the same items at once. You don’t even have to have all the materials in your inventory, it’ll take it from your storage. Placing items in the world is also in an overhead view and the only grievance I have with the system is that placing paths is really weird and you can only place a limited number of them. But overall, Nintendo, was it really that hard to put into the video game. Why did you make AC:NH disrespect my time in that way?

Once the island has been cleaned up enough, you can start inviting guests over, which all have their own set of preferences for the vibe of your island (rustic, pop, sleazy, etc), their lodging quality, and how much of the island’s flora and fauna (and minerals, I guess??) you’ve discovered.

I really really liked Dondoko Island because who am I to say no to a management mini/macro game with decoration elements. I mostly really appreciate that it doesn’t waste your time. I wanna say I finished it in like less than 20 hours… which is not short for a game within a game (actually, that’s insane for a game within a game), but for a game of this genre, it’s pretty short.

There’s also an entire separate mini-island that further helps you with efficiently running your island by passively collecting resources over time and just being a general stockpile of bugs and fish to catch. But I can’t talk about this part without talking about…

SUJIMON

A returning character voiced by Keith Silverstein in the English dub – yes, that Keith Silverstein, who voices Masayoshi Shido of Persona 5 and Zhongli of The Genshin Impact™ is a professor who documents the behavior of weird and often hostile middle aged men, called Sujimon. When Ichiban goes to Hawai’i, he asks him to also document the native Sujimon there as there’s a prominent Sujimon scene there. Mans wasn’t kidding as there is an underground, more or less ilicit Sujimon fight club called The Sujimon League with its own Elite Four called The Discrete Four.

In the previous game, Sujimon was just your bestiary (literally called the Sujidex), but now it’s a whole-ass game, which I can mostly only describe as simplified Yokai Watch, but a glorified card game. Just so we’re not here for forever talking about middle-aged men cockfights… because I can talk about the mechanics and inner workings of middle-aged men cockfights for a hot minute, Sujimon League basically operates on a 3v3, with an additional bench of 3, rock-paper-scissors kind of system. You’ll need strong Sujimon to get through this macro game and you’ll recruit new guys through four ways- through random fights on the map, through literal Pokemon GO raids, through a gacha system, and through combining Sujimon of the same type into stronger Sujimon (don’t think too hard about that one). I had a LOT of fun with this and, again, it scratched an itch I’ve had for a while. Almost all of the Sujimon are just guys you’ll fight in-game, so, again, an excellent use of asset reuse.

Sujimon smoothly integrates into Dondoko Island in a way that makes Palworld look even more balls-less than it already is. You know that little island I was talking about a few paragraphs back? That’s Dondoko Farm. You can put your Sujimon to work on it! As you’re running around on Dondoko Island, letting it consume your life, your Sujimon will grow crops, scrounge around for resources, and earn some cash for you. The island also has some resources to help with Sujimon League by leveling them up with a small investment of some dondoko bucks and your time, but also a Pokemon-Amie type mini-mini game that helps strengthen the friendship of your current Sujimon team.

Yes.

This game lets you pet-

The sweaty, weirdo middle-aged men.

Don’t think about it too hard.

Especially don’t think about it too hard when you have a Sujimon on your team that uses Xander Mobus’ voice clips.

Anyway, there’s also another minigame called Sicko Snap, which is basically Pokemon Snap with Sujimon. It’s a good one, too.

STORY

I guess… the best way I’d explain my feelings on Infinite Wealth’s story is

Objectively, this is an okay story. Like, it’s par for the course for a Yakuza game. I have a lot of personal grievances with this plot which I’ll fully unsheathe my blade for in the next section, but for now I’ll just say… this game is basically Hawaii Five-O crammed into a Yakuza game and that was an emotional rollercoaster ride that I’m not sure I enjoyed.

Like a Dragon’s main theme is “Even if you hit rock bottom, it’s never too late to get back up again” and that’s something I hold near and dear to my heart.

They have used this theme to my benefit and to my dismay as this also apparently means it’s never too late for ~*Romance*~ which, sure, yeah, okay, true, but did it have to be Ichiban and Saeko?

I’m trying to give the game the benefit of the doubt because… to me, it’s mostly one-sided (as in, like, Saeko’s willing to give him a chance, but isn’t as crazy for Ichiban as he is for her) and, like, dude is allowed to have a crush. But from what I have seen… because I never got around to finishing her Drink Link (I was gonna but I’m like really burned out on the game), they kinda strap C4 to the Bechdel Test and raze a village to the ground with it when it comes to Saeko’s character arc because most of her dialogue and interactions are about The Incident with Ichiban, which sucks because she had more character than just a romance interest for the protagonist in the previous game. If you’re also REALLY not into this plot point like I am, the story DOES NOT let you forget that this indeed happened as it seems to be a plot thread that might continue into the next game as well.

Needless to say, I don’t ship it, and I don’t get to block tags and just walk away from this one.

The game also kinda keeps nudging at, “Hehe, Chitose’s pretty cute too, right?” to which I say

Yes I understand she’s of legal age but she’s only like 21 AT MOST and Ichiban’s like 40-something you stop with that.

It doesn’t feel like Ichiban really had a character arc in this… unless you count “proposing on the first date” to “saying I love you on a redo and then being weird about it again” as character growth. He went to Hawai’i, had some shenanigans, found mom, got backstabbed again, fought the cult (which I’ll be really salty about in the next section), went back home to help Eiji’s character arc. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just… Ichiban went on another adventure. And it was ok. I think maybe the game was sizing him up to, again, take Kiryu’s place and be The Hero, but… we already did that already? And I’m not even sure if the game was able to complete that message by the end of the game.

Kiryu probably got the most character development out of this game and talking this over with my friend Andrew, he brought up that it kinda wasn’t fair that this is supposed to be Ichiban’s game, but he had to share half of it with Kiryu. And I agree. His sections were also really hard to get into if you haven’t been a longtime fan. Again, I have a decent amount of Yakuza knowledge, but with Kiryu’s memories, a LOT of it went over my head. It seems like RGG’s been trying to retire him as a protagonist for like three games now and MAYBE this time they’ll actually do it after this victory lap they’ve given him. But he did learn that “my friends are my power” and “never ever give up, you still have time to do better.” And you know what, that’s rad.

As far as the villains go, just, I dunno, they’re fine? Ebina and Eiji are very “okay bitch, stay mad, then,” and it’s. Fine? My only complaint is that Ebina’s arc felt like it was under-seasoned before they put it in the oven to cook and they could’ve peppered it on a little earlier in the game or something. Bryce’s entire deal I may have taken a little too personally, but that’s for later. Dwight was literally just Danny Trejo doing a villain role and I have absolutely no qualms with it. He was fun to watch.

The supporting cast was fun as always. Eric I hated at first, but he grew on me in the same way that, like, I’d bully a friend. Chitose I also kinda hated at first, was very sus of, but then she had a character arc that was pretty good. The Yokohama gang didn’t really have character arcs to them, but they were still fun to hang out with nonetheless. We got to learn a little bit more about Seonhee and she’s really fun. Both her and Zhao, who is my favorite for several reasons, are really really fun characters as they are both crime bosses (former, in Zhao’s case) who are BIG FUCKING WEIRDOS and I love them for it.

Joongi Han becomes a party member WAY too late in my opinion that, in a way, he’s technically an optional party member, or at least like getting a Dratini right before the Pokemon League in Gold/Silver/Crystal. He had some fun character moments, but felt kinda like an afterthought.

But also, ain’t no way he got his Hawai’i clothes at Hilo Hattie. There’s no way.

To wrap up my thoughts on the main story, I’d just like to say: the plot point that they sailed to Japan on a little tugboat in a handful of hours as opposed to WEEKS is peak Hawaii Five-O vibes and it infuriates me, but everyone kept telling me “it’s okay, the coast guard picked them up, like, halfway” and I will sit down and not start a fistfight over it. And just. That was the vibe of the game for me. Just… alternating between a J-Drama and Hawaii Five-O.

I don’t really have much to say about the substories except that they’re either almost Oscar-worthy material or they’re a snoozefest that I just tabbed through. I can really only think of three substories off the top of my head that were EXCELLENT, though - Nancy and Olivia, the artificial snow quest (THIS ONE IS EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH), and the traveling aquarium one. The rest I mostly just tabbed through because they were just……. Eh. But I think I’m okay with that since we have Sujimon and Dondoko to make up for it.

THE CULTURAL GRIEVANCES

So as I type this section out, I run my hands over my face to remind myself and say

This is a game that takes place in Hawai’i from a Japanese perspective, written primarily for a Japanese audience and I assume that certain things may come from a place of ignorance, but not maliciousness.

Hey Tumblr.

I want you to read that first bolded sentence again.

Because I know how you guys are with reading comprehension.

But that being said, as a Hawai’i-born Chinese person, there’s quite a lot about the Hawai’i cultural aspects of this game that I have problems with. If you wanna see me roast this game, you can stick around, but if not… Here is your chance to bail.

I’ve tried my best to write this in a way where I look at the thing that pissed me off and ask myself, “Am I taking this too seriously or do I actually have a problem with it?” and write more or less objectively, but some of it might still come off as overly caustic. Just. I tried.

And after a deep breath,

Ho brah,

We go.

WHAT IS HAWAIIAN CULTURE, ANYWAY?

To start off, I’m not sure if RGG knows the difference between being a Hawai’i local and actually being of Hawaiian blood…? The game mentions at the very beginning that Akane is half-Japanese… and half-Hawaiian, which makes Ichiban one-fourth Hawaiian, which makes ME kinda… squint. Like, we’d need to know more about Akane’s backstory, but if you know anything about indigenous cultures, finding someone who’s half native is HARD nowadays. Akane also looks pretty light skinned for someone who’s allegedly half-Japanese, half-Hawaiian but that’s just my tiny nitpick?

I’m also… not sure what kinda research RGG did on Hawaiian last names because some of the ones I see on random enemies are kinda…

Who is that

What is that

I have never seen anyone named that in my entire life

Sure, my worldview is a little shut in, but, no, what IS that?

Mililani is not a last name, that’s a neighborhood, why’s she Lani Mililani?

WHAT IS THAT?

The pidgin in the game is also there, but… small kine hit or miss. For those of you who don’t know, pidgin is Hawai’i’s creole, which came from a bunch of cultures who don’t speak the same language eventually falling into a kitbashed language system that works for everyone. Looking at the VA listing in the credits, they did hire some local people (they have Hawaiian names) and some of the VO performances work really well like Obispo in the restaurant side story and the cab driver dialogue that ONLY comes up in the Japanese audio version of the game for some reason. Others… are… hm (I don’t know what’s going on with Jeff the taco truck guy). I feel like the voice director got the intonation on the line reads down pretty well, but on the localization side, the syntax and grammar are a little off. Pidgin tends to come off as “broken english,” but it’s technically not since it’s its own language system with its own rules. So you have a lot of line reads that are in the right inflection, but the way it’s written is wrong for pidgin dialogue.

And it just doesn’t sound 100% right to me.

There’s also some… small pronunciation nitpicks that I have. Ukulele is pronounced the white way - it’s not Yooka-Laylee like the Chameleon and Bat, it’s ook-oo-leh-leh like Tapu Lele, the Pokemon. Some characters pronounce Hawai’i as huh-why and not ha-wuh-ee, which is more right (it’s SUPPOSED to be ha-vai-ee but I’m not native Hawaiian and this is kind of an axolotl situation so, y’know).

But shout-outs to the “Whatchu lookin’ at?” line guy.

Because that one is just, no notes, perfect.

NOTHING CAN BE NORMAL, I GUESS

Something that rubbed me the wrong way in this game is the mystification of a culture that’s foreign to you, that is, taking a culture that’s not yours and describing or representing it in such a way that it sounds so deviant and hard to comprehend compared to the one you’re used to. Think of that one tweet where someone describes hamburgers like a white person would describe asian fruit.

There's the lei substory where the girl needs to make a lei with blue plumerias (which does not exist by the way) because there’s an urban legend that if you give a blue plumeria lei to someone, it’s a way of confessing your true love. Lei are just… things you give as, like, a “congrats!” kind of a thing. Or if you wanna be touristy about it, a “welcome!” kind of gift. There’s nothing mystical about it, most grocery stores stock a few that you can just pick up, grab and go style.

The entire game mechanic of “shaka to make friends” was so?? Like maybe after 8 hours into the Hawai’i map, I was like, okay, I’ll just… fine. I’ll accept it. But my god did I not appreciate it when Kson came up to me and was like “what’s a motherfucker gotta do around here to make some friends” and told me how FRIENDLY the Hawaiian people were and how you can just throw a shaka to make friends; while me, probably the saltiest, introverted Hawai’i local that throws stink-eye at tourists who can’t watch where they’re going, playing the video game on that day was like, “We don’t fucking do that, hello??” I don’t even know why we shaka?? Most people you ask that question will just be like “idk it’s the local thing, they do it at the end of the 5pm news on KHON2.”

There’s a substory in this game with a character named Nathan, but we were all calling him racist Alpharad because he kinda looks like him (ALPHARAD HIMSELF IS NOT RACIST OR IN THIS GAME I WANNA CLARIFY THAT) and he’s basically, like… a weeb. He’s recording what seems like a PBS special on Japanese tourists in Hawai’i, but he’s kind of a shitter about it. He makes Ichiban choose between local foods and cold-ass rice and becomes upset when he chooses kalua pork over the rice since it wasn’t The Japanese Option. It escalates to making Ichiban play darts with shuriken and when he loses, he tells him to “live up to his dishonor,” slides him a knife and board, and asks him if he wants to take a finger or hara-kiri. To which Ichiban goes “dude, I get you like Japanese culture, but you can’t treat people this way”

To which I look back at the game like

You clearly understand how this feels, so why are you doing this to Hawaiian culture?

Again, I understand that a lot of this game was written with maybe just ignorance, and not malice, and this isn’t really a call-out post to RGG or anything, but BOY…

Okay.

Now we get to my biggest gripe with this game.

PALEKANA CAN SUCK MY NUTS

I’m kinda disappointed in their choice to use a Hawaiian cult as a plot point. It’s not quite a native savages kind of a vibe, but… In the year of our lord 2024, I thought we would know better than to portray an indigenous religion as a bloodthirsty cult? I also don’t like how they’re conflating the Hawaiian religion with what’s more like a Christian/Catholic cult in this.

Palekana is portrayed as “cultists who worship a goddess who lives in a mystical land, forbidden only to her chosen and maybe one day we’ll be worthy of her blessings.” Hawaiian religion is… not… like that at all? They did get the part about “giving back to the community” correct as a part of Hawaiian culture is mālama ‘aina, meaning, you need to care for the land you live on, which is… reasonable? I guess the other basic idea of Hawaiian religion is that certain places, things, and times that are important, and you shouldn’t touch it unless you wanna fuck around and find out. But the game just kinda wildly overboils this.

Like, I don’t claim to be an expert, I’ve only scraped the basics from what I learned in school (a year’s worth of Hawaiiana lessons in middle school, a semester’s worth in college; went to a private Catholic school, took two world religion classes in college), but Palekana has a very Catholic European religion kind vibe instead of a Hawaiian one. And I really, really don’t like that the game conflates the two. The Palekana cultists wear hoods, which is a distinctly European thing (it’s too hot for hoods here!). The beaded necklaces also seem more like rosaries, which, again, very Catholic. The idea that a god-figure will save you is also a VERY Catholic idea. I’m also assuming the goddess Nele that they use in the game is an expy for Pele, which… okay, like, you can do that with locations. Ala Moana Shopping Center represented as Anaconda Mall in the game hurts me a lot, but… to change up the name of the most prominent deity in Hawaiian religion is like

Dude, I’m not Hawaiian, but I know better than to shit on Pele?

Maybe I’m taking this a little too seriously, but it comes off as a little(??) disrespectful.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe RGG wrote this plot point in this way to be like, well, they’re the villains, so we’ll write them so hyperbolically evil and wrong so people won’t mistake that for the actual culture? But my gut reaction is that they’re only writing from what they’ve seen in the movies and they wanted to make a story like that.

This was my least favorite part of the plot because not only does the cult aspect feel like it’s in bad taste, but it’s SO MUCH of the story and you REALLY can’t get away from it.

Alright. So now that I’ve aired that out of my system, I’m finally capping off this section with the part of the game that hit the closest to me and that is

CHINESE IN HAWAI’I

Listen. Again.

This is a story about Hawai’i, written by a Japanese team, for a Japanese audience.

Yakuza is a series that often talks about the racial conflict between the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. And I don’t expect them to portray any of these groups in anything more than a neutral light in this game about Gang Crime.

But ohhhhh my gooooood did they get the Chinatown section so wroooooooong.

Right off the bat, the big glaring problem I have with this game is. All the guys speak Mandarin. I think they might just be reusing voice clips from Yakuza 7, which, sure, fine, I understand that video games are hard to make and expensive.

In Hawai’i, like, real-world Hawai’i, not the bizzaro Hawai’i this game takes place in, we’re definitely starting to see more Mandarin-speaking immigrants show up, but most of the town speaks Cantonese.

Most of the people here a generation or two above me come from Guangdong or Hong Kong, which are Cantonese-speaking areas. It’s an entirely different dialect that’s really only been represented in small bits in media I’m familiar with, like in Jackie Chan Adventures (the uncle’s chant is basically “no more ghosts, get out of here” in Cantonese) and Digimon Tamers (“Moumentai” is “it’s okay/don’t worry about it” in Cantonese), and it seems really hard to get VAs that speak it, so I’m not… really that mad about it.

BUT. Then there’s Wong Tou.

Wong is the Cantonese pronunciation of 黄 , Huang or Hwang in Mandarin.

So like… clearly they knew?? But?? Decided not to go all in on it??

(And then Daniel Dae Kim is his face model and I just??? Bro’s Korean, hello?????)

And then there’s the name of Wong Tou’s gang. The Ganzhe.

Which is a stupid name.

The Chinese dictionary gives me 甘蔗 which translates to sugarcane, which. I get it. The plantation times. The Chinese and the Japanese and the Filipinos and the Portuguese and whatever all used to work on the cane plantations.

…But you’re out here calling your BIG KNIFE GANG “Sugarcane??”

My guy, you could start a reggae band with that name instead.

SPEAKING OF REGGAE-

No one knows how to pronounce Ganzhe properly besides Eric’s VA apparently? All the other VAs pronounce the gan closer to “van” when it’s supposed to be more like a “gone.”

Yes. That’s right.

Ganzhe is pronounced more like ganja.

You know.

The Marajuanas™

I’m a Hawai’i-born Chinese, first-generation local on my mom’s side and third-gen local on my dad’s. I grew up in Chinatown, so this was a section of the game that was near and dear to my heart. So I THINK and HOPE you’d understand my frustration to see that work needed to be done on the representation of my culture in this game. It was definitely a little fun to see my hometown modeled in this game- they got Maunakea Marketplace and Keikaulike Mall down pretty accurately and some of the motifs on the buildings made me do a double take because they were so familiar to me. BUT, man, this cultural aspect of the game needed A LOT of work.

SO TO FINALLY CLOSE THIS OUT

Japanese people love Hawai'i a lot.

I think Japanese people love Hawai'i more than Hawai'i locals do.

But as for portraying it accurately, I understand that no one can do it as well as a local islander can. Did I personally think they did the best they could?

………………ehh

Like, if you turn your brain off, it's fine??

If you turn your brain off and not let Palekana get to you, this game is fine.

It can be a little campy.

It can be a little Hollywood.

It can be a little Disneyland.

And despite my four pages of bitching about it, at the end of the day. It is fine.

So with that, I’ve hit like ten full pages on this Google Doc. Despite half of this review being me complaining about what they got wrong about Hawai’i culture in this game, I liked it a lot! When the game didn't have me strapped down for an episode of a J-drama or Hawaii Five-O, I liked running around town, fighting guys, making other guys fight other guys, and managing a resort island. If anything, this game actually motivated me a little to make more local-themed stuff, because as I notice people getting older, there’s less and less people to correctly preserve highly specific culture stuff like this. So a lot of that responsibility falls on me, y’know?

Thank you for making it to the end of this review! I know it was a lot. I don’t know what happened. I do recommend this game, but I ask that you do NOT finish the game with the takeaway that you have learned everything there is to know about Hawai’i.

I’ll fight you with a lawn chair (in Minecraft, for the FBI agent reading this) if you do that.

Other than that, I think you’ll have a lot of fun but also take your time because this game is, like, a 100 hour commitment. Not Persona 5 Royal long, but a commitment nonetheless.

#like a dragon #like a dragon infinite wealth #pickle art #sure uhh I guess I will put this in the tag #IF YOU FOUND THIS VIA THE TAG AND YOU REALLY LIKE THIS GAME #HI HELLO I DO TOO I JUST HAVE SOME STRONG OPINIONS ABOUT THE CULTURAL ACCURACY OF MY HOMETOWN #PLEASE DON'T YELL AT ME YOU CAN STILL ENJOY IT #anyway I've had this sitting around for like... most if not all of march #and I finally got the spoons to put the finishing touches on it #and come to terms that I'm probably not opening the game back up anytime soon

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tinietaehyun · 8 months

Text

Forsaken [X]

[Sorcerer!Taehyun x Royal!Reader] [Series] [Chapter Ten]

Pairing: Sorcerer!Taehyun x Royal!Reader

Genres: royal!au, romance, fantasy, enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, action.

Contains: Profanity, mentions of injury, mentions of forced marriage, angst, unrequited love, manipulation, gaslighting.

Links: Forsaken Masterlist || Masterlist

Summary: With the situation tensing up, you find yourself at a loss. You had to keep Prince Beomgyu distracted whilst Taehyun worked his magic with your escape plan.

While Beomgyu toys with you, you play the reluctant damsel in distress hoping to the gods above he doesn’t find it suspicious. His sly smiles, the way his fingers brush against yours, against your waist as you both dangerously waltz wearing masks of deceit.

Though amongst your stress, you didn’t expect to reunite with your beloved knight.

“You know, I don’t get why you’ve been searching around? You can ask for my help, I know these cabinets inside out,” Soobin murmurs puzzled as he watches Taehyun whizz around the room rummaging through the drawers and cabinets.

The two sorcerers keep each other company in the Sorcerer’s Chambers in Luna’s Palace. Taehyun peers back at his satchel rummaging through it and brings out a small worn-out book. It was a small notebook that contained the last of his father’s spells that his father wrote down before he passed as well as spells that Taehyun created on his own.

His father had written the spell for teleportation, for emergency use. Who knew he’d be using it for such a situation? His eyes flicker across the scrawled handwriting on the pages as he checks the ingredients and design of the mana circle.

He’d have to double the size of the circle and add a few more nodes, but it should be possible to teleport two people; though it was clear, it was going to take an immense amount of power. He didn’t know whether he’d be okay afterwards.

Taehyun wasn’t exactly keen on revealing his plans to Soobin either, after all, he did work as Beomgyu’s royal sorcerer apprentice. What if he told him either by blurting it out or out of loyalty? Soobin had always been rather genuine and naive from a young age. Though, a tiny hint of guilt permeates Taehyun in deceiving his friend. Perhaps, he’d tell Soobin later on nearer to the time; or he’d let Soobin piece it together himself.

Taehyun ascertains which materials he’s found here and rummages in his satchel once more much to Soobin’s confusion. As he rummages, a glistening ring tumbles out, clinking against the wooden table and bouncing down against the cobbled floor and rolling away. Y/n’s ring!

Taehyun’s eyes widen as a gasp escapes his lips. Fortunately, the ring topples over beside Soobin’s foot as he picks it up admiring the intricate design of the heavy ring. “Pretty expensive ring, heavy too? Where’d you get something like this?”

“None of your business,” Taehyun huffs, walking over and attempting to snatch it. The ring glimmers under the candlelight beautifully. The ring you gave to him before you both got stuck in this mess. Soobin’s eyes teasingly glimmer as he raises the ring above Taehyun’s height. He hums, “Wait, wait…is it from Princess Y/n? It is, isn’t it! Look at your face!”

Soobin cackles as an angry yet flustered expression coats Taehyun’s visage. “No- just give it here, it’s valuable!” Taehyun grumbles. “Goodness! Your expression is priceless, this is the first time I’ve ever seen you caught off guard!” Soobin laughs. Taehyun crosses his arms averting his gaze as a small hue of pink dusts his cheeks.

“The ring is rather small for your hands anyway, very dainty but heavy. Must be real gold. She gave you this? So you guys do have something going on, huh?” Soobin teases.

Taehyun grunts, “She just felt guilty about me helping her with no monetary compensation so she gave it to me.” He attempts to snatch it once more, “Anyway, don’t be delusional, Soobin. Not like anything will happen, I’m just helping her. After all this shit is over, she won’t bat an eyelid at me.”

Soobin pouts, “Oh don’t say that, the princess seems rather fond of you.” Taehyun shrugs and Soobin hands him back the ring much to Taehyun’s relief. “I’d have turned you into a fucking toad, if you dropped this or damaged it,” he snarks making Soobin snort loudly.

“So…what’s with the specific choice of ring?” Soobin grins mischievously. “Don’t read too much into it you fool, she was so insistent on paying me, so she gave me this ring,” Taehyun mutters. “You’ve still kept it, a royal ring could have you set for half of your life. Why didn’t you sell it?” Soobin questions with a playful smirk.

A flicker of hesitation crosses Taehyun’s face and Soobin muses, “Oh? Not planning to sell it at all then?”

Taehyun scoffs, “Shut up, not like I’ll have a chance. I’ll probably be back in the woods after all this. Just…something to keep as a souvenir, I guess.” A knowing look appears on Soobin’s face, “Okay, whatever you say then.” Taehyun merely rolls his eyes at his implicative tone.

Soobin hums in thought, “You’d lose that tiny thing if you’re not careful. Why don’t I get you some yarn or wool. I think I’ve got some-“ He walks off rummaging through some small cabinets. Taehyun’s eyes narrow, “What?”

Soobin walks over holding some black yarn, “Here, you can thread the yarn through the ring and then maybe tie it to something, I don’t know.”

Cutting a long piece off, Taehyun threads the yarn through the ring as he dangles it in front of himself peering at the beautiful accessory. Memories of your face fills his mind, your precious laugh, snarky remarks and glimmering big eyes. The genuineness in your tone when you handed this to him, thinking he’d leave you behind in Luna.

Without thinking, he takes the two ends and loops it around his neck, and ties the ends together forming a necklace with the ring hooped onto it. A spark of surprise flashes on Soobin’s face and he smirks, “You have feelings for her.” Taehyun grunts, “Fuck off. Nothing’s going to happen.”

Soobin shrugs, “You're helping her, it’s a noble pursuit, I'm sure she appreciates that a lot. I don’t know, never say never.” Taehyun deadpans. Soobin gleams, “And you’re in denial, it’s quite clear.”

Taehyun merely groans scavenging back in his satchel for his notebook. He begins placing all the items necessary on the wooden table. “I still don’t get what you’re doing?” Soobin asks. Taehyun snorts, “Good.” Soobin huffs, “Huh?”

Taehyun’s gaze scans across the table of items and flickers back to his notebook, “Seems we need to get some more items. Since I can’t quite go out at the moment, since there guards around, and well, the prince insists on our safety. Do you mind getting the things I write down?”

“Uh…sure? But why are you suddenly doing this?” Soobin questions. Taehyun hesitates, “There’s a spell I want to teach you. But I need your help.”

“What spell is it?” Soobin questions confused. Taehyun muses dryly, “You’ll get it as we go along.” Well, Soobin was never one to turn down helping someone.

————

“You seem rather discomforted,” Beomgyu muses. You peer down at his arm hooked around yours at your side as you walk together, “I am.” A chuckle escapes his lips, “I appreciate your honesty, you know that?”

“As I was saying, I believe we can skip the usual engagement ball and go straight into the marriage ceremony. Things will be much more efficient and we can then head forth with our plan to take your position back, no?” You nod bored; for the last half an hour the prince insisted you walk with him; all he’s been doing is irritating you with conversation of marriage preparations.

“If you’d like, I can leave the more tedious matters such as invitations, decorations and such to you.” You glance around the grand hallway as you walk and drawl, “How joyous.”

He muses, “I can see you’re brimming with enthusiasm, love.” You grimace, making him chuckle.

As you continue walking, your eyes catch light of a magnificent set of large doors intricately painted and set with architectural flourishes. Beomgyu peers at you with a smirk, “Curious are we? Come.” He guides you through the large doors and your eyes widen recognising the humongous ballroom.

You remember coming here as a child! However, it’s been renovated in a more contemporary style - it’s stunning. Beomgyu regards you with an amused expression, “Not as dull as Fortuna’s ballroom, is it?” You scoff, “Oh hush.”

You walk ahead observing the beauty of the ballroom in which the golden light of the sunset filters in through the larger glass panes. Beomgyu’s sparkle with mischief as he suddenly outstretches his hand, “Love, would you care to dance?” You bite your lip in hesitation, you couldn’t be too much of a stickler.

With a huff, you take his hand and he brings the back of your hand to his lips with a teasing gaze, “Thank you, your highness.” He finds you rather endearing, keeping your composure, your dislike for him aside and going along with his little games. He enjoyed seeing your little reactions here and there.

He tugs you forward with a few inches separating you and his other hand slides around your waist; in an almost intimate fashion. The sunset glows against his skin making him look like a deity. Only the echoes of your footsteps resound out eerily as you dance together.

“Are you worried about marrying me? I assure you I will not meddle in your affairs,” he pauses with a smirk, “Well not too much that is.” You scoff as you waltz in the silence, “I find that rather hard to believe, but not like I have much of a choice,” you mutter.

He’s delighted by your answer and hums, spinning the both of you two around, “Come now, you’re painting me to be some sort of villain.”

“Are you not?” You ask, peering into his eyes and he matches your intense gaze, “Am I not your Prince Charming; coming to save you? Save you from a life without a title, from execution?”

You scoff lowly, “You’re manipulative-“ He chides playfully, “I prefer the term, persuasive.”

Beomgyu’s hand slides further down your waist and his grip on your hand tightens, “I don’t see what you’re so anxious about. I won’t be treating you like a slave. No, rather you’ll be spoiled, more than you were in Fortuna. Buy to your heart's desire, make yourself look pretty, roam around or stay inside, do as you please.”

You frown, maybe you’d be tempted if you already liked him. Yet your heart ached. You really hope Taehyun was making progress; Beomgyu was becoming more insufferable by the second.

Beomgyu muses, “Ah yes, I forgot you wish to have love in your marriage. Is that it? Is that why you’re so averse to this?” You scoff peering away. A chuckle escapes his lips, “What a cute notion. Though, I don’t mind humouring you.”

Glaring, you respond, “No love at all is better than a false concept of love.” Beomgyu hums amused by your answer as he leans closer; his breath caresses your face, “Come now, I never said it was impossible. Perhaps you’ll win me over, one day. Try hard enough, and perhaps I’ll willingly give my heart into your hands and shower you with my affections.”

His fingers squeeze yours as he steps forward and you step back accordingly, waltzing, a tension permeates the air between you two. Your eyes locked onto each other in a heated battle of mind and wits.

“Shower you with gifts, as my queen. Parade you around to my heart’s content, isn’t that nice?” He murmurs his breath fanning your ear. “Like a mere prize?” You seethe lowly. “Exactly, are you not my pretty prize? My consolation for Luna’s retreat in battle all those years ago?”

You murmur, “To think I once admired you, how naive. Thought you charming.” Beomgyu muses, spinning the both of you around once more, “Are you hurt by that still? Come now, I’m showing you my truest self now, no?”

Before you can make any remark; your moment is shattered as a guard rushes in, “Sire, a squadron of knights from Fortuna has just arrived. The Royal Commander wishes to meet with you. Would you like to greet them or shall I send them here?”

Your blood runs cold. No, no. They were here to haul you away! This couldn’t be happening! Beomgyu peers over at you with a smirk, “My, you’ve gone pale. Don’t go fainting on me now, I’m here. There’s nothing going to get in the way of me marrying you. Don’t fret.”

Beomgyu replies, “Send just the commander here. Make haste.” The guard nods rushing out instantly. Your thoughts run wild; the commander. Wait…Kai? He’s here?

Beomgyu hums, squeezing your hand, “Let me handle it, I won’t let them take you away from me, alright? They’re here on my territory.” His twisted sense of reassurance sends shivers through you. He moves a strand of hair from your face with a sly gaze and you scoff averting your eyes. “How cold you are to me, love,” Beomgyu muses.

The clatter of armor reverberates and your heart palpitates in anticipation. The grandiose doors open and you spot a painfully familiar visage. His soft eyes meet yours and you pry your hand out of Beomgyu’s as your legs automatically take into a sprint towards him.

Nostalgia and blissful feelings all return at once as you rush to him with your arms outstretched, teary-eyed. Hueningkai opens his arms wide as you run into his arms, embracing him tightly. You missed him, someone who had been by your side for ages.

Despite him following Sehun’s orders, he gave you the key to escape your cell and pointed you towards an escape route. You knew he would never truly betray you. He must have been forced, after all, he was the royal commander.

You peer up at his face and your eyes widen upon spotting a scar that presents itself on his upper cheek. You cup his face with watering eyes, “Kai, what happened?” Your gaze shakes and you splutter, “Was it S-Sehun?” Hueningkai removes your hand off his cheek; it hurts you. His silence tells you everything.

Enraged, you snarl, “That bastard! How dare he lay his blade upon you? What have you done to deserve such a punishment? Goodness, it must have hurt so much. Is it because of me? Because you let me escape?”

Hueningkai murmurs, “He doesn’t know that, otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here alive before you, princess.” You shudder and you frown. He resumes, “It was my mere incompetence. He’s become a tyrant, unstable, arrogant.”

Beomgyu snorts behind you as he walks over, “How predictable.” Hueningkai bows before continuing, “The kingdom and its people are in a restless state. Yeonjun has become Sehun’s most trusted aide, as his personal advisor.”

Dread fills your senses, that was awful news. “The coronation fastly approaches.” Kai reaches into his satchel and brings out an intricate scroll, “Thus, here I am, Prince Beomgyu, to extend an invitation to his majesty’s coronation.”

Beomgyu muses taking the scroll, “How quaint. Stealing the throne off his beloved sibling, how crude. Why should I attend such an event?” You roll your eyes; as if he was morally any better?

You enquire, “What is Sehun like now?” Hueningkai answers, “His demeanor is constantly changing; he’s stable one moment, paranoid the next. Increasingly agitated, sometimes even fearful. Perhaps, it’s the pressure, I’m not sure, princess.” His response befuddles you, what was troubling Sehun? Was Yeonjun up to something?

Unease fills you as your thoughts whirr in your mind. Beomgyu hums, “I’m sure you’re not just here to give me an invite, no?” He gestures to you with a sly smile, “Surely, he’s looking for his sister.” Your heart launches up into your throat.

“Kai…you’re not here to take me back right?” His expression drops as he murmurs, “Sehun told us to negotiate with Prince Beomgyu, to take you back. After all, you have a bounty on you.” You lifelessly peer at him. You couldn’t even be mad at him, he was just following orders. Hueningkai seems to pick up on your distress as he murmurs, “I’m a coward, I know.”

“You’re not,” you softly say.

“I am, I can’t even take your damn side! I’m trapped, I can’t just swing my blade at Sehun, I cannot protect you, my duty was to protect you,” Hueningkai snaps to himself, angered. He felt that he was useless.

His eyes glaze over, “I’m forced to follow his orders, princess. Otherwise, you damn well know, I’d have taken your side in a heartbeat.” He shakily resumes, “But…my family. He’s using my family against me. I can’t let anything happen to them. To my mother, my sisters.”

Your heart drops as your hands shake. Sehun…you will pay for your sins. A tear drips down your face seeing your beloved knight this vulnerable. “I understand, I do not blame you, Kai.”

“The way you looked so broken those nights in your cell, I…I thought you hated me. I wished the earth would swallow me whole,” Kai rasps. You murmur, “You helped me escape, that in itself was a bold move. That told me your loyalty to me still remains.”

You take his hands and peer at him with a determined gaze, “Protect your family, Kai. They come first. Don’t worry about me, I’ve…I’ve enlisted the help I need.” He peers down at your hands, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t be the man you wanted me to be.” His words shake you to your core; all sorts of past feelings and reminiscent memories flood your mind. Your heart aches.

Beomgyu clears his throat loudly peering down at your hands and Hueningkai pulls them away, “Apologies, your highness.”

“No need to fret, I believe I’ve ascertained the nature of your relationship,” Beomgyu snarks as he grasps your hand.

“Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Your ruler wishes to take my betrothed only to execute her? I think not,” Beomgyu hums and you grimace; how flawlessly he could put on an act as if he wasn’t using you.

Hueningkai stiffens, “Sorry, your highness? Betrothed?” You stammer, “Not official-“

“We’ll be getting married, isn’t that right, love?” Beomgyu peers down at you, squeezing your hand like a vice.

You mutter as Kai’s expression becomes appalled, “It’s out of circumstance, don’t think too much into it.” Infuriated, Hueningkai snaps, “You said you wished to marry for love? You already rejected his betrothal proposal years ago!” Beomgyu glares unamused at him.

How you wished to let Kai know this was a mere facade, an orchestrated plan yet you didn’t want to spoil your ruse. With a sigh you respond, “I have no choice, Kai. Beomgyu is the only person who can help me attain my throne back. I’ll have political power once I marry him, and he can officially enter Fortuna on diplomatic grounds,” you grit out, “I trust him.”

A small mocking laugh escapes Beomgyu’s lips. Hueningkai stares at you dumbfounded but says nothing. “Trust me, Kai,” you urge and he sighs, “I…I cannot persuade you. I know how stubborn you are.”

You ponder, his task was to take you back. If he turned up empty-handed to Sehun…oh no! You stammer, “How are you going to return without me? No- actually, stay here Kai. It’s safer for you here. We need all the help-“

Hueningkai murmurs with a pained smile, “I wish I could, but my family, princess. He’ll stop their monthly benefits, slaughter them even, then come for me.” You remain silent. “I have to return, face my punishment. For the sake of my family. Truthfully, I came to deliver the invitation and had no intention of bringing you back. It gave me solace actually that you were far away. Safe. So you could start anew.”

His words touch you deeply; his tone is lifeless, as if he’s given up on everything. “Sehun…who knows what that tyrant will do to you?” You frown.

A moment of tense silence passes as Kai finally replies with a defeated smile, “I’ll handle it. He cannot be so hasty to get rid of his finest commander, no?” His words offer you no reassurance, no, in fact he’s deflecting.

Kai’s eyes meeting Beomgyu’s, “I’m sure the Prince will fervently help you. More than I can.” Oh, if only you knew Kai…

“I admire your honour, your bravery,” Beomgyu hums, peering at Kai. “You are indeed a fine knight. I do hope Sehun does not punish you so severely but rather I hope we meet in better circumstances. Perhaps you can work for me, instead.”

Kai looks down at the floor hesitantly, “Of course, your highness. I wish you both the best of luck in your pursuits.”

Anxiety courses through you, surely Sehun wouldn’t be deranged enough to kill Kai? No…no way. He’d be fine, Kai was capable, persuasive, charming. He would be fine, wounded seriously but fine. Right? Nothing he couldn’t handle?

“Don’t worry about me, Princess. I know what you’re like. Don’t lose sleep over me, you got that?” He chuckles placing a hand atop your head, as he did in the past. Something about his forlorn expression hurt you deeply. It was almost as if he was letting you go. For good.

“A moment, alone, Beomgyu.” You request Beomgyu to leave the two of you be, and with great reluctance, he leaves walking away.

The sunset dimly illuminates his chiselled features. That face once would make your cheeks warm and your gaze lock onto his. However, this time it doesn’t. You don’t know why. Those precious feelings, you once held dear in your heart, seemed like a forlorn memory. Another face flashes in your mind; pale blond locks, sharp eyes and a snarky smile, handsome features. Taehyun.

You shake your head as your heart beats rapidly and you find yourself becoming breathless. A painful realisation comes to fruition, your feelings for your beloved knight were but a thing of the past. Looking at the way, he was gazing at you dully, you sensed it was the same for him.

“Kai, did you ever…see me as more than just your princess, more than just bound by duty?” You ask lowly. He gives you a sad smile peering out at the darkening sky, “I think you know the answer, princess.” You both remain quiet and you shakily murmur, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What good would it do, I’m your knight. That is all. You are royalty,” Kai responds. “Right. But…what about now?” You ask tentatively.

His eyes glimmer in melancholy as he speaks, “I…I’ve come to realise over the last month or so, I am not worthy of you. You deserve better, your highness. Someone, who can put themselves in harms way, not bound by fear or responsibility. More powerful than I. Someone who can challenge the norms. Not a coward like me.” He breathes out, “I’ve failed my duty as a knight the moment, Sehun shook my hand and requested me to help imprison you at the time of the decree.”

“I wish to dedicate myself in protecting my loved ones. In that, I cannot protect you; I chose my family over you.” Kai murmurs solemnly. You stand there frowning; he had given you up. You wanted to say, you liked him once too. But, you decide, to save him from more misery, to not disclose such information.

“Don’t feel as though you are a failure, Kai. You will forever be my most loyal and heroic knight and above all, my closest friend. March proudly back to Fortuna, stand tall regardless of what Sehun does,” you utter.

You step forward peering into his umber eyes, “Wait for me. To serve me once more, under my rule when I return. Just trust me.” Kai’s eyes water for a moment before he restrains himself. Clearing his throat he steps back, “Of course, I only await good things.” You smile at him as he does to you.

“I’ll be fine,” he whispers under his breath. “I know you will,” you whisper back. With a shared nod, he steps back bellowing out to Beomgyu, “Your highness, thank you for your time. I will be taking my men and promptly leaving your residence. My men and I will reach Fortuna by tomorrow evening.”

Beomgyu walks over pleased, “Safe travels, I do hope to see you next time.” Hueningkai nods, giving you a final glance as he walks out of the ballroom doors. A warm emptiness fills you.

The sun finally melts into the horizon slowly dimming the ballroom into a darkness with you and Beomgyu standing beside each other.

“You seem to just steal everyone’s heart, hm?” Beomgyu muses. You say nothing, still burdened by Kai’s departure. “Oh don’t look too sad, do not tell me you reciprocate that knight’s feelings?”

You snap; “He doesn’t…have feelings for me.” Beomgyu chuckles, “I saw the way he looked at you. Any man can see it clear as day.” You murmur, “Not anymore. It was but a memory.”

Beomgyu hums amused, taking your hand guiding you towards the doors out of the ballroom and into the candle-lit hallway, “Perhaps, you will enlighten me of that memory after our marriage.”

A groan escapes your lips as he chuckles, “Oh how adorable you are in your reluctance.” You both walk together as he hums, “Your kingdom seems to be in quite the shambles.”

“I’m aware,” you grit out. Beomgyu hums, “Once getting into Fortuna, removing your pitiful brother off the throne and crowning your pretty little head with your rightful crown, everything should naturally fall into place.”

His condescension irks you and a scoff escapes your lips. “I can imagine it, the two kingdoms with such turmoiled history uniting, how historic, no?”“I suppose,” you mutter dryly.

You notice his jaw tighten and a squeal escapes your lips as you're suddenly pushed against the wall.

Beomgyu’s hand lands beside your head as he steps forward with a smirk; his dark brown locks fall across his forehead, brushing against his lashes in a manner that makes him look predatory. “As much as I enjoy our back and forth; your little glares; huffs and scoffs, I do hope you can put on an act in front of my people, especially yours.”

“I’d like to find that rather than appearing dry and unromantic is not an ideal way to win over a kingdom of people. Rather…a princess who lost her title, ran to her ally kingdom, where a charming prince whisked her to safety, and they fell in love. How does that story sound? I’m sure the newspapers will love it, no?” He coos.

Your eyes widen, “You’re deranged to think they’ll believe that.” His lips form a twisted smile, “You’re forgetting the kingdoms are full of uneducated peasants.” Your gaze darkens; he truly didn’t care.

“So you can huff and whine, as much as you like, within closed doors. In fact, I rather enjoy it. But I do implore you to put on your prettiest acting face in front of the public and other nobles, hm?”

Beomgyu leans in closer making your breath hitch; your eyes flicker to his lips, a mere few inches away from yours. A shiver runs through you as his eyes spark, “Oh? What’s this?”

“Are you scared or…are you enjoying my proximity, hm? Tell me y/n?” A teasing tone drips from his luscious lips. He leans closer and you snap your head to your right, away from his face.

A husky chuckle resounds from him as his deep voice brushes against your ear, “Do not tell me, you’re afraid of a little close proximity? Your shaky breaths, dilated pupils, trembling body,” he muses, “My, my, what would my maids think if any of them turned the corner into this hallway, hm?”

You scoff shoving him aside, “Have some decorum; your highness. We are not married.”“Yet,” he grins. “I merely tease, your expressions are fascinating,” Beomgyu hums, brushing past you, “Anyway; let me escort you to your chambers. You must be emotionally exhausted, no?”

You mutter, “Oh believe me, I am.”

He asks, “Oh, where’s your little traveling companion of yours? I have not seen him all day. Are you two still squabbling?” You murmur, “I don’t know, he’s not spoken to me,” you feign a frown, “I…I saw him earlier pacing around. I want to apologise to him.”

Beomgyu laughs, “Apologise? Do not be absurd, you are royalty and he is but a sorcerer, an exiled one at that. In fact, I believe now is the best time to send him off. He serves no purpose here.”

You try to contain your angered composure and you murmur most earnestly, “I..I know. But I want to leave things off on a good note. Just let me try to talk to him and send him off on a good note, Beomgyu. Please.”

His eyes meet yours with a flicker of hesitation before he curtly hums, “Do as you wish, however pointless it may be.”

A knowing smile graces your lips as you look ahead. Good. That’s what you wanted to hear. Taehyun, stay strong. Keep trying.

“What is your pretty little head thinking about?” Taehyun. You murmur, “Nothing, I’m just exhausted.”

Beomgyu’s lips form a sly smile, “Let’s keep it that way, hm. Now come, off to your chambers we go.”

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