Technicolor

The intangible sermon continued tirelessly, the words a helix into the universe and oblivion, the black hole’s voice echoing within his ear canals as if his cranium had been eroded into Greece’s chapel of psychosis. His body reacted sporadically, the muscles coiling, quirking at the rhythmic respiration, and his fingers curled, tempted to breach the contract and rip each trace of organic tissue from the duel holes at either side of his head. Opposed to self-destruction, Gongchan expressed discontent through a crinkled brow, the face of indignation, bowed to the rice cooker owned by none other than the Midnight Circus.

Will you not deliver just punishment? Act as the executioner, sever the heads of the ungrateful and serve them upon blessed silver.

Why must the corrupted pope dig his cane into his heels? Was he destined to be bled dry for the sake of sinners? The crimson would leak from his gullet, pool into the porcelain basin, and demons would soak, baptized in bathtubs of his blood. His palms met the curves of the metallic surface, his skin atomized and the molecules cavorting with heat, burning the flesh into a hue of cherry red. “What are you blabbering about?” His voice is concurrent with the steam, evaporating into the atmosphere; it vanishes far beyond his reach. The rice cooker refuses to answer with mercy. Instead the sphere vibrates, humming to trivialize him. “Why would I do such a thing…silly…murder is. Ridiculous, It is completely mad…imagine the mess.” The whispered rambling is reminiscent of Chanshik, the youth, tiny toes and smaller fingers, observing the drunkards as they chortle anguish into the twilight moor.

And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, “Give me here John the Baptist's head on a platter.”

“Found you, bitch.”

Bewildered, the corners of his mouth were pulled towards the Earth, the sounds clashing, water and oil, and dismantling one another in a tempest unseen. Who had spoken, if not the rice cooker? The man’s head followed suit behind his frown, ruled by gravity and inclined to the surface of tarp and dirt. Then, as he began to consider the hundreds of rice within the metal chamber, the feminine apparition returned with acidic chords, and the notes are like a memory, distant and veiled with haze. This could not be an object, whose vocal cords were plastic and artificial, no, there was an intruder within the space, and delayed Gongchan looked over to the side, was greeted by reds and blacks clouding his vision and a slayed equilibrium.

“What the fuck!?” No longer restrained to a specter’s murmur he cursed with confusion and a mild dose of fury as insects invaded his brain, buzzing and replacing the noise of bursting oil and refrigerator electricity with horrid white noise. He stumbled backwards, hands flying upwards to his damaged head – extra damaged now, thank God (if God was himself) that he didn’t have to worry about crippling hospital bills. “Jesus Hell…” Massaging his temples a groan rippled through his throat, and livened with a chemical swashing in the rivers of his brain he discovered balance, standing on two feet with a wild, livid expression; widened eyes and a crooked snarl. He searched for the villain responsible for such immaturity, and instead of Satan, he found Venus, saccharine vengeance captured in her eyes as she stood with foxfire draped over her shoulders like an antique fur coat.

Well, metaphorically of course. “Narae,” With demon’s rhetoric he managed to compose herself, speak to the abandoned women with a new countenance, his lips transformed into a smirk, the essence of the smug and bold printed on the expression without a hint of strain. “Babe, it’s a small world, I was counting on seeing you again just…well, not so soon.” If he had a cigarette he’d exhale the carcinogens in her face, tailor the scene to mimic egotistical movies about mobsters and their esoteric affairs. “I’m sort of surprised you got in with the out crowd so quickly, and,” Gongchan paused, shifting his gaze to one of the pockets of his jeans. He definitely didn’t have an erection right now, so that shape could only mean one thing. “Hang on a tic.” If their stories were going to collide in strife, he might as well bring it to top tier of dramatic cliché.

Thankfully, her swing did make contact, and his short exclamation of pain had been exactly what she had been aiming for. Chuckling to herself, she spun the tip of the cane in the shape of the infinity symbol, wanting to gloat about how unprepared he had been, though she knew better than to celebrate now. When the encounter was over, only then could she judge who had come out victorious. God knew in the past she had gone through entire conversations with him thinking she had conquered, when in reality she hadn’t even noticed the Trojan horse in the room.

Of course the moment he composed himself, her own victorious grin faded into a careful frown, ready and waiting. “’Babe,’ really?” She stared at him for a long moment, before blowing her bangs out of her eyes, and lowering the arm with the cane. It wasn’t that she couldn’t support it, but knew now that he was aware of her, having it out like that could only hinder her, should she be moved to action again. There were quicker ways to strike a blow, in this proximity.

But as she watched him reach for a cigarette, she took the moment to fight off the rising sense of panic building in her chest. She had planned for this to be a beautiful roast of the jerk that had left her in a foreign country on her lonesome, but the words just didn’t seem to be flowing. Narae had planned on having quick, witty banter to use to spar with him, and ultimately come out on top, possibly with her cane punching through his frontal lobe for the grand finale. God knew he could use a personality make over. Just thinking that, though, made something feel off. Changing him felt wrong even in theory –someone like him needed to exist, really, but where would her role be in that? It was only after that mental question that she finally found the words she had been strangely short on. “I do believe you’ve underestimated me, if you’re really surprised, Channie. I’ve got a rather one track mind when I want something, and I can assure you; I’ve never wanted anything more then I want to stick this pole up your ass and make you dance like a puppet.”

That sounded better than lobotomizing him, anyway.

However, angry or no, she couldn’t fight off the laugh that threatened to escape as he went to smoke, pushing out a “what, are you going to make me an offer I can’t refuse?” Then she did laugh, the situation seeming so entirely inane that she couldn’t hold back her nearly hysterical expression of mirth. The joke itself wasn’t so funny, but this certainly seemed like a plot out of an old movie, with the scorned woman and seedy business man –though she would never paint herself in as dull a light as a damsel in distress.

“Cut, dye, what does it all matter?” She asked boredly, ignoring the fact that the former sentence made her want to apply both of those to his current form of existence. “Japan has some freaky fashion styles, you’re lucky I didn’t give myself a green Mohawk and shave off my eyebrows.” Now that was the face of someone to expect an unauthorized brain surgery from. But, she walked closer to him, ignoring the smoke from the cigarette, then smiled sweetly. “Honey, I’ll hit you all I like. There are way too many witnesses around here for you to do shit. And who do you think they’d believe? You don’t exactly hide your crazy.” Her eyes flickered a bit, though, and she quickly shut them before she could project any of the images she just spoke about.

His increasing guilt had his arms held out awkwardly as the stranger struggled to regain her footing, wondering if it was appropriate to even touch her. He was already pinned down as an asshole, he wasn’t about to have pervert added to his growing list of personalities. Though taking into consideration that preventing her from falling flat on her face was more of a priority over his self-image, he took hold of her carefully by her wrist and obliged to her request, leading her over to a nearby tree trunk and gently guiding her hand to rest on it. “Yeah… you don’t look so well.” He replied quietly as he noted how pale she had gotten on the ride down. “Just take really deep breaths and the feeling should pass.”

He positioned himself at her flank; just in case her lunch did decide to make a reappearance, he was safely out of the splash zone and if he deemed patting her back as an appropriate gesture, he could even aid her in that too. Pity drenched his being as he looked at her, reminiscing the days when he himself was just getting accustomed to being in zero-gravity and his many failed attempts of keeping the contents of his stomach, in his stomach.

She didn’t know why she was talking so much about her weaknesses, so she bit down hard on her tongue as her palm made contact with a tree. Thank god it seemed smooth –if she had touched any type of fungus or lichen, she really might have lost her lunch. Breakfast. Whatever the hell time of day this technically counted as.

Taking a few deep breaths as she pressed herself against the trunk, she felt the world settling for her again, and relaxed her shoulders as the guy thankfully gave her a few moments of quiet. She was okay; she wouldn’t show that much weakness to a stranger. Though apparently she already did, if the light pats were any indication. Scowling a bit, she turned to stare in his general direction, “I’m not going to throw up.” Narae wished that came out a bit bitchier then it did, her words still sounding far too weak. This clearly was the downside to living with superpowered freaks. But those thoughts stopped when he started to talk again, her falling silent to listen, since her continence still wasn’t sturdy enough for her to challenge him word by word.

Jiyong almost wanted to yell at her, although his croaky voice, groggy from sleep wouldn’t do much good for either of them. He took a step back as the woman got closer to him, speaking about saving his things and other nonsense he couldn’t find himself comprehending as the acid did more damage than it should have if this strange girl just did as she was told. And to get even bolder, the woman took a tissue out of her pocket and daintily placed it around his arm, which thankfully was free of the substance. She witnessed the burning and melting of metal and multiple fabrics, yet this lady thought it was the safest option to shield herself with a thin piece of paper—unbelievable.

“I don’t need to see a medic,” he protested, although he couldn’t do much besides follow her considering if he tried to rip out of her grip, he’d accidentally prove how unavailing a simple tissue was. The girl might have been nuts but she wasn’t bad, and she definitely didn’t deserve an acid burn that would be almost impossible to explain to anyone else without sounding horribly ridiculous. “I can’t believe he did that. Why does anyone allow him to stay in the circus anyway?” Jiyong’s expression twisted at the thought, his brows tilting in frustration as he attempted small tugs to get away from the woman. She was stubborn, and Jiyong turned to see if she seriously thought she was doing a ‘good deed’ here, only to be surprised by a vision that he knew wasn’t there before.

It was a woman – it was this woman, boiling down to nothing with what he assumed was his ability as the killer. His eyes widened at the image, his breath caught in his throat for a few seconds as he took in her fear, or whatever that was, displayed before them both. If it was a fear like he initially thought, then maybe this woman wasn’t as out of her mind as he thought she was. If it was just a fun little image—just a visual to add to the lovely scene already playing out before them—then it wasn’t all that appreciated on his part. She mumbled an apology, her explanation sounding just about as casual as everything else she’d spoken so far. He didn’t get it. Why didn’t she let go?

Finally, they were out of his tent and Jiyong’s arm tightened against her stubborn grip. The acid on the inside of his tent was finally fading away, as it could only be kept up by a constant feed from Jiyong, and the damage was settling instead of worsening as it had been. Now he did need to see Junsu, but not because he was hurt, but because his tent was so damaged that he didn’t know if he could sleep in it anymore. He heaved a heavy sigh before giving the strange woman a small tug once more. “Let go of me,” he said sternly, before continuing with something else, “Does it look like I’m hurt?” He pointed his stare to her, his brows lifting as if he wanted her to challenge him with a response. His eyes were still tired from sleep and his hair was very messy, but other than that—he was fine.

But at the mention of his own uninjured form, she stopped with her quick fire thoughts that thankfully hadn’t translated to another cinema session and looked him up and down. First off; damn he was cute. Sure was lucky for both of them that none of the acid had got to him, because he sure had a nice look for a frea—oh.

“Is that your power?” She blinked, awe rising in her expression as the possibility rippled through her processors. Now that was awesome. Too awesome! The possibilities for being able to manipulate acid, or even just to avoid being burned by it… Snake man here just got even more intriguing. “Do you like…drool it? Or are all acidic substances just sort of drawn to you?” That one really made less sense, seeing as there appeared to be a lack of destruction outside the singular tent. Could acid even move so far without dissolving? She almost wanted to test it. Not that this would be the time she’d ask the other, that would be too many interests at once and she could recognize the more important one.

Having turned to glance at the tent while she pondered her discovery, she spoke up again, asking, “You sure you don’t want to go back in there to check for surviving stuff? I’m sure you can handle it on your own, if you haven’t been acid-burn-crippled like I originally thought. But speaking of survivors, it’s a good thing Junsu has the sense to separate the dangerous powers. If I had woken up with your acid on my things, honey, I’d smash your balls to pieces.” She smiled up at him charmingly, having tried and failed to make a reference to a fucked up American movie she’d seen a while back. “Clearly that’s not an issue though. So where do we proceed from here?”

She tapped her chin with a single finger, and held the Kleenex out to him, “Here. Wipe any off of yourself.” It was such a ludicrous suggestion that even she nearly started snickering at the action, but hey –what could you do? How did you get rid of fucking acid, go roll around in the dirt? That action sounded too perfect to be true….so instead she just hoped the acid would burn his clothes off and would then dissolve against his skin…

She stood in her place, trying to decide how to go about such an odd situation. She felt the need to prove to herself that her perception of others was still as good as it had once been. She felt the familiar stickiness that had always seemed to coat her fingers when she felt the need to pluck something off of someone else. Her lips turned into a playful smirk, though she knew the other couldn’t see it if she actually turned out to be blind.

God, if she was blind, Chiao was going to end up feeling like a massive dick.

“Freak, now there is an interesting word,” Chiao mused, reaching forward and lightly playing with the other’s hair. The fact that they had the same color of hair somehow amused her, though she had a feeling that it looked much better on the other girl.

That was a rather annoying thought.

“I’d go with yes since I am a member of the circus,” She chuckled as the cane poked her in the upper stomach. She put her wrist down, pushing it out of the way. “I don’t need a stick to fend you off. Or win. I plan on winning. Though I don’t like this handicap of yours, why don’t we get rid of it?” She smirked, leaning forward and grasping the other’s glasses and snatching them off. Something about her told her that the glasses were what was blinding her, not the girls eyes herself.

However, it seemed almost like the use of the word “freak” would get her there for a moment, her lips pursing slightly as she wondered if she’d have to make a slick getaway or not. It wouldn’t upset her by any means, but it would bore her, and really; that was worse in her eyes. Thankfully, Chiao seemed to enjoy action as well, and the touch to her hair both startled her and brought her back. Narae would be lying if she said she disliked the touch. “You prefer gifted?” She returned easily, shutting up once it was confirmed that the other could do something cool too.

Her eyes, hidden as they were, lit up with the knowledge, the twist in her gut loosening as she wondered what this person could do –maybe they could fly, or shoot heat rays out of their eyes! The possibilities in and of themselves were dazzling. Opening her mouth to ask, she couldn’t get anything out before her glasses were stolen from her.

Blinking in the sudden onslaught of actual light (even if it was night time, it was more than she’d previously been viewing), her eyes found the other like someone who clearly wasn’t blind could, and she stared at her, the blues, pinkish reds and yellows glowing slightly as she did. “Is this normal for you to test blind people?” She scowled, hiding her relief at finally being able to assess this person. They weren’t bad looking, but the gender…dammit why was this so unnecessarily hard!

A pale shade of pink eventually took over Luhan’s cheeks when Narae immediately recognized his voice, attempting to hide the hope filling in his chest. He continued staring at the girl quietly as she walked closer to him. “I-I’m not,” he stammered, shaking his head as he contemplated whether to step closer and help guide her through her way.  Due to his apprehensive demeanor, he couldn’t find the guts to even approach her and he eventually just found himself standing still and waiting patiently as the girl made her way over.

However, instincts kicked in when Narae stumbled over a thick root on the ground. Luhan’s hands immediately went up to hold onto the girl’s waist in a feeble attempt to steady her, but found that it was too late when he felt soft lips press against his. Luhan blinks at this, a look of befuddlement dawning upon his pale features as the moment took over.

His finger twitched against Narae’s waist, feeling the strong urge to grab on tighter before she pulled away. Immediate thoughts began clouding his head. Could it be that she had done this on purpose? Or perhaps she was just teasing? Was there a possibility she even liked him back?

—wait, she likes him back? That could mean…

The blond doesn’t even realize it but the corners of his lips tugged up into a grin when the girl finally pulled away, his hands leaving her petite waist. He looked away, releasing a soft chuckle, shoulders shaking along with amusement. Before he knew it, that one form of laughter had soon formed into series of chuckles and eventually, he was laughing heartily as he leaned back against the tree for support. He clutched at his sides, the laughter leaving his lips completely different from the shy, embarrassed chuckles that Luhan would usually make.

The possibility of her liking Luhan back was just humorously baffling to him. Ridiculous, even.

“Are you kidding me?" He asks once he finally calms himself down, crossing his arms across his chest. His voice was louder than usual, and it was dripping with the rare enthusiasm and confidence that Luhan’s timid voice would fail to have. The amused grin was still evident on his lips as he tilted his head mockingly at her, although he knew she couldn’t even barely see him. "That is downright, fucking ridiculous. Do you have any idea?"

A warm smile had already begun to steal its way across her features, but it all out bloomed at his laughter. She hadn’t been worried at all that he would freak out and bail or anything –it was an accident and he got to kiss her, why would he?- but to hear that he had embraced the random sucker punch they had both been thrown and enjoyed her joke…well she just might have to keep him.

Snickering slightly at her own joke, not noticing that the laughter was different from Luhan’s normal laugh, since she figured strange circumstances called for strange reactions, Narae’s attention snapped back to the other when his voice came out louder. Now that she did notice, and she couldn’t help the additional little quip that escaped her. “I’m right here, honey. No need to shout.” Her grin returned strongly at that, though it faded with his strange next words. Now what in the world could that possibly mean?

“You’ve lost me here,” she cut in after the question, voice slipping to gain a slightly questioning edge, Narae easily able to hear the difference with all of her focus on that sense. “What’s ridiculous? Me tripping when I have my glasses on?” But then she shut up to listen to the rest of his words, and she blinked, “Well I doubt I’d hang around him so much if I didn’t like him. But why are we speaking of you in third person?” The blonde girl hated how dumb she sounded, just questioning him like this, without trying to figure anything out for herself and that, along with the threat, made her feel a bit too much like a bimbo in a horror movie for her liking.

Now she reached up to remove her glasses, irises glowing Technicolor like they were wont to do as she examined Luhan. “You took your scarf off.” She couldn’t help blurting out, remembering how even she could sense he didn’t want it touched most of the time. Stepping closer, against her better judgment, she could just barely make out the marks. Goosebumps erupted down her arms, and she was so damn glad she had worn long sleeves, so her weakness was hidden.

He hadn’t walked too far a distance when he decided he would settle himself down in front of a large fir, crossing his legs in front of him and not leaving a moment to waste to begin clearing his mind. Had he known he would be relying so much on meditation at the circus, he would have definitely done more at the monastery. The task was always hard to begin, Seunghyun finding it all too hard to just shift the unnecessary junk from his mind. It was almost always cluttered with thoughts he couldn’t quite make sense of, not to mention the guilt he had been harbouring for over seven years. Alas, he closed his eyes and folded his hands in front of his lower abdomen, focusing just on his breathing.

It could have only been fifteen minutes or even an hour, but time passed by without him noticing. His state of stillness consumed his awareness just until he decided to finally open his eyes and note the area around him. Nothing but fallen leaves, branches and underbrush, the same as when he arrived but the evening had gotten much darker, so much that he could just about make out the glow of the circus lights in the distance. Closing his eyes again, he conjured up a mental image of the scenery around him, mapping out an appropriate sized field to increase the gravity. As he thought of lightness and clouds, so did the atmosphere become weightless. Even though he made sure he wasn’t apart of the field, he still felt the lightness of the area as if it was its own microcosm of weightlessness and not apart of this world.

Effortlessly, the male practiced manipulating the field in different ways, keeping his vision obscured at all the times. It was all child’s play to him, to be frank. Where he was used to lifting heavier things with his gravitational fields, leaves and branches failed to cut it. In any case, he was happy that he had control over the the force of gravity being manipulated. He proceeded to play around with the dynamics of the field until strangely, he felt the field quiver slightly as if there was a sudden disturbance. Eyebrows knitting in confusion, it wasn’t until he heard a squeal that he opened to eyes to see a young girl, afloat in mid air. Seunghyun didn’t usually laugh at other people’s pain for his own expense yet he could not help but find this slightly amusing. Like a mouse caught in a trap, there she was levitating among the rotting branches and leaves that also fell victim to his gravitational field.

Deciding not to, she stared directly at where she assumed the voice came from, relishing in the fact that from her average 165 centimeters that she could finally look down on someone else, even if she wasn’t technically able to see them at the moment. “Smooth, asshole. Never seen a cane like this before? I’m sorry I wasn’t watching.” Narae had to bite her tongue after that, to keep from laughing like an asshole herself, since she could, in fact, see if she took her glasses off. Bottom line was, she didn’t have them off when this happened, so it still made this random…guy, it sounded like…this random guy a jerk.

Noting the gentler tone, she rolled her eyes behind the dark frames, and continued, “Wow stranger; amazing how your tone can change, huh?” She’d be lying if she said the floating didn’t make her stomach feel queasy, but being up in the air like that was pretty cool, and likely would be much cooler if she had opened her eyes while further up, especially so she could get a bearing on just how high up she had been. It almost made her ask him to wait another moment, so she could take in the full experience, but Narae was sinking before she could open her mouth again, though it was probably better that she didn’t: if she thought going up was sucky, going down nearly brought up her lunch.

Landing back flat on the ground, face likely slightly green, she staggered forward a bit, muttering, “Oh lord that wasn’t cool…” Eyes shutting behind the glasses, though in retrospect that wouldn’t do much at all since she couldn’t see anything anyway, she asked in a rather shaky voice, “Stranger, can you take me over to a tree? I didn’t expect to encounter zero-g before dinner and I don’t think my stomach was ready.”

Her hand groped blindly out, while the other continued to clutch the cane with a strength akin to a child with her security blanket. Even if Narae joked around and could be a bit of a dick herself, some situations just took a bit more fortitude than she had. Really, the “blind” girl was no pilot, and probably never would be for several obvious reasons, though she certainly envied their endurance.

Animals weren’t effected by his ability -or at least he presumes so- and hence he could trail closely to them without any of them ever turning on him. These two squirrels, he doesn’t know what relation they have, but they seem rather close to each other and they also seemed to be friendly enough to him since they didn’t mind that he was so close to the trees they kept spurting around.

It was an odd sort of company but Hakyeon preferred company in any shape or form. Except being so tuned up with the squirrels, he failed to stay alert like he usually was and hence failed to notice an incoming female who he could have avoided to stop her from hurting herself.

Hearing her gasp caused him to jump a bit, startled out of the brief moment of happiness he had. Remembering reality and what he could do, he quickly skirted far away from her before he could cause anymore harm.

She would have assumed, wrong as it was, that the sensation had just cropped up from some strange biological happenstance, until she heard what sounded like a voice, it the barest whisper on the wind. Narae nearly plucked some words out of the phrase, but it was too far away, so she merely craned her head so she could better hear the person, and called, “Could you speak louder?” With her glasses on, she couldn’t have even begun to guess that the stranger had written her something.

But she was forever too impatient; and started trying to approach him again with the confident steps of someone that wasn’t actually blind, even though she still couldn’t see anything in front of her. “What happened? Did you do that?” It would be just her luck if this guy was malevolent and that crazy feeling had just been a warning. Then again, some strange part of her almost wanted to feel it again. “It was incredible…” Narae spoke more to herself than to him, “I mean, crazy, but awesome. And oh god I god I’m not talking over you.” She laughed a little to herself, hand coming up to press to her lips as her cane slid to a stop on the ground.

Fingers twitching, head bowed down as heavy pants escaped his slightly parted lips, Luhan was overwhelmed by nothing but uneasiness and panic. He was seated on the ground, back leaning against a tree as he hugged his knees closer to his chest, trying to calm himself down but the attempt was evidently futile. His gaze flickered around the secluded place, needing the reassurance that no one was around to see him.

He was thinking of her again, and it was getting dangerous. He knew this for a fact. It would only be a matter of time before he completely loses himself and most possibly, lose her. He shook his head frantically. No —he wouldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t.

Raising one of his trembling hands to the black scarf messily and loosely wrapped around his neck, he unconsciously held his breath as he felt an empty feeling wash over him. Slowly, he pulled the scarf down to reveal his thin, pale neck littered with scars. He trailed the tips of his fingers along the slight bumps, muttering the same word under his breath repeatedly when he felt the desperate need to inflict another wound or perhaps, as his other persona would call it, another trophy.

"Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic,-…."

The blond swallowed the anxiety building up in his throat before biting down on his bottom lip, frantically covering up his neck once again with the soft, black fabric. He needed to pull himself together. 

He hastily stood up, intending to go back where the others are when he heard audible footsteps; the crunching of leaves easily heard in the quiet night. Feeling his body stiffening up, he immediately looked around to find the source of the sound.

What greeted him was the person he would have least expected to see; it was Narae. He felt his throat closing up and for a moment, he felt like he was going to faint. Instead, he cleared his throat before parting his lips to speak, his timid voice too low, but he hoped it was loud enough for the girl to hear.

At the sound of someone clearly their throat, she paused, cane rising up a bit instinctively in case she needed it for self-defense. “Who’s there?” She asked in the calm, cool voice of someone who didn’t care if the question was answered or not. When she heard nothing at first, she prepared to swing her cane at the last spot she could train herself on, but then the voice came, and she brightened, “Luhan! What are you doing out here this time of night?”

Now with a specific direction to angle herself toward, she shifted easily, body moving like she could see him even though she couldn’t at the moment, and walked toward him. “Don’t tell me there are guests out here! Or are you ducking responsibility?” She clucked her tongue playfully, cane still floating above the ground as she approached him.

Because of that, she had missed a thick, low-lying root that rested between her and her friend, so with a few more steps, she tripped heavily over it, eyes going wide with panic as she stumbled over it, chest pressing against his as her lips found something soft. Normally she could have identified what had happened near instantly, and might have even chose to kiss back, but right then her fear of contact with the ground froze her in place, her mouth warm and quivering slightly against Luhan’s.

It was his fault. If he didn’t drink so much the night before, he would have been coherent enough to perform his little before bed ritual. After the sun had risen, he’d make sure his ability was as stable as he could manage it before officially passing out. Last night, he didn’t even bother to change his clothes, his body completely limp over his cot without any care in the whole world. The way, he’d argue, that it should be. The first thing that initially began to stir him into consciousness was the almost frantic calling of a woman. It was close in proximity, but Jiyong didn’t want to believe it had anything to do with him. His eyes squeezed shut, and his nose wrinkled uncomfortably, but he stayed at rest for another couple of seconds before the smell of burning fibers finally hit his nostrils.

“Nn…” he groaned, swinging his arm from the end of the tent where it was burning to the other side of him, causing drops of the acidic liquid to fall on other things in his tent, the items reacting quickly with a sizzle sound before fading out again. The second call of the woman made his eyes open finally, the light from the hole in his tent bearing more damage than it normally would, rendering him nearly blind until his eyes adjusted to the gaping hole as well as the burned cot and metal.

“Shit,” he murmured, crankiness coating his tone and his expression as he threw himself out of bed. The acid became more eager now that its host was awake, pouring rapidly onto the cotton and further damaging the surface. Holes in his tent were being made, making his ‘home’ look more like a decorative piece for the circus rather than a place to stay in. He glanced around for his pot of water that he was supposed to refill, instinctively placing his hands in it only to watch the acid burn through that surface as well. Panic rose in him, his eyes wide now as he turned his head toward the woman who woke him up in the first place.

His tent practically destroyed, his hands continuing the damage with every step he took, he really had no way of coming back from this kind of mistake. Even worse, he had a spectator. One that looked confused, scared, and definitely didn’t know to get away considering they were still standing in the same spot. He couldn’t push her, God forbid she got even a little too close, so he had to pick an alternative. “Are you crazy? Move back,” he told her, honestly surprised that she didn’t make a run for it as soon as she saw the initial damage in the first place. Then again, this was the circus, and some of the members were too curious for their own good, Jiyong included. 

“Actually hold that thought.” She called, reaching into her pocket for a clean tissue, as she made her way back over to the guy, the hissing from the melting tarp the soundtrack to her heroic endeavor, “You need to get out of here first, acid doesn’t bother dirt as far as I know.” Hand going to his arm, it thinly protected by a piece of tissue, Narae grabbed him and tried to guide the recently awoken guy out of his snake den of hissing materials. “stuff or no stuff you need to see a medic.”

Narae stored her cane back in her pocket, feeling slightly unbalanced without it there to tap out her way, but she knew it would most likely just come into contact with more flying acid if she kept it out right then. Flying or dripping. Now that was a scary thought.

Shuddering slightly, her eyes began to project an image of acid dripping onto her head, with her hair and scalp starting to disintegrate, her mouth opened in a horrid, mute scream, that she quickly clamped her eyes shut for, cutting off the images. “Sorry, that happens.” Narae muttered, figuring there wasn’t much chance for the guy to have missed it…but the hissing sound was going to her head, so she yanked harder, wondering if she’d need to sacrifice her cane to make this rather unlucky fellow follow after her. How was she supposed to save his life if he wouldn’t let her? That was just rude, if you asked her. But if they both got permanent acid burns from this, homegirl was not going to be happy.

Why? It was the same sea of faces in awe of her as he skin and hair changed color. Some of the faces bombarded her with questions about how she was able to do that because ‘you can’t expect me to believe that you can actually change the pigments at will!’. She wasn’t sure how many people asked her to take her clothes off so that she could fully disappear (though she had a feeling that it was also so they could figure out whether she was male or female, the ignorant pricks). It had taken her all of a measly hour to leave her post and search out the solitude of her tent.

She knew that she should probably be worried about Junsu finding her, but what could one healer do? If anything, she knew he could not outrun her. If she was scared of anyone, it would be their current security team. Fei wasn’t so scary herself (her bestial appearance adding onto the sex appeal so much that it actually made Chiao uncomfortable), but the massive wolves that followed here were enough to make anyone jump in line. And Yoochun? The man was basically a human taser. Hongki and the others leaving with Hyori had compromised her will to stay, each passing day fed her growing urge to just disappear.

The silence seemed to consume her as she stared at the pages of her book, words scrawled in ink not catching her attention like she knew they should. Even with the sounds of the circus winding down in the distance, everything seemed so still and so dark, silence pressing in on her with such force she found it hard to breathe.

“zznnggg!”

A strange noise startled her out of the trance she had fallen into, causing her book to slide from her hands and bounce from the bed to the floor. “What the..” The noise was so odd and so comical that Chiao could not stop herself from pushing off of her cot and padding across the floor of her tent. She quickly pushed aside the flap of the tent and moved in the direction of the noise, before stopping and staring at the strange scene that was unfolding in front of her.

A girl was sword fighting with the air, white cane of a blind man being her weapon. The glasses on her face suggested that she really was the one that the glasses belonged to, and yet something about the way she moved seemed to be off. She moved with such surety that she couldn’t help but be blind. Chiao moved forward into the path of danger to see if her thoughts were right. The cane came crashing down and she moved her arm up, forearm all that was in the way of that cane cracking down on her skull.

“Watch it, beautiful. You might just hurt someone with that,” Chiao chuckled, ignoring the slight throbbing in her arm from where the cane had come down harder than expected. She still held her ground, however, not wanting the other to realise that she had been hurt in even the slightest. Her voice was deep enough to be masculine, yet high enough to still be feminine.

The tenor of the voice confused her, and she strained her ears to try to make out which pitch seemed more appropriate. Was she talking to a computer set to boy/girl? There didn’t seem to be any true identifier there, and that bothered her, even with the compliment.

“I wasn’t exactly hiding in the bushes,” she replied smoothly, “If I had to guess, you just wanted an excuse to talk to me?” But Narae was smiling, clearly amused by this stranger’s attempt at a run in. Boy or girl, the compliment didn’t mean any less to her. Though the similarly androgynous name nearly got her pouting again, with how little that helped.

Bowing her head just enough to be courteous, in case Chiao had done it and she just hadn’t seen, she introduced herself, “I’m Narae. And I’m sorry I hit you with my cane.” Now a smile lightly curled at her lips, the blond adding as an afterthought, “Are you a freak too?” It came out much blunter than probably was proper, but by phrasing it that way, she identified herself as gifted just as much as the others at the circus. Or if it was a customer, they could just believe she was handicapped, and meant freak that way. To her, it really didn’t matter. Not when none of these people could haul her off to a government lap for testing.

Brandishing her cane with a much lighter touch now, she tried to guess where Chiao stood and went to lightly poke her, hopefully somewhere in the torso and not down low. It would be just her luck that this person was a dude, and she’d stab him in the balls on their first meeting. If it was a chick, and she got her in the boobs, hey; that was just foreplay.