depraved

indie canon multimuse featuring muses from mostly trigger heavy media, including Nobleman from Park Hoon-jung’s 2018 The Witch: Subversion Part 1

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@chironitas​ | “sometimes i try to make it look like i’m comfortable in the skin i’m in ” [for noé!] MISC ANGST SENTENCES ( LYRICS ).

---

And sometimes the sheer universe-sized distance in similarities between the life Noé has led and the one of Vanitas’ he’s only caught an outsiders glimpses of, slams into Noé’s chest heavily enough to leave him staggering mentally.

And other times, it merely washes over him, as if injected directly into his heart, intent on freezing him over on the inside. Cool and uncomfortable, like a dead hand whose grip is a little too tight and at the same time a little too loose.

Much like his own grip on Vanitas, he sometimes muses.

An outsider, on the other hand, one who might have watched moments like these unfold on other occasions, might wonder why they always happen a-top roofs.

The air seems warm and clear enough, Paris sparkles beneath them, indecisive between the flowers it claims as part of its moniker and the much stronger glistening of the sun caressing la Seine’s surface as if trying to brush over and mend open wounds.

And Vanitas is making a new face.

Noé sits and watches, as he always does, eyes kept wide enough as if fearing he might slip out of his gaze, lips kept closed as if waiting his turn or too preoccupied to utter anything.

And Vanitas looks, for the first time perhaps, or perhaps the nth time and Noé had only known been allowed to see it, as if he was much smaller than the strutting vampire doctor he’d first encountered on La Baleine.

Vanitas is fast and stronger than he’d claim most other humans to be. He spits and grins as if he’s putting on a show for no one but the devil himself, as if every time he gains a split lip or every time he pushes through a fight to get to a vampire to save, he’s winning some sort of race against... against whom?

Against Luna?

Their voice chills in the back of his mind, Mikhail’s memories faint but with a mark left behind.

Against vampires?

Against Dr Moreau?

Against himself?

The breeze musses his hair. Noé’s always wondered why he chooses to keep it this long. Lack of interest? Preference?

His hourglass earring glistens briefly and Noé thinks of Luna again.

Thinks of the Mikhail’s memory of a crying, feverish Vanitas, no older than Noé had been when he’d collapsed in a similar fashion after... after.

Crying, feverish Vanitas and the tales of his father’s turned back and his mother’s death, life as it had started and life as it had ended to turn into years of continuous torture - tries not to think of Mikhail’s memories in this context, tries not to hurl.

Does Vanitas even feel his skin to be his own still? Altered eyes and a vampire’s blood within him, cut up and rearranged for the mission of a madman.

I’m glad you are the person you are now.

He feels like vomiting for that line, considering all he had to go through to become who he is.

Still... He wouldn’t take it back.

“Why?” A frown, somewhere between confusion and the frustration of someone who just wants to understand better and understand easier.

He leans forward, doesn’t notice his shifting closer until his shoulder is pressed against Vanitas’, only tries to sneak into the human’s peripheral.

 ❛ i don’t like small towns . ❜  smaller people in it , unaware of streets that chew boys like him up and spit them out in front of choi mu-jin , so maybe he takes pity on them and takes them in . for the rest of their lives , they’d owe him , they’d carry something from dongcheon even if it’s kicked them out . gang-jae never got the chance to own the twin snakes tattoo , carve it on his chest and let it stay there forever and instead mu-jin wanted something more permanent . a scar , that’s pierced pale flesh from side of his nose lower to his cheek ; it was better , gang-jae had realized after a long time . that you don’t have to belong to choi mu-jin , but to yourself . small town and smaller people , they didn’t know shit about missing something that had almost killed you .

 smoke mingles in the night air , with it’s soft chill . it’s late , she should probably get back home . he thinks to himself when the next question comes . for a moment he considers telling her they dated , or something cheesy like that but a boyfriend doesn’t wander around the town his girlfriend had died in , smiling at everyone and teasing stupid ahop owners when asked about his tattoos . ’ yes , but i have carved them on my skin with a knife . i can give you one too ’ with the sweetest voice ever , their fear felt nice sometimes . like he was home , like he belonged there . when the other questions meet his ears , gang-jae can’t help his breathy laughter , playfully frowning at the woman .  ❛ didn’t know i was here for the interrogation . ❜  friends from uni , gang-jae never went to uni .  ❛ how about this , i get you a nice dinner and you tell me why manyang so suspicious about everyone with tattoos . ❜  innocent in its nature , the wolf had no intentions of taming the woman’s aggressive digging . to find the truth . unfortunately , gang-jae had nothing to do with it , had nothing to give them . blood and guts didn’t disgust him but for some reason the sight of fingertips made him scrunch his face in disgust yesterday .

 ❛ it’s getting late , yeah ? ❜

She’s met people during her time that she could categorise with ease.

Do Gang-jae refuses to be one of them.

How kindly he speaks and how absolutely trashed he always looks, as if someone had just found him half-dead in a ditch the day before. Walks around with scars and tattoos and makes people wonder which is which, breathes smoke into a police officers face knowing full well who she is, speaks as softly as if someone who doesn’t want to disturb the soft breeze of the eerily tranquil night.

A con-artist or someone not meant to be judged by his cover, a kid who’s better than he looks or good at hiding he’s much worse than he sounds. Not exactly the kind of person Ji-hwa imagines Dong-sik would have wanted his little princess to be friends with, but where one can’t choose their own family, others can’t demand you to choose different friends.

It tends to backfire, if you tell young 20-year-olds to stay away from the man whose grin seems to rip his features apart each time a-new, as it pulls on his skin and rearranges the way his scar seems to drag his face around.

Ji-hwa had briefly considered asking. And she does it again, remains fixated on his demeanour, listens closely to his laughter as if trying to discern how much of him was genuine and how much was late night paranoia on her part.

He’s too young, that’s for sure.

And for some reason she doubts he would have the finesse required to mimic a serial killer from way before he’d probably even learned about the existence of cigarettes and tattoos.

Or maybe he’d known all along, about the grime of the world people like Ji-hwa continue to pick at every day, and that’s why he looks like... that.

She doesn’t laugh at the mention of an interrogation, mostly because she’s not fool enough to lie to neither him nor herself that that wasn’t what she’d indeed been going for, subconsciously or less so. But she snorts, somewhere between derision and genuine amusement, at the invitation.

She shifts where she stands, relaxing as if the presence of a disbelieving smile on her lips had tricked her body into believing there was something to smile about.

I don’t like small towns.

Neither do most people living in them.

Congregations of liars who don’t want your nose in their business but keep theirs stuck in yours, enemies unless you give them reason to band against you, patriots for the raw sake of it, for that odd knee-jerk reaction people have to kid themselves into protectiveness just if given enough reason to think they belong somewhere.

Ji-hwa wouldn’t deny being a cynic if called so.

She gives him another once over.

She plucks her phone out of her pocket and sends a brief text. If he tries anything and she fails at holding her own as a police officer, which would be embarrassing to say the least, at least they’ll know who it was.

“Alright,” stuffs the phone back into her trousers and steps away from the car. A head movement, motioning over to the other side, a passenger seat awaiting to be occupied by whom she’s trying to gauge as either unimportant enough to the matter of things to be harmless or threatening enough to be relevant whether or not he had anything to do with it.

dante had said it would be cold, yes --- but perhaps vanitas had refused to believe it was possible for a place to be this cold, or perhaps he really is just too attached to his peculiar fashion sense to trade his cloak for something more functional; either way, the young vampire doctor has been complaining vociferously ever since he and noé had stepped off the train. presently, they're heading down a quaint cobblestone walkway towards the hotel, vanitas theatrically picking his way through the snowdrifts and swearing aloud every time he gets some snow in his boots.

(he's quite a sight: he's sniffling constantly, his nose cherry-red; his eyes are watering relentlessly from the biting cold of the wind, tears freezing on his eyelashes, matting them together. and perhaps worst of all is that vanitas is all too aware of the absolute state he's in, and he's trying --- and failing --- to conceal his humiliation beneath his scarf. it's utterly --- perhaps endearingly --- ineffective.)

"putain de merde," he exclaims, snuffling. "that baldy! damn him for sending us out here! i'm going to catch my death of pneumonia!"

he gingerly takes another step forward, then very nearly loses his footing on a patch of ice, and the will to live visibly leaves him. he stops short, arms clenched across his chest, and scowls --- an almost childish fit of pique.

as if looking for commiseration: "aren't you cold too, noé? don't you find this place just as reprehensible...?!"

@chironitas | original ♥

---

Truth is, there’s hardly a place in this or any other world Noé could fully and confidently find reprehensible.

His eyes seem intent on not matching, but rather rivalling the glistening of the falling snowflakes as what little sunlight pierces through the white clouds threatens to blind him, taking in every stone he steps in from the moment he’d managed to tear his gaze away from the train he’d still not grown tired of, to stop staring with the awe of a five-year-old raised amidst green foliage and brown barks and nothing more he’d like to mention now.

So, no, he doesn’t find this place reprehensible. If anything, where Vanitas clenches and pulls himself together as if trying to disappear within himself and away from the cold surrounding them, Noé’s hands are clenched with the force of his delight, as if trying to keep him from bursting out of his skin, keeping him walking steady at Vanitas’ side when all he can think about is the many questions he has, always reserved for places he walks into for the first time.

Will this place remind him of Paris? The snow reminds him of Gévaudan, will it fall the way it did there, what are the sights of this place, what places do the locals describe with pride and hey, what’s hidden behind that corner, and will they have enough time and an opportunity to visit Lac D’Annecy, and what will the hotel look like, and-

He only notices he almost walked straight past the vampire doctor when his complaining finally seems to find conscious target in Noé’s ears.

He hadn’t been ignoring him, he wouldn’t claim that - he probably wouldn’t admit to it either, because if he had been, he’d probably not even noticed he’d started tuning it out -  the muttering and cussing had simply quickly merged with the sound of the freezing wind whipping past his ears, as easy to grow used to as the sound of Vanitas’ teeth clattering had been.

So maybe it’s a good thing Vanitas had decided to speak to him directly.

It means Noé’s actually forced to take a good look at him.

And shamelessly chuckle at the sight.

Hey.

It’s endearing how someone as self-assured as Vanitas always presents himself to be, can suddenly appear so small while facing something as powerful and at the same time mundane as the weather, contrasted with all the things Vanitas barrels through and finds ways to survive.

“I’m actually quite liking this place,” a smile, because he isn’t lying as he steps closer to the self-proclaimed vampire medic again, but also because the red in Vanitas’ face makes him a lot... nicer-seeming.

Prompts him to soften, almost.

It’s a tendency. He tends to forget how human Vanitas truly is.

No, let’s rephrase that.

He tends to forget how mortal Vanitas is, that he’s no all-mighty indestructible creature that breathes beyond the realm of humans and vampires both. That he’s, in a way, just a guy - never quite just a guy, for that, the impact he’s had on Noé is too large, the whisper of his existence ever too present in the forefront of his mind - and that he’ll risk breaking his neck if he slips on another patch of ice.

“Do you want me to carry you the rest of the way to the hotel? We’d get there faster and you could warm up sooner.” And as if certain the doctor wouldn’t disagree, he extends a hand, reminiscent almost of that time he’d asked him to dance.

His heart twinges at that.

@gdmonster ♚ continued from x.

♔ ———–

   He tries to be courteous in these instances, even if he’s normally not so polite. A sense of distrust always follows him; a product of his environment and parts of his upbringing, too. The welcome, in a way, leaves a bitter taste in his mouth due to the things he’s heard and the reason he got here. Is he really welcome, with his chaotic record and an attitude that, he’s sure, she’s already heard of? That type of information always runs fast — the bad one, the negative one; the one that promises to tear you apart if you let it. 

   A hand goes to meet hers. He also decides to give a bow, not as pronounced but not as loose, either. Just one that shows sliver of gratitude as the smallest hint of a tight-lipped smile appears. It looks weird — he doesn’t really smile. However, that odd grin disappears as fast as it makes its appearance. 

    He’s glad she doesn’t seem so unfastened, either. Hyuk has been transferred to other places before (here and there, like a bouncing ball; his boss often insists on these things as to ‘calm him down’ and it seems they haven’t learned a thing – neither has he) and there’s been examples of loud and faux affability, you know, the type to welcome you with bold laughter and crinkled eyes as if wanting to disguise a condemned place as wonderland. He prefers this. The distance, the vague amiability that’s not freezing cold nor does it scald the tongue. 

    Oh Jihwa. He’s heard about her, too; did a small research before coming here. Divorced and with a brother also working in the force. Not that personal things matter – what matters is that he read she’s very good at what she does; handling cases with a grace that earned her the title she has now. Answering to a competent Team Leader is good. He just hopes something crooked is not hiding amid all that good reputation. 

    He’s never been a Team Leader. Not officially, at least. Superiors have said he wouldn’t be a good one because of how gritty he is. You’ll never go up if you keep behaving like that, detective Lee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He doesn’t care.

     Eyes drift from Detective Oh to identify Kang Do-Soo. The…what did she say? One of the best men in the precinct? Uh-huh. We’ll see about that. He bows his head when taking note of him. It seems they have partners here, too. Not many things change, all things considered. Just the faces and the location. 

   “Understood.” 

    He finally says when she also mentions Detective Kwak and Chief Jeong. He’s read about them, too. Especially about the latter. Weird vibes he got about this guy in particular; the type of hunch that you cannot blatantly ignore. He’ll keep that to himself. 

    Harsh glance is given in return when Detective Oh stares him down. Frown pressed on features; he lets hands slide in the pockets of his trousers. He’s not intimidated. Just uncomfortable. 

   “Yes, I did. I…left the box outside the door.” 

    Nothing much, really. Just his personal printer and some files; paper. Nothing personal, no trinkets that could reveal anything about him. The contents of his desk tend to be just like him — dry; dedicated to work only. His personal stuff he already left at one of the apartment rooms. It’s small, but it’ll do. 

  “Will I have a designated space? Or is it going to be shared with someone else? I don’t mind either way.” 

   A pause.

   “Do all detectives get assigned a partner? If so, I rather work by myself, if possible.” 

   A request he’d like to put on the table, whether he’s granted such a thing or not.

  “Anything else I should know, Team Leader Detective Oh?” 

———– ♔

The problem with Munju - and Manyang in particular, but this man here is no Han Joo-won, even though she’s already noting some similarities she’d rather not find and similarities she’d rather see - is that it seems to be one of those places that seems to attract people with boulders on their shoulders.

Or expressions and demeanour's as sour that she has to keep herself from grimacing in response to his smile. Nothing about their soon-to-be business relation would justify or condemn making faces into his as a good idea, but it was almost instinctual, quickly curbed as it turned out to be, keeping itself where she keeps most of herself when she meets someone she finds no reason extending free trust to.

It was like a knee-jerk reaction, as if everything about detective Lee Hyuk screams about a life played out in a completely different genre to that of most people. 

She can’t quite put her finger to it, if it’s arrogance and or to many years spent on the job, or if this man had joined the force equipped with an air about himself that just keeps making Ji-hwa want to turn around and walk away.

She’d enjoyed the thrill of a man passionate to his very core and paid for it by wasting years of her life hoping this passion would never translated into bloodied footprints all over innocent corpses.

And she’s grown to be a stoic herself, facetious out of necessity and out of having organically developed into a woman who can throw on a cynical smile and deliver a few sarcastic lines, all to hide the anger shooting at high-speed through her veins, at having to interrogate and doubt some of her closest friends.

But be it the other end of the spectrum or her familiarity with his end, she’s lost the care, the patience, almost. She’s lost the second glances towards someone so guarded, towards that frown on his face and the way his hands disappear, as if he’s trying to keep as much of himself to himself, pulled tight and away from eyes and opinions.

She just hopes that this deadpan and direct nature - which, to be frank, she could even grow to appreciate, given the right circumstances, given he’s as competent as he is notorious, as she’s been told - won’t affect her precinct the way new standoffish faces tend to affect decade-long partnerships.

Like how she’d watched him glance at Kang Do-soo just now and tried not to narrow her eyes too much at the sudden surge of protectiveness she’d felt.

She’d like to extend him that benefit of the doubt, the same one, the one she hopes she’ll continue being justified in giving, because sometimes she’s right, sometimes it works out, sometimes a detective with a bad reputation might just be self-sabotaging and equipped with a better heart than he lets other people recognise.

If Lee Dong-sik is anything to go by.

She just hopes Lee Hyuk decides to be of the same category of notorious inspectors.

“Outside? Alright, let’s go get it, then,” and she’s already half-turning, headed into the direction he came from. She doubts he’d need help with a single box of desk-belongings, but, well, that benefit of the doubt, that knee-jerk of wanting to create companionship, some type of familiarity, this inability of Munju people to not at least try to include you, the-

She halts and, at his question, gestures to a spot at the desk facing the window on the opposite end of the room her spot is in. Two people would fit there, two blue screens face her, showing off the badge that unites them all under the same force, corrupt and honest alike.

“There’s a free spot, you’d have to share the desk if we had more people, but as of now, it’s just you, so you can pick either of the two and consider it your own.”

She wonders if he’s being honest about the ‘not minding either way’.

She wonders even more so when he follows the question up with a line she wishes she could say surprised her. Once again half-turned away, Ji-hwa pauses, the foundations of her intentions, of the attitude she’d wanted to deploy, crumble slightly, shake and moan a second, maybe two, while she brushes the pads of her fingers against her forehead.

Briefly, maybe gathering thoughts, maybe hoping she can start this off on a foot that isn’t yet another frown, yet more trouble.

She faces him again.

“Yes. Especially considering recent events and the history of this place, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, I don’t feel comfortable knowing my officers out without a partner to back them up in case of necessity.”

Or provide them with an alibi.

She pauses. Her gaze travels, nowhere, in time maybe, before she blinks herself out of her mind and stares up at him again.

“For now, you’ll be with me. It’s not official, but... You’re my responsibility now,” frank, even though this isn’t what she’d had in mind, even though she doesn’t know why she continues making decisions she wishes she wouldn’t. And why they feel more authentic than others. “So I’ll make sure you’re integrated well.”

A sigh, shoulders rise, shoulders fall.

  what do we have here , exactly ? a cop that doesn’t fight the crimes for money but because of this stable balance of justice in her . gang-jae was afraid of these types of cops because they were too hard to discard . they didn’t take money to let go of you , they thought you were a devil stuck on earth .  ❛ do gang-jae . ❜  he repeats after her as he shifts to let his back rest against the car , staring ahead . bad things always happened to miserable people in miserable towns , they couldn’t stop a tornado . the drug lord wasn’t a tornado tonight , no , he was lonely and the night sky was brightening at the edges of the hills where the bigger city was , it always gave him an odd kind of nostalgia . it reminded him of his childhood for some reason . a warm night , a night sky that wasn’t too dark and somewhere quiet . her voice suggests suspicion , it doesn’t surprise him that it does .

 ❛ min-jeong always liked taking walks down this place . ❜  if they saw him as a close friend and not someone who was dying for TROUBLE , they might even like him . though it was hard considering the scar on his face and the ink around his throat . but it was so easy to pretend to be a friend rather than a shark .  ❛ she brought me here a few times . were you and her close ? ❜  the other asks , turning his head to look at officer oh . it wasn’t what gang-jae wanted to confess most of the time that older women were always a step ahead of the little girls with spoiled bratsyndromes . from what he saw , min-jeong coming to his club only told him that she was a fucking brat too . gang-jae brings out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket , and a golden lighter . the flicker of the flames illuminated his scarred face , smoke softly dancing in the air before he offered one roll of the cigarette to the woman .

He’s young, one of the many things she thinks to gauge by his appearance alone, one of the few things she’ll confidently retain as fact. The benefit of the doubt is what she’s extending here, rather than a ferociously pointed finger and assumptions that’d make her older than she actually is.

Maybe around Ji-hoon’s age, actually. Visually.

She sighs again.

Visually, also, though, about a thousand years grown into a completely different direction.

She doesn’t move away when he moves to lean against her car, doesn’t flinch to avoid his proximity, doesn’t shift as silent approval of his taking a relaxed posture so close. She maintains her reservations and extends the kind of kindness she extends to most, detached, taken for granted, consider it a given, she won’t get any kinder. Especially if he mentions Min-jeong.

It irks her because everything does, lately. Because she could have decades ahead of herself, hadn’t this and hadn’t that and hadn’t she and hadn’t he and hadn’t they. All the what if’s that plagued her into stopping tonight, away from the circle she usually drowns her hypervigilance under. A moment of reprieve she’d considered it. Now she has to deal with him.

In attendance when no one had called out his name and asked him to. A stranger from that part of Min-jeong’s life they’d all begged she’d quit for good. A friend, allegedly, the physical embodiment of what odd cry for help her acting out might have been, had they cared enough to ask, force her back onto the right path.

Ji-hwa glances at his profile again, keeps her gaze as focused when he turns and doesn’t shy away from the eye contact. It helps, when people wear their stories on their faces, in their voices. But Do Gang-jae doesn’t match up with himself. He looks like a rabid mutt ready to bite. But he moves in a way and sounds mellow enough to make Ji-hwa wonder if perhaps the light of the awakening day and the mystery always hidden by the fields at her feet, were creating a dissonance meant to mess with her head.

“She never brought you anywhere we could meet you, though.” Neither accusation nor interrogation. A thought that had been clinkering like an incessant bell within the confines of her skull. “We were,” two words, conceding, delivered with a sigh after a pause, watching him light his cigarette.

When he offers, she takes another moment. Min-jeong lived two lives. Or maybe it was their collective fault she lived one more than the other.

Question is... what role does he play in all this?

She takes the cigarette and toys with it, regarding it as if she’d just been offered evidence she could do nothing with.

---

There’s a mirroring, there’s an ‘I’ve been here before’, simultaneously flanked by not a memory being a fit neat enough for tumbling and yowling of his heart.

As he stands here - there’s lines where he can’t close his eyes without thinking of another child not-saved, a tension in the clenching of his fists - and looks into the eyes of someone resigned to a fate Noé would beg to take on physical form, just so he can sink his teeth into it and rip it apart until it ceases to be.

The idea was to continue not liking Vanitas.

The idea was to save vampires, whether or not they’d wanted him to.

The idea was to write back to his teacher, complete his research, figure out what it is he’d wanted to figure out.

The idea was... the idea was...

“Vanitas,” it’s an angry sort of plea as he lurches forward and sinks to his knees in the same motion, takes up residence in a mockery of reverence, of prayer almost, when neither he nor Vanitas seem particularly devote to a church that wants him dead and has only brought Vanitas pain.

He’s vaguely been here before, clutching onto a seated boy, desperate to see something through, desperate to find a solution to the ache in his motions and the exhaustion in his eyes.

But even then, with Louis so deeply integrated into his heart, did the clutching feel as though he was holding onto a part of his soul.

No, he wants to refute, how has he been what Vanitas needed, how can he say that? How can he say that after he hasn’t found a solution to the one problem that seems to afflict him most? He’s been his shield and he’s been his friend and he’s been something beyond he doesn’t quite have a name for, doesn’t quite look at often enough for fear of the expectations he might force onto the doctor once more.

It’s a promise he won’t break, not one of the heaviness of the likes of giving the death Vanitas asks of him, but...

His face contorts, has been contorting, pulling itself apart in a combination of the look he’d worn when he’d asked Vanitas the question he’s giving answer too, when he’d implored to know about the truth of salvation, and the look he’d worn all those times something he’d loved-

He sits back on his heels and watches the history carved into Vanitas’ skin.

What Vanitas had needed, he muses, is a life in which he’d never lived to a point that would lead them to this. That would burn sights into his brain of a child falling apart between his fingers. Screw the realisations, screw their meeting, may he live forever in the woods of Avignone, but correct the past and make the blue in his eyes his original and the blue on his skin gone.

He reaches out, but it’s an aborted motion because he falls short, he always falls short, no matter the kindness of the plea, the look in the pleader’s eyes, he’d failed once, what if he fails again?

He can’t.

“I promise,” he concedes, because... maybe that’s what he can do to be what he could need.

@tewwor​ | “put the gun down, dearest. i have news!” ( ji-hwa / seojun ) more random dialogue prompts

---

“That is the worst possible way to let me know of that!”

She doesn’t like raising her voice.

She’d argue there are plenty of more effective ways to get your point across, give ‘em a good kick, smack some handcuffs onto their wrist, stare ‘em down coldly enough, she’s dealt with enough criminals and bullies for most of her life, that she’s well-equipped with her selection of preferred and efficient methods, in how to deal with the most unpleasant and unexpected situations.

Hell, she’s had to fight off the idea for twenty years that her best friend might be a serial killer who’d murdered his own sister. Nothing truly pleasant to wake up to in the morning, not any more fun than going to sleep with her very bone marrow weighing her down, or less exhausting than the sigh she heaves while she watches her brother get ready for work and hope he won’t accidentally shoot himself in the foot.

But all those things combined and all things considered, even how pleasant of an occurrence it usually is for Han Seojun to show up, yet another artist with a touch for the macabre she finds herself inclined to welcome in her general proximity and near the people she cares for.

But much like all those people she cares for, he doesn’t seem intent on sparing her of the grey hair she’s somehow still fighting off - all things considered.

The gun’s still halfway trained to his face, a stance as if learned yesterday and practised a thousand times since then, tension in her upper arms, a shoulder used to sustain the recoil of anything put in her hands, ears that are used to the sound.

People who work in the force have reflexes too quick for their own good.

He’s lucky hers are honed on intimidation and questions, and not on kill on sight.

She lowers it. Slowly, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his sudden appearance. He’s not exactly someone she wouldn’t call a valuable asset to be aware of, but it’s always odd when said valuable assets show up as if summoned on crime scenes she’s not yet finished investigating.

A sigh.

She puts it away entirely.

@tewwor​ | “hey stupid.” ( nobleman / ari — i.. no thoughts. just vibes ) more random dialogue prompts

---

He’s seriously running out of reasons to give this world the second glance it allegedly deserves. Or, better yet, its inhabitants, those bipeds that are too resilient for their own good and not half as resilient as they claim to be, he’s running out of ways to justify the interest some seem to harbour for them.

The various classes and categories, behaviours that take on different visuals, but can be broken down to the same essence, filthy and pathetic and but an escalation of what had been established within the core of a bullied child, or of a spoiled child depending on circumstances.

He’s never been the villain to want to wipe them all out, clean all they leave behind up. But he is the villain who doesn’t want them to brush their filth on his sleeves, doesn’t want their palms to brush against his skin and leave imprints, doesn’t want so much as their scent there where it might stick and linger on his clothes.

So it seems only reasonable to come to a halt at the noises emitted by the precise class of people easiest to come by and hardest to shake.

The annoying kind.

Vibrating away as if the entire world belonged to them, or as if equipped with just enough of something to think themself capable of fighting off anything the world might think suitable to offer in turn.

He turns around with a slight ease added to his step. There’s tension somewhere within him, but there always is. And when he turns to face the other properly, he does so with a smile he’d think to define pleasant, or at least enough of a mock of it to be suited to a situation in which he’s not the least bit pleased.

Troublemakers, the kindest amongst mortals would define them.

He tilts his head to the side and gives her a once over.

Disasters, he’d offer instead.

He smiles in the face of it. Gives him a little shrug, shoves his hands in his pocket, walks the same way he’d walked back to Ari to stop and lean into their face.