SHRIMP WRITES WHAT

For @braxdaekko :’”))))

“how’s the city?”

terrible. awful. smells like every kind of piss imaginable, and that is the least offending smell. everyone is so incredibly stand-offish and rude, seems like they could care less about her. and her roommate, her roommate. quite possibly the worst of them all. maddy’s hand tightens around her phone as all these aspects of the city come to the forefront of her mind. 

“it’s different,” she manages after a beat, forcing a smile. “definitely not Rye. but i’m adjusting, trying to fit in.” maddy tries to hold back her tears, hiding a sniffle with a follow-up cough. 

“adjusting is good! make sure t’keep your health in check, too!” her mother’s voice says through the receiver. 

“of course, mum. always,” maddy answers, her gaze roving over the adjacent wall. it’s plastered with academic and personal announcements, new ones stacked on the old. most are personal pleas from fellow students, asking to form tutoring groups and study sessions to beat the ridiculously hard exams. one advertisement catches her eye, pinned towards the bottom, almost completely covered. 

“listen, mum, i gotta get going,” maddy says, eyes lighting up as she reads the ad. “yeah, i’ll call tomorrow, love you.”

***********

the smell is the first thing that she notices.

stepping out of the cab, maddy takes a deep breath, allowing her eyes to close. she can smell hints of car exhaust, petrichor, and…garlic? infinitely more pleasant than the nauseating aroma that was deep london. she lets her eyes open again, quickly adjusting to her new surroundings. they whirl up and down the cobble streets, taking note of the quietness, the nearby restaurant, and the obvious lack of heavy traffic. 

it was absolutely heavenly. 

-distracted, she barely notices the figure approaching her, quite literally standing in front of her. she blinks twice. “oh, yes! of course!” ah, so this must be her landlord. he had certainly sounded cordial over the phone, not overtly enthusiastic compared to her apologetic ramblings. although, maddy had assumed he would be older, based on the low pitch of his voice. 

seeing an attractive man, quite possibly close to her age, makes her nervous in more ways than one. 

she slips the envelope from her coat pocket and presents it to him, adjusting her coat to cover her shivering frame. it was more than what she had expected to pay upfront but she was more than willing to pay it forward. not to be rude herself, but she had had enough of her roommate. one more unwanted guest in their room, and maddy would’ve spontaneously combusted. 

“great! thank you so much again for taking me on such short notice,” maddy supplies with a genuine smile, before taking some of her luggage up, the other being taken by him. she steps through the main door and marvels at the inside of the building, taking in the new entrance of her temporary home. her lips are formed in the shape of an “o” as she looks around, both hands tightly clutching her bags. 

“i pack pretty lightly,” she confesses, a light blush dusting her cheeks. “not trouble. i…needed some more space.” not the complete truth, but maddy was slightly embarrassed at revealing the actual truth. best to keep that under wraps…for now. 

“i promise i won’t be of any trouble to you, mr. dae,” she huffs, slightly struggling with her bags up the stairs. “unless you count drinking a lot of tea as trouble.”

daesuk winces at the honorific, pausing shortly to look back at his new housemate. “dae or daesuk,” he corrects her. “don’t make me sound old. we’re practically in the same graduating year...” he resumes leading the girl upstairs, unfazed by her idea of lying to him. someone who needs more space wouldn’t have claimed over the phone to not care what size her new room would be. 

once they reach the not-too-empty room, daesuk settles her luggage near the wall. “this house is a hand-me-down,” he mumbles while observing a thick crack in the ceiling above a comfortably decorated bed. the room is covered in many signs and hints of it being owned in the 80s. “i never bothered repainting or anything,” he adds. “that would be like trying to touch up an ancient artifact. i know it looks daunting, but the ceiling won’t come down on you. it’s been that way every since before i was even born.” he walks over to the window and pulls open the curtains, lifting the blinds to let a bit of light shine into the aged room. 

daesuk glances over at maddy, expression remaining flat and unfeeling. “there are a few rules, so we might as well get that out of the way now. this house is as equally yours as it is mine as long as you pay the rent. if you decide to move and break lease, i need at least two months of rent to cover the move-out fee and rent to hold me over at least another month until i can find a new housemate. too many have made away like a thief in the night. you don’t seem the type, but who knows? looks are deceiving.” 

the man pushes some hair out of his eyes before sighing and continuing. “if you finish it, replace it. there’s two of us, so portioning everything shouldn’t be too difficult. either that, or buy your own groceries. do you shop organic? i don’t care much for it. and lastly,” he pauses, “NO MEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. you need to study; there’s a library on campus, i’m sure. breaking any of these rules will get you evicted or sued. i don’t care, i’m petty. OH--” daesuk tips his head to the side, remembering an important detail. “every now and then in the summer, there’s a slight smell in the vents. it goes away with air freshener.” he then raises a finger to point at his new acquaintance. 

all eve can see is red.

red: the roses wilting outside her childhood home. 

red: once fresh scars marred across her stomach. 

red: the lipstick that she uses, Noah’s favorite. 

red: the blood currently coating her hands, belonging to her deceased sister. 

it’s all around her, all-consuming. so much so, that she can barely keep herself upright. it’s only by her unyielding grip on maddy’s body that maintains her in a standing position. 

eve has never, NEVER been surrounded by so much red in her life. 

the only time she can think of was decades ago, in an incident that led both sisters close to death. even then, they were saved by a miracle, and eve had been unconscious for half of it. 

this was utterly beyond her own understanding. 

she’s struggling to look anywhere else but at her sister, the brunette’s face hauntingly calm, appearing almost asleep to the naive eye. eve can’t seem to stop the tears pouring from her eyes, creating a wet stain on her shirt. a part of her is telling her that the best means of escape right now is to faint, but she can’t, WON’T, succumb. she has to find out what happened. 

sniffling, she dares to look away, turning her pained, enraged gaze to daesuk. “you motherfucker,” she pants, her jaw suddenly tense. “i should’ve never let her stay near you. you’re a fucking piece of shit! look at her! maddy’s fucking dead!! what the fuck happened to her??” 

none of this was making sense. did both noah and daesuk not realize that she was in the room? that she was hearing everything they were saying but they weren’t explaining anything at all?

“…bring her back? the child? what…” eve trails off, turning now to noah. “noah, you need to fucking explain what the hell’s going on. if this shithead isn’t gonna tell me anything, you need to tell me what happened, please.”

a sob escapes her lips, her trying to swipe at the never-ending tears, only to stain her cheeks with blood. “please, noah, i need to know. did…did he have something to do with her death?”

most who know daesuk personally knows him as cold and emotionless. noah had spent a year as his partner, and even then, he never once got a smidgen of human expression from the shade that wasn’t either pure anger or annoyance. so much is different at this moment, though. the air feels different, daesuk’s head feels different...and there are tears spilling down his face. his gaze lifts off of the floor to rest on eve.

this time it doesn’t read irritation. it doesn’t read contempt.

it’s sorrow.

the way daesuk’s brows knit together and his lips tremble in each feeble attempt to pass words through them causes noah’s heart to squeeze tight in his chest. the demon has never witnessed his friend stray so far out of character. daesuk is a good actor when it comes to getting his way or manipulating the vulnerable. but that isn’t the case right now. noah would know if this was all just a farce to get eve and himself off the shade’s back. but no, this is genuine. everything unfolding in front of the demon is pure, raw emotion. for the first time, daesuk seems...human.

daesuk continues trying to speak, but no matter how hard he tries, nothing will come out. he pets his baby girl’s hair, unresponsive to her confused whines and cries. he can’t focus on his child.

his living, breathing child. 

“noah,” he manages, shifting enough for the demon to understand his plea. the older male carefully reaches for the baby. he lovingly brings her into his arms like he does with his own son. he hugs her to his chest, calming her confused squeals for daesuk with the natural heat that surrounds him. when a distraught eve tries to snatch yena away from him, noah immediately pulls back, wings shooting out and wrapping around them like a shield. the demon glares at his girlfriend, a small growl rumbling in his throat for her to back off. he knows she’s protective right now. he knows she’s grieving. but she isn’t stable enough to hold the baby. GOD only knows what she might do. nothing to harm yena, of course not. but to run away with her? she just might. 

daesuk’s hands shakily clutch at his chest, fingers curling so tightly against his skin that the nails threaten to dig in. “i did it.” his voice lacks its usual confidence. it sounds sad. broken. “my body doesn’t age. maddy’s does.” it’s not a good way to start off his explanation, but it’s the only way he can think of. “the only way i can keep her in my life was to take hers.” his voice seems to break off at the last syllable of his statement. he looks over to his girlfriend’s lifeless body. the mother of his child. he thinks about how they could be happy together with their two children. alive. immortal.

but somehow everything’s gone wrong.

something inside of him snaps. he exhales a heavy, shaky breath, body finally experiencing the deadly cold that’s embraced him for years. suddenly the cold is too real, too personal. maddy’s touch always warmed her. her voice always calmed him. that’s all gone now, though.

isn’t it? 

when the girl contacted him in a frenzy, daesuk hadn’t known what to think. she’d said she was in no danger, yet seemed to be in a rush to move as soon as possible. times are tough, and a housemate could be just the solution for financial relief... but daesuk doesn’t want trouble. there’s nothing he hates more than police interaction -- not that he’s guilty of anything... he just finds it a waste of time.

he waits by the door on the day of the girl’s arrival. she says her name is maddy. once he hears the sound of a cab rolling up to the curb, he opens the door. unsurprised to find a woman around his age, maybe slightly younger. it’s polite to bow, but daesuk has never found a need to be overtly polite at any point in his life. inviting someone to live in his home was enough display of the kindness he’s capable of sharing. but in this day and age, manners are meaningless. people will still find a way to fuck you over no matter how nice you are. so when he opens the door to greet the girl maddy, the first thing he does is descend the outside stairs and hold his hand out.

“deposit and rent?” he asks, looking straight into his new acquaintance’s eyes. his gaze is hard and dark, but not necessarily cold. he’s just well-guarded. daesuk’s skin has thickened with age, becoming a steel shell that hides any emotion or personality. he prefers it that way. if people were to know the real him, that would make him vulnerable. vulnerability is not a good look. it’s better to be on guard than to be guard-less. 

when the young woman hands over an envelope, daesuk grumbles and folds it up, tucking it into the back pocket of his pants. “good. your room is upstairs, i’ll show it to you.” he effortlessly grabs one of her luggage bags as she struggles to pull it out of the cab. he lugs it up the stairs behind him and leads her to the mouth of the house; a scantily decorated living room with old paintings and posters slapped randomly across the walls. there’s a vase somewhere on the right wall near the door of his bedroom that contains wilting petunias and tulips. 

For @braxdaekko 👀

maddy’s warm. so warm that daesuk forgets all about the movie they’re watching. there was never any real interest in watching one, anyway, so hopefully he escapes any attempt of maddy quizzing him later about the parts they had managed to watch. 

madeline believes. 

eve’s scream sends memories flooding back to noah. unwanted, unpleasant, and painful memories. from the start, he knew he needed to keep a calm composure. eve was bound to find out about this somehow… but he hadn’t been prepared for it to be in this way. the demon’s heart twists inside his chest, and his hands — as well his lips — begin to tremble.

most times he enjoyed watching the life drain from someone’s eyes…but this time was different. this time daesuk’s victim was maddy; a murder of love, of sacrifice. he had spoke with her quite seriously in previous days about taking the next step of their lives together. he’d wanted maddy to accept immortality; to completely surrender to his love and devotion. clearly, his proposal hadn’t been very successful. see, daesuk has control issues, that’s well-known. there are times the shade can accept a simple no, but those are rare, minor inconveniences. maddy rejecting his request for her to spend the rest of eternity with him? well, that wasn’t an inconvenience. that was purely heartbreak; an emotion the creature had yet to experience until recently.  

now, there’s no records in any book that a psychopath can fall in love. according to research, that’s impossible. but what a psychopath can feel is possessive. daesuk is extremely possessive over maddy. he looks after her like she’s his most valuable possession; sways her from straying too far from both his sight and knowledge. but everyone’s convinced — himself included — that he’s dangerously in love with this girl… a girl with morals. a girl who cares for the living and strives to keep them alive… a girl that’s completely different in definition than a person like daesuk could ever be. daesuk’s cold. he’s a serial killer living in the shadow of a life-saver. their relationship makes no sense in hindsight, but could that perhaps be what draws a monster like daesuk so deep into a loving soul? for what he lacks in himself, maddy possesses in her. it’s complicated, but daesuk is certain he has no desire of letting maddy out of his grip.

so she lay bleeding on the marbled floor of his condo’s kitchen, fingers and limbs twitching as the very last drops of life leak through the wound across her body. daesuk towers over her, face wet with tears as the grip on his knife — a knife that has taken many lives before his girlfriend’s — loosens and clambers loudly to the floor. the shade stares down at his partner’s lifeless corpse, his own dead eyes swimming over to the doorway nihilus and noah appears in. he allows himself to sniffle once before finally stepping away, exiting the room to check on his daughter. his living, breathing daughter.

their newborn is a life sucker just like daesuk. every time maddy was tasked with breastfeeding the baby, she became tired, weaker. daesuk would always think about the traits their offspring would take on the most. would she be soft and caring like maddy? would she be a cold predator like daesuk? or would she grow to be a conflicting morph of their two personalities? he’s seen good and evil melded together as one before. that proof lies within the pink-demon standing behind him.

“I can’t take her,” noah says, finally breaking the unnerving silence hanging in the air. “she didn’t want this.”

“and if I take her,” nihilus chimes in, “there’s a chance this foolish plan of yours might backfire,”

“how so?” daesuk speaks so casually as if his lover isn’t lying dead in the next room over. somehow, his words still read like a challenge to both angel and demon. but when daesuk smells the smoke burning from the palms of noah’s hands, he chooses to clarify. “I’m serious.”

“well, let’s see,” nihilus says with a sardonic chuckle, lowering his head while resting his hand atop of Noah’s shoulder. “my job is to help cross innocent souls into Heaven. once through the Gate. I’m only here for that purpose. noah, on the other hand—“

“traps and releases damned souls into the Eternal Flame. maddy’s soul is untouchable.”

“which means she’s Holy. if I bring her to God, you of all people, will never see her again.”

daesuk stands quietly, cradling the baby in his arms, yet no discernible expression crosses his features. for the first time, the shade’s expectations have withered. his flawless scoreboard of getting his way has seen its first failure. for the first time, he also feels like a fool. “Angels can breathe life back into the dead.”

noah groans. “but at what cost? that would require nihilus sacrificing his own immortality and—“

“as lovely a girl maddy is, this is your mistake. I will not be taking the brunt of your own foolish actions.”

“you’re an Angel, though,” daesuk argues. “Angels were designed to make selfless sacrifices. dying for her would be an honor.” and just like that, daesuk has failed again, as nihilus reduces himself to a blinding glow that dissipates slowly, leaving spots in both daesuk’s and noah’s vision. “fleeing responsibility, I see,” daesuk grumbles which only earns him a growl from his demon companion.

madeline feels slightly reassured when daesuk dismisses her apology, allowing her to not feel too ashamed over her “bold” choice. still, there’s that nagging in the back of her mind that tells her that it was too soon in their friendship to have made a move like that, even though they’ve been friends for some time; that she could’ve just settled for wiping away his tears and given him a long hug. she tries her best to ignore it—this wasn’t about her right now, this was about daesuk, no one else. 

she’s caught slightly off guard when he links her hand with his, a warmth building under her cheeks. the warmth only increases when he presses her hand to his cheek and keeps it there for a moment, setting off a few butterflies in her stomach. calm down maddy, she thinks. this is just for his comfort. it doesn’t—or rather shouldn’t—mean anything beyond the usual friendship.

even though her heart wishes it did. 

she lets herself be shifted back to their embrace from before, melting even further into his arms. he feels a little more relaxed than what he was earlier, much to her relief. maddy doesn’t know how much longer he’ll need her here, but she’ll gladly stay for as much as he needs. after all, she knows all too well how a kind gesture can make such a difference. 

he’s the one pulling away now, and maddy thinks it’s to let her know that he feels better, that he doesn’t need her anymore. or perhaps, she hopes, to stay a little longer. that he needs her here, with him. 

but it’s none of those things. 

in fact, it’s far beyond what she could’ve ever expected him to do next. 

the kiss happens so swiftly, she almost, almost misses it. but, as soon as she registers it, and her mind makes sense of it, she’s letting out a light gasp and moves her head back. scarlet red bursts on her cheeks, green irises wide. 

did daesuk just…kiss her? her?? just a moment ago, she was fighting her own mind to not overthink about a kind gesture she made, and now her brain was short-circuiting over something he had initiated. did this kiss mean that he reciprocated her feelings? that, maybe, just maybe, their attraction was mutual? no, no, it couldn’t be possible! this was probably just him seeking more comfort because he was so distraught…right?

that’s it!, she thinks. maybe he was kissing her for more comfort, she wouldn’t know for sure if he liked her unless he said otherwise. yes…that made more sense. 

with that in mind, madeline decided to do what she thought was best, to provide all the reassurance and comfort he needed. even if it made her heart race and her face look like a large tomato. 

and even if it was a bit selfish on her part. 

slowly, the brunette lets one of her hands rest on daesuk’s cheek, running her thumb lightly over his skin. then, as careful as she could, madeline leans forward and, with her eyes fluttered closed, presses her own lips on daesuk’s. 

daesuk is known to be cold and unloving with others in private. maddy’s seen every angle of his personality. she’s learned to know the real daesuk that hides behind closed doors; the daesuk media has yet to see. yet the shade rest tonight with his lips pressed against maddy’s, hoping for reciprocation. 

he doesn’t know if he’s capable of speaking his feelings aloud... after all, they are freshly discovered emotions. it would be unfair for the shade to make some random declaration of love... especially when maddy, of all people, must understand how hard that would be for a person like him. still, he expresses his gratitude the best he knows how based on repeated observations amongst...couples... 

they’re not a couple, though.

is that what he wants? madeline is already in his possession... she’s already so ridiculously loyal to him. would she want that, though? does her loyalty extend past the concept of being a pet? daesuk’s mind races with questions, and those questions only grow louder and more quickly upon her pulling away from him. 

but when maddy rests her hand upon his cheek and reconnects their lips again, all is calm. he doesn’t think a single thought anymore. daesuk simply tests the waters by parting his lips, his own hand gently mirroring maddy’s by cupping her own cheek.

he likes this.