#you tell me this isnt romantic

[orange-cheetah]

The Thief and the Phantom's First Meeting

Undead Girl Murder Farce: Volume 2, Chapter 0

[Disclaimer: Translated from Chinese text. Some lines taken from the subtitles of the anime.]

"Good morning, Erik."

Upon waking up, he hears a friendly voice calling him.

The man groans, getting up awkwardly. Both of his hands are tied behind him.

He is in an unfamiliar, strange room. The walls and ceiling are bare stone, though a lavish dining table laden with desserts or fruit trays sits in the middle of the room. He can hear faint sounds of water.

On the chair before him sits a young man with his legs crossed.

"Your face without the mask is unexpectedly quite handsome, you know."

The man realizes that the mask he likes using has been taken away, to be put on the table. Hurriedly lowering his head, he tries to cover his face with his white hair. The young man smiles and says: "Don't be so shy."

The young man is about twenty-five or -six years of age. Beautiful golden hair and a fierce[1] gaze leave a deep impression; a tuxedo hugs his slender body, draped in a black cloak. The buttons on his jacket are probably real emeralds. His expression, dress and attitude overflow with considerable confidence; instead of a king, he gives one the sense that his style is more of a prince's. And a capricious, playboy prince at that. The man instinctively feels that this person is of the sort completely opposite to himself.

"Right, how do you feel, Erik? Because you've been unconscious for about half the day. Want to drink anything?"

"How do you know my real name?"

"Investigating in advance is the basics of the work. Oh, I know lots of things. You're from Persia. You were born with your white hair and disfigured face. Your singing voice is an unparalleled tenor. You live 23 floors beneath the Paris Opera. You've evaded capture for the past 20 years, elusive as though a specter; the nickname you were given was 'the Phantom of the Opera.' Am I right, our shy gentleman."

While listing out all sorts of information unceasingly, the young man plays with a large ruby with one gloved hand.

Right, he's beginning to recallーーit was a splendid night like any other. As it was the closing night of Don Carlos[2], the opera house had been very lively; the man was watching the opera from Box 5 of the second floor. But something strange had happened while Act 3 was in progress: this phantom thief had descended from the skies, stealing the ruby worn by the female vocalist. As it was the singer he adores, he had gone after the thief. After pursuing him to the top level of seats he had been hit by a counterattack from the enemy, and thenーーwhen he woke up he was already here.

"What is this place?"

"L'Aiguille Creuse[3]," the young man replies with a phrase he's never heard before. "Though I'm still working on it. It's a tad uncomfortable to stay in for the moment."

"Why did you kidnap me?"

"I stole you." Immediately corrected. "Along with this ruby. Things should be organized and collected to one place. I can't bear to see this passionate jewel never be more than some stage prop, and it's no fun to have a true phantom living in obscurity beneath an opera house. They should both belong to me; it feels more coordinated this way."

"Enough chatter. What are you after?"

The young man shrugs. "There's a job I'd like to do in London, but my subordinates have all ran off, so I'm a little short-staffed at the moment."

So he wants to find someone to help with this job? What an unorthodox way of recruitment. The man carefully asks: "What are you planning on stealing?"

"'The Penultimate Night.'"

"...Phileas Fogg's?"

"That's right."

"Are you mad?" No wonder all his subordinates ran. "I have heard of the jewel of the Fogg mansion, but it's impossible to obtain. That mansion's security is impregnable. And in London, there's Sherlock Holmes."

"Here, there's Arsène Lupin."

The young man touches the ruby to his chest.

If heard only from the sidelines, it would feel nothing more than a very arrogant statement. But behind the tone, one can feel an inexplicable majesty that is different from the common bluffing or exaggerated fantasies of fools. As though certain of the future.

The man senses the abnormality.

What His Royal Highness exudes is not confidence.

It's conviction.

Breaking through the mansion security that others would quail before, prevailing over the famous detective coined 'the best in the world'; these are all established matters in his mind and are to be expected. The plan is already perfect and flawless, all hypotheticals accounted for, leaving no rate of failure to speak of ー where would one even spare the time to be arrogant. It may well be madness talking, yetーー

Meeting Lupin's gaze once more. Golden eyes as though the sun.

"Any chance of winning?"

"I wouldn't have invited you here if there weren't."

Stepping into the Phantom's heart as though heat waves of summer. The life spent hiding under the opera house until now, the self-isolation imprisoned by the ugly right face; all of this is easily melted by the sun. Guided by that light, a foolish feeling surges up. As though wanting to cause a scene on the stage of a farce, a young and energetic impulse.

After a while, he stands up. At the same moment, the ropes that had been tying his hands together fall to the ground.

"You have other special skills besides singing?" Lupin says. "When did you undo them?"

"Around the time you said 'unexpectedly quite handsome'. I've always been good at handling ropes."

"I admire you even more now. So, what are you going to do? Go home?"

"I was stolen, wasn't I? I'll follow my owner's orders."

Strictly speaking, it's his loss this time. Even if he's unwilling to, he could only agree to a contract.

The Phantom approaches the table to pick up his mask, putting it on the right side of his face, experiencing the sense of coordination that had been mentioned in their conversation just now.

Bowing respectfully to his owner, he recites a line from an opera: "La Juive[4], Act 2. 'But come! Be it heaven or earth, the self-same fate and destiny awaits the two of us.'" [5]

"Though you've done well to quote these lines." Lupin surveys the surroundings of the hideout with an expression as though suppressing laughter. "I'm afraid, Erik, we are at sea."

Footnotes:

强悍 (qiáng hàn): strong, powerful

Based on conflicts in the life of Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545–1568). Though he was betrothed to Elisabeth of Valois, part of the peace treaty ending the Italian War of 1551–59 between the Houses of Habsburg and Valois demanded that she be married instead to his father Philip II of Spain. It was commissioned and produced by the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra (Paris Opera) and given its premiere at the Salle Le Peletier on 11 March 1867. (wikipedia)

The Hollow Needle.

The Jewess. Tells of an impossible love between a Christian man and a Jewish woman. (wikipedia)

Act 2, Scene IV. Presumably taken from two separate sections, and I couldn't find any mention of 'heaven or earth'. You can read it here (pp. 19)

LEOPOLD. I know! But come! Let thine heart be mine, Let love enchain us, and Jew or Christian, Thy lot is mine. Let heaven's wrath o'erwhelm me. Thy love wants mine, The rest is nothing, I regret not.

RACHEL AND LEOPOLD. Let thine heart be mine, Let love enchain us and, Jew or Gentile, Thy love is mine. For us the self-same fate and destiny

[casualavocados]

We are brothers. It's my job to take care of you— I don't need it. If you are that free, go find Zhang Teng. Or you can go back to the headquarters and take care of our boss.

KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 04

[nevercured]

How liberating must it be to confess all your dirtiest secrets to me? I promise I won't think you're a bad person, darling. We both know I've thought far worse things.

[darkgifted]

obsessed with the fact that in most rpgs, the "good" companion endings usually involve you helping them get what they want

whereas in bg3 the good ending for characters usually means steering them away from what they want, because it isn't actually good for them, even at the cost of them never feeling the warmth of the sun again

[tommygettingwrittenoff]

i need them to put eddie in a coma so he can have his own little coma dream realization

[hella1975]

as someone who is extremely queasy and the thought of blood and gore makes me want to power wash my brain, can I ask genuinely what it is about cannibalism that is so intriguing? I swear that I’m not judging I’m just curious bc personally it’s one of those things that I absolutely refuse to let my brain think about

omg yes i can actually 100% so basically it shows a lot in my writing but im a fan of the extremes of human feeling like it's insanely compelling to me to consider the things we do when pushed into the darkest corner of a single emotion, be it love or hate or fear or anger or grief etc etc. we are a deranged species and we do deranged things when we feel too much of any one thing and it's the concept of extrapolating on that until you reach a point of it being too far, too much, too extreme, and the implications of that. we have cannibalism as one of the ultimate taboos, something that is rightfully so abhorred in society that many respond with horror at even the thought of it, and i actually like that about it. i like that we all - like you said - feel a certain repulsion to the initial thought. it's a biological knee-jerk because your brain fundamentally does not want to look directly at it. for the greeks, cannibalism was one of the greatest sins, greater than even murder, because kronos ate his children and zeus himself had no power over such a crime. to talk about the house of atreus again, the crime was so great that for atreus to subject his brother to it meant they were BOTH damned as a result, despite atreus himself not eating anyone. that's how extreme it is. you are inherently blurring the lines between people. there's supposed to be a victim and an aggressor, but when the horror is so unthinkable, what are you left with? most crimes are ingrained into us with strict responses and punishments, but with a crime this great, even after centuries of it featuring in our literature, we still can't look directly at it. that is ridiculously compelling to me.

so that's the bad, more literal side, but then we have love as consumption. again, this is considering the human reaction to a level of obsession and love so intense and unsustainable that it leads you to consuming each other. it's mutual destruction. it's being so tied to another person, so reliant on them, so adoring of them that the only way you can tolerate it is to put them behind your ribs and keep them, like a house keeps its occupants. the act itself - tasting, swallowing, savouring - is erotic. arousal exists in the heights of violence. the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference, because love and hate are actually more similar than they are different. rather than opponents on a battlefield, they're dancers seperated by a single, fine line, never becoming one another but fingertips brushing, sharing air. loving someone so much you feel crazy, you feel restless in your own skin like it's trying to crawl off of you; hating someone so much that you can't stop thinking about them; sex and violence as intimate acts shared with another person - love as consumption tackles these dangerous crossovers, because the love becomes so intense that it slips into traditionally hateful actions, violent actions. cannibalism; the great taboo. yet done by someone who genuinely sees it as an act of love, received by someone who views it that way. both so entangled and deranged by this single shared emotion. again, insanely compelling to me. and that's not even considering the implication of one person seeing every part of the other. back to your point and what i said about cannibalism being something we cant even look at, you're getting the most disgusting, unseen parts of someone and instead of being repulsed, instead of looking away, you're taking them in your bare hands and putting them to your lips. it's reverent it's religious it's- *my laptop is forcibly taken from me*

sucks that i have to say this bc i like to think people have critical thinking skills but i KNOW some mf is gonna anon me like 'STOP ENCOURAGING ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS >:(' so disclaimer; this is all just fun stuff to discuss and consider, and personally i talk about it almost solely from a writing pov anyway. if you're listening to ethel cain and unironically wanting to emulate that kind of dynamic then maybe you are too young and/or impressionable to be listening to ethel cain.

[quietwingsinthesky]

sorry i am watching star wars movies thats why im not shutting up about this. but god its SO funny. that when han is about to leave and storms off mad at the beginning of empire strikes back, he’s doing it with the swagger of A Stereotypical Manly Man but like his actual complaints about leia are “won’t say goodbye to me when im sad im leaving her” and “doesn’t want me to give her a goodbye kiss >:(”

the hopeless romantic of the two is han. this is indisputable.

[luxsea]

i heard karlachs monologue was rlly good but holy shit i genuinely dont think i'll be the same after that

[oflgtfol]

guy told me he loves me. ahhhhh

[venomgender]

would be a lot more charitable to joongdok if it didnt make people completely dismiss han sooyoung

[br1ghtestlight]

its soooo hard for me to write about a fwb situationship type relationship <- thats just how they are in canon plus kinda my own spin on it. bcuz im SO BAD at writing relationship drama and angst i have no experience with it. im like Have you considered communicating? and talking?? obviously doesn't make sense for these characters at This point. idk what relationship drama even HAPPENS to people irl cuz it all feels so stupid for me

[doveotion]

i need to make pomegranate+dark chocolate bark soon I miss it 😕

[raineedayss]

c can we mention florida man/100days!bizly and 100days!slime. can we talk about how after Florida man left he said “with a new fire in my heart”. can we mention that. please. or the part when they’re using the grappling hooks in the trees. please

[suncaptor]

the thing about homestuck is I think of every single media hyperfixation I've ever had it IS the one that feels closest to me and altering in how i connect and essential and related to who I am. like it was so important to me growing up and to the youth lgbt+ culture I was in. it's existential, long, character driven, involved, deep, convoluted, deeply referential that allows in group connection and humour, and also I read it in my mid teens. Also there's just nothing else I've ever seen like it. Like it's so important to me in a way no matter how obsessed with anything else I am it doesn't register.

[selfshippingtrinity]

Imagine your f/o making the cutest flower crown for you.

[definitelynotshouting]

heya i just wanted to tell you how genuinely important your arospec scarian thing is to me

the line "He's not sure what he wants, what's expected of him here" has just helped me solve a tiny crisis i've been having for the past month+ and on one hand i can't believe a fic about blockmen kissing is helping me figure this out but on the other hand im thinking of course it was your writing that helped me realize what is happening in my little feelings hole

anyway, just wanted to say thank you for how real and beautiful your writing is

sincerely, an aro/ace person who's feeling a little more okay about their crisis because you're an awesome human

HEY ANON,,,,, THIS IS SO SWEET WTF..... holy shit im literally speechless. I dont even remotely know what to say to such a genuine and heartfelt message, except that i am so, so happy ive managed to help you like this with my writing

Writing the arospec stuff was really interesting for me, personally, because thats an aspect of myself ive never really... set out much space to think about??? Ive known for a while that im probably demiromantic, considering how close i have to be with people before i can even begin to catch feelings, but ive never truly and consciously explored that within my writing before until now. And the fact that finally doing so has helped someone with a personal crisis really makes me so teary-eyed like hello...... oh my gods.

Thank you for taking the time to tell me this, and im so glad ive managed to help out despite being a virtual stranger. That novelty is never gonna wear off for me. I hope you're having a good day, anon❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ take care of yourself!! :]