Yakov Khomich

From the series "Girl in the blue dress", 2024

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗     જ⁀➴        𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐃𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐘  𝐓𝐎𝐘𝐁𝐎𝐗  𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒         𝒇𝒕.        @abseance

𝐀 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓?     𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐒𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐀𝐗 𝐌𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐓, 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐓     —     the same inherent obstinacy the driving force of most of my actions. 

Could I keep one? Most certainly not.      Yet the thrill of the unknown, the prospect of another’s barest truths shared with me in a moment of unexpected camaraderie, pulled a brief nod from me nonetheless. What this wondrous mystery could be, my mind was already swift to imagine in broad strokes painted by fantasy’s brush: something dark and twisted, like most of my own unshared stories, or perhaps something simply unexpected coming from the woman before me? 

❝   Go ahead,   ❞  I tried to prompt the other into offering such an intimately private glimpse into her life, her very being; the corners of my mouth already twitching with the sardonic amusement I was so prone to finding in situations like this.  ❝   I won’t tell a soul. I promise.   ❞  

A lie,     sweet-lilted and as fake as most of my outward appearances     —     for the simple price of some minor benefit, I’d sell out anyone’s secrets without batting an eye. 

But that wasn’t Akikō’s concern just yet. 

I leaned against the counter behind me, my arms hanging awake and guarded. Half-witted or not, she had always been a hard catch. Contrary to the belief of ghouls as primitive creatures capable of solely blood thirst, Sayuri was clever and teasing alike, always leaving the faintest of trails and eluding my grasp every time I got too close. I’d only be left with the ghost of her perfume, mocking and infuriating before surrendering to the eddies of my cigarette’s smoke. Though I liked the chase, to be quite frank, and I wanted nothing more than to see the look on her face when there was no other way out but my victory. Yet despite this strong urge of mine, one of which never left my mind even when I filled the days capturing other, uncomplicated bounty heads, my body could not, for whatever reason, keep up with this desire and intrigue. My sleeping habits crumbled to a frightening degree, and I couldn’t hold much food down before feeling dizzyingly nauseated, crawling to the toilet and vomiting sick. Even now, there was effort in keeping my hands steady. I was lucky I wasn’t the only frail one in the room.

“Really, there’s no need for promises here, as this secret’s quite an open one, but…” My voice came out blanketed in a sigh, easy and amused in spite of my own distant hopes. I grounded myself on the late night chatter of innocent pedestrians soaking through the window. “Truth be told, bounty hunting just isn’t what it’s made out to be. All the numerous competitors chasing one target, all the fees taken from your cut if you’re able to catch ‘em first… once all’s said and done, you’re lucky if you have even half the reward left for yourself… And as for those being hunted, well. I’m sure you have many firsthand accounts of such, being one of the highest bounty heads and all.” I shrugged, ignoring the itch for a cigarette, to rid her perfume, and watched as a lock of hair fell softly against her cheek before holding out like silk in the yellow light. From the way she was speaking, it sounded like she wanted a real secret, a part of me unearthed for whatever self-benefit she could reap from it. I could almost laugh.

Spread across the bed is her weapon collection, rusty jagged things that must've been piecemealed across someone else's lifetime. A few highlights here and there, but nothing sparks confidence, and certainly nothing worth envy. It's child's play. Beach ball efficiency, Jesus.

She'd push her luck against a boy scout.

He lets her whinge on in the background, anyhow, white noise to the phases he's running through. Slight as she is, there's still physicality potential, and some things he could teach her to work around that. Her face helps her case. Pretty bait works best in close range.

"Good." He interrupts, disinterested in the rest of the sales pitch. It's uncomfortable to reckon with his part in this story, so he doesn't. Keep that opportunity closed. "That's how you should be." He inspects the handle on a drop point, considers a correction: "That's how you need to be."

No point, otherwise. The drop knife's garbage. He tosses it further up the bed to start a reject pile. Most of this can go. They'll figure out funds for new shit later. Mid-temple scratch, he turns back to her to lay it out there.

Good.

I lowered my hand down from my mouth, the sting of my bitten nail making friends with the stale air. The past few months had been a desperate blur of grief, the shock of that grief and the wretched hope that my life would come back, aimless and trying and yet still nothing to show for it. Nothing at all, much less nothing good.

John’s voice, whether intentional or not, was cut straight from a compass. I didn’t care to check if it was crooked: any iteration of north was more than enough for me so long as I was moving.

There was tension aching the back of my neck, and childishly I kept it there if only to preserve myself according to John’s righteousness, hurting in ways that paid off. If the wound could be turned into a well of strength, then I wasn’t going to let it scab. I was going to pry my fingers in it, keep it open.

I watched him— with a kind of serious devotion that comes only after loss— as he picked through my limited array of arsenal. Things I'd found in forgotten corners that certainly looked shinier and more worthwhile then, but now oddly shameful as he began tossing them.

Biting the inside of my lip, it took everything in me to meet his gaze, amateur and girlish and all too hearing of my grandmother’s clicking tongue, telling me breathlessly that I knew better. And I certainly might have— but I was selfish. I was just afforded room to be. As one is when learning something new, I was excessive, indulgent. I didn’t want to think about it.

“Yes.” I blinked, burying my grandmother’s voice before it could revive again. “I can. I am.” My words came out sharper than I imagined they would.

I held John’s gaze a beat longer before exhaling a breath I wasn’t aware of keeping, a bit too careful picking my words. “I know how to get my way around one— good enough to hold some ground...” Technically true, though all my backyard practice had been on stationary items. Glass jars, aluminum cans. I’d never attempted to shoot any critters that stumbled its way into my corners. I always felt guilty aiming at small things. Best he didn’t know this.

He stares to her blankly,　tries to summon anything onto his face beyond this agonizing vulnerability.　Calcified countenance offers little and gives less.　Anger,　maybe,　but it begs for his avarice at its worst brutality.　His anger can be too much,　too mean,　too violent,　a knife stabbing cleanly through well-meaning warm hearts.　He won’t subject Aki to that.　He can’t.　❛❛　Okay.　❜❜　It’s spoken simply,　a respite from how she stumbles over herself.　He is allowed to be angry,　and so he chooses not to be.　He could have changed his number,　run off to god knows where,　just like she had.　❛❛　It’s okay,　Aki.　❜❜

His eyes divert to lily-white clearing,　snow blanketing the landscape as far as the eye can discern.　It’s winter,　and a skiing field trip for the residents is approaching,　dotted just on the horizon.　He could almost count the snowflakes nestling into Aki’s hair,　pale dots starkly contrasting against dark waves.　If the containing moment weren’t so fragile,　he’d comment on it,　fondly remark upon the constellation formed inadvertent.　There is no space for such an aside.

Akikō recalled the memory with something bitter in her mouth.      She swallowed it down,     savored its taste.      Memory,     a deserved punishment,     she thought,     as the vulgar gnawing of shame teethed at her rib.      She hated the girl Dae-ho had seen and loved,     and she hated how familiar her name sounded on his lips,     a glitch in time where no space allotted the distance between woman and girl-child.      A blur unforgiving.

“Dae-ho—”        habitual as it was urgent—      Akikō wrenched her eyes back to his gaze.      Her mouth opened,     then closed,     chewing on its own pink as she hesitated in the silence cluttered between them.      It wasn’t okay.      She wasn’t okay.      She wanted to scream if only to get him to scream back.      She wanted a wound with a clear beginning and end,     clean and sterilized and therefore incapable of haunting.      But how was she to say this when she looked at him and saw only a boy?      The same boy who’d been there when the world,     after reclaiming her grandmother,     had returned Akikō’s name and asked her what it meant.      The only boy who had been there at all.

Akikō swallowed.      She had not grown as tall as she would have liked to believe.

“Okay,”        she repeated,     desperate and surrendering.      The tension in her shoulders bled into her forearms,     down to even her fingers as she felt Dae-ho’s handhold shift into a warm embrace.     “Dae-ho,”       Akikō tried again,     failed again.     I missed you.     She wrapped her arms around him, her hands tailoring the shape of a question mark before pressing into a cling,     something pleading.

A knot formed in the back of her throat.      She worked a breath around it anyhow,     digging her nails into her palms to feel any other ache but this one.       “No,   I—      I just got in town today,”        Akikō exhaled,     their released hold of each other immediately speckled with snow.         “I wandered around first without grabbing much of a bite— (...)      Before I knew it,     I ended up here.”        She didn’t know why she said it.  She didn’t know what else to say.

Akikō followed him through the door,     taking uneasy comfort in the heated room.      Aware that her company was just as wound for him as he was her,     Akikō attempted to amend the unbearable heaviness hovering about, clearing her throat to find her voice again. Where was her learned charms and pretense when she needed it most?

"honestly," absent, he cracks open the mini fridge with his nose already scrunched. it's a devastatingly barren showing inside, save for something white and green and frothy inventing new life on the top shelf. he shuts it again before the smell has a chance to escape. "i don't know what your damage is." fuck, that's disgusting. he scrubs the back of his knuckles under his septum to clear fumes. "but yeah. sure is leaning that way."

She glanced about the room, taking in its dilapidated corners and molding furniture. The TV was left on, humming static. Akikō went towards the window first.

“From the way you’ve been treating me, it’s almost like I do. Like I’ve got three bodies hiding under my bed. Which, I don’t, by the way.” There was a slight breeze blowing in. “I’ve got four,” she mumbled, more for her own amusement than his hearing.

The window rail was cracked open, its bottom ledge chipped. Yellow powder sat mockingly on the stool. Sulfur. What could a demon possibly want in this run-down house coursed for new suburbia? She considered the answers, continuing their conversation to buy some time. “Look, it’s not like we need to braid each other’s hair or anything, but I know what I’m doing. You don’t have to treat things as if it’s my first rodeo.” In other words: I’m your equal.

❝ i live in your nightmares. i thrive on them. ❞ though thrive was a strong word. there was a new tremor in her hands she couldn’t seem to shake off , and she was quick to irritate these days. of all the nightmares she’d eaten , his would stay with her for centuries. // post-fall, from dream eater aki hehe<3

the knight met a great deal of people in their lifetime. they now live in the weathered pages of their journal , tucked tight 'tween an owl's figurine and the annals of the agate order─── trinkets of the past they are wont to avoid. it is decidedly harder to do so when someone blatantly lays it all out in the open , a terrible thing exhumed by remembrance. akikō's remark unfurls in the space between them , and argenti stares at it like a vine waiting to snap ; they feel a little kinship to quarry in this moment , pilfered carrion and mere scraps of the knight that they ought to be. thus , they are still at the precipice of recognition. gaze drawn to the way @absaence's hands quiver , a haunting in her voice as her words linger in the air.

" i apologize. " the knight offers in lieu of the grievance that lay dormant 'neath their tongue , eyes still moored to the tremor in her hands and the restless glint in her gaze. too close a reflection of all the times they had tried to wash the blood off their hands ; of restless nights , and dreams festering in rot. " far be it for a knight to burden a friend with such ... sights. " argenti does not think to ask what akikō may have seen──── there are so many things in their past that they would deign to impart. a younger , more callous version of them would have reeled at the thought ; lashed out until the stern gaze of their master brought them to heel. he's outgrown it all : the sharpness , the aggression , even the name they ought to bear with pride. all the same , perdition is their path , and the road to tread is cruel. that anyone might bear witness to the memories they sought to keep , it unsettles and soothes something inside them in equal measure.

" how are you faring ? " they amend the silence with the query , gaze slipping from her trembling hands as they walk towards the kitchenette with hands aching to move. it is easy , to allow familiarity to guide their movements ; reaching for the cupboard where all their best tableware are stored. pausing only when the soft sound of the pot placed on the counter rings too loudly in their ears. akikō lingers and hovers both , and the knight can almost feel her gaze following their every move. even that is less obtrusive than knowing she saw even a fraction of the memories they sought to forget , " are you partial to tea and pastries ? it would be remiss of me not to offer you some. though , i never did manage to ask whether or not you partake in these as well. "

“Don’t apologize.” Though its shadow read: don’t pity me. Her hands were still shaking. She crossed her arms entirely to hide its tremors, and some small secret part of her wished she were better with words. Truly, she had only meant it as a comfort, a corroboration of the knight’s dreams as effective sustenance for her own needs, but it came out harsh and biting, a little too much teeth. Everything that left her mouth tasted more like revision than it did conversation, but still— she tried. If not for the odd kinship budding between them, then for the semblance of fortitude over the distastefully weak image of her present. “The stronger these sights are, the longer I can go without eating them. As of now, I'm set for the next four days. A winning gain to both parties, if you ask me.” Surely, Genti was feeling quite restless themself. Even if the nightmare’s burden was relieved entirely from their memory, having the darkest corners of one’s mind witnessed, completely uncensored, was a level of vulnerability Akikō could never imagine to stomach. And yet they moved smoothly, adept and unblinking, seemingly familiar with our angel’s nighttime haunting. A knight through and through.

Pressing her fingertips into her arms, Akikō maintained her gaze on Genti before she made way to one of the wooden chairs by the dining table. The splats pressed close beneath her shoulder blades, right where her wings would sprout if she’d only summon them. The wooden table was spotless, no discoloration or tear in sight. Akikō suddenly pondered its age, the chairs’ and spoons’ and teacups’ age, how long the knight had kept them and if it had ever quenched the homesickness of all the faces they repeatedly dreamed of. 

Taking a measured pause, Akikō busied her hands with straightening the dining table’s vase and its companion of flowers. The better part of her would have afforded Genti the same inquiry, but curiosity seemed implausibly heavy at the moment, a kind of gravity Aki did not know or particularly want to confront. “I’m alright,” our angel supplied instead, grateful that her voice proved steadier than her hands. “The first few nights are always difficult after a fast, but I’ll settle in sooner or later. More sooner than later, perhaps, after a cup of tea.” Tea— aside from clementines— was the only human palate Aki indulged in. It helped with the aftertaste of nightmares.