ATONEMENT.

❛   IT STARTS WITH BLOODSHED, ALWAYS BLOODSHED,   @twcmccns.

  [ ▲—THE DULL THUD that results from the other’s body colliding with the floorboards has Noah rushing through the door into Jongin’s room. If someone would ask him why, he’s not sure he’d be able to answer, but there is quite a fair amount of worry stuck in his mind these days. Worry, because the one family member he knows he has isn’t doing all too well. He wrinkles his nose a little at the sight, even more so at the nickname the other so persistently calls him by. “Is the grandpa joke ever going to die?” He questions before he steps up close. It’s fairly easy to lift the younger male up from the floor and lay him back down on his bed, ignoring whatever protests that may have been thrown his way. It doesn’t really matter anymore. Whatever this bond is, it has already found a stable way to establish itself. It’s not going anywhere and Noah can already tell. “Try not to fall out of bed next time you want to do something, don’t need to hurt more than you already do.” The vampire comments before he crouches down to get the mentioned gift from under the table, eyeing the books for a few moments before he settles on the bedside. “You know, I was almost one hundred percent sure you wouldn’t remember my birthday, I’m glad you did though, thank you. And I really mean that.”

with this much burden on his shoulders, it almost feels like everyday is an arms race, and he’s battling against himself. sometimes, in the portrait, there’s kai. bruised, beaten. black and blue. they don’t linger, but it certainly feels like they do. he can feel their ghosts creeping, crawling on his skin. perhaps they’re the afterthoughts: the traumas that become nothing but personal poltergeists. he thinks in metrics that don’t coexist with reality; no, not in the ways that they should. he’s no longer the hybrid theory, a mixture between a boy and a beast. it’s been leaning towards the latter as of late, with his overgrown figurative teeth becoming stalactites. and so, he sheds the skin of his alter ego, stepping more into kim jongin even when the body feels more like a flask more often than not.

tonight, the city is no longer familiar. its arteries spread before him, he feels more vulnerable than ever even when he’s equipped with weapons too many, strapped and hidden underneath his casual clothes. there’s no such thing as being too paranoid when you’ve died too many times, but tonight, he expects it to be rather calm. doesn’t know if it matters, though, what he thinks, because as accurate as his senses can be, he’s not a soothsayer. heads towards the bar with measured steps, claiming a seat that relatively obscures him in the shadow. with this metabolism, substance is futile, but he asks for a glass after another anyway, sloshing himself in the cusp of warmth that lasts for a moment’s fractions. trailing down his system, the burn is nothing but an illusionary tale of liberation from reality.

the pain starts on a wednesday. it shoots up his spine the moment he wakes up from a typically fitful slumber, and he wonders if everything that he’s been fathoming in regards to his body has been wrong. perhaps there’s an apex reached, and it’s going downhill from there. a metastasis that blooms from the lumbar ends, spreading across the body. or perhaps it’s the brain creating illusions of muscle atrophies, since as far as he’s understood, he couldn’t be experiencing pain when there was no bodily stimulus. it feels like having an early autopsy, but then again, it’s fitting, isn’t it? the rate of mortality is uncertain, and hasn’t he been evading deaths too many times? and this time, he’s not. maybe this time, there’s a deathbed at the end of the road, waiting to take him by the strides.

it’s almost crippling, and he can barely make it past his bedroom before it recedes slightly. he can walk better, straighter, towards the kitchen to grab some coffee. turns on the percolator as he idly lets his mind wander: it’s probably transient, he thinks. it’s ebbed away almost entirely by the time the coffee is done brewing, and he grabs a mug to pour himself a cup. he’s about to take a sip when the pain strikes again, this time in his head. its fuse lit, there’s the cacophony that goes when the collision of the mug against the marbled floor. there’s a bristle of his own making, and when he tries making his way towards the outside bathroom, he’s certain he’s stepped on the shard of the glass. it’s barely something he registers when the headache ripples in the confines of his cranium, thrashing and burning. he’s trying to look into the mirror, to see if there’s any wound, but there’s none. just him, uncharacteristically pallid.

He doesn’t know what time it is.

Half an hour of walking - ten minutes, maybe? five seconds? - and he can’t even bother to dig into his memories deep enough to remember what day it is. Heavy feet are dragging him along paths he’s never ventured to before, but does he care? No. Does Res care about anything right now? It’d be hard, it’d be very hard to figure that out, and the man himself can’t even tell whether he cares anymore or not.

All he cares about, in the daze of a mind that can’t handle being alive for too long, is that his feet want to go somewhere, and if that’s what they want to do, then why not? Who is he to stop them from carrying him further into a dark city, or even better, off the nearest cliff?

He’s absolutely nothing, not anymore. A mere shell of what used to be, a resigned vessel of a soul that had quit being one, in favour of ridding itself of the pain of being whole once more.

Maybe trauma does that to you. Puts your soul in front of a choice: return to what you were or drop it all, become what you will inevitably become, which is nothing at all. And the soul would, of course, then go ahead and pick the second option because after it’s been ripped to shreds, had to support a mind heavier than one’s guilt-filled boots, fight against a heart that won’t bother to fix it, why would it even think about putting in the effort to have the spirit remain whole?

Hollow.

So his feet do what they want, his gaze lifts to stare at the green light as passively as he possibly can, and he’s crossing the street, a street he’s never crossed before, god knows if he’ll ever cross it again. His ears don’t even recognise the sound of a nearing car at first, it seems that only the blinding light of the nearing vehicle can really grab his attention. And it’s that second, that second of suddenly waking up from that state of nothingness, that delivers only one thought, and one thought only. He doesn’t know if he’ll remember it.

But if he will, he might wonder, why think ‘not again’?

The impact never happens and his life doesn’t flash before his eyes - he’ll most likely later wonder whether that can even happen twice, or whether he had used it up the one time he had already had to sink helplessly and watch it happen - the only thing he recognises is the force with which he’s suddenly pulled away, sounds filling the air that reminds all too eerily of that event.

Next thing he knows is the feeling of cold concrete below fingers that are finally starting to regain some feeling, even as the harsh beating of his heart against his ribcage threatens to send his mind reeling again, into an all too familiar state of panic he’ll hardly climb back out from.

He’s stunned. His mouth is hanging agape, he doesn’t know if he’s hurting, if he’s even alive, and all he can actually focus on is the odd dark figure moving not too far away from him. Even the car that had almost done him the favour was lost to him as he tries to swallow with a throat that feels all too dry to really be of any use.

“H…hey,” and the croaky, unused sound of his own voice surprises him, makes him flinch back into himself. Is he sitting? Yes, he seems to be. What… what… is…

There’s not a shadow darker than the shadow of blood, and Res’ heart stills when he recognises it.

“Hey, are… are you okay?”

even in the clarity of the moment where the spiking senses are at its peak, his mind is still muddied by the lathering, triggering traumas that collide against the forefront of his mind, creating a series of cacophonies: i. ) the collateral height of a death that doesn’t have any pain registered in his nervous system, ii. ) the bouquet river of the blood that flows from a mother’s head like a carefully painted halo, and iii. ) the versatile edges of the pain that has become all too familiar for him as a functional human being. he has been created into a monster. moments like this remind him back to the figure three, which he doesn’t know is better than figure one or not. figure two being the worst, its voice filling his ears with abstract noises. sometimes white. he doesn’t know which death is more worthy: the slow, eventual — or the quick, judgmental. in the freeform of this one, it reminds him of the former, but beguiles him of the latter.

not like he’s dying, but his mind is screaming the false alerts even as his body starts repairing itself. skin starts suturing on its own, red none than inklings left of an accident that almost occurred. the car has long swerved them, running away. in the depth of the swallowing darkness is just himself, and the man he’s just saved. it’s as if the culture of the night is laughing at the both of them, riveting the missed demise onto the street. they’re roadkills, inside. breathing is just customary movements at this point. he can tell that the man is stunned by the trauma, and so is he. it’s not brand new; for fuck’s sake, at this point, he should’ve got used to it. the pain is another common syllable in his dictionary. there’s no shock there.

however, it’s not like he can pretend the traumas don’t haunt him before proceeding to eat him alive. back to the partiture of the asterisks, terms and conditions of normality apply. he’s never actually living in it: it’s just a grandiose illusion that he’d like to think as growth, coping mechanisms that have been nothing but a disguise. drags himself into a sitting position as he feels that the gashes are closing with rapid successions, arms trembling from the impact — more mental than physical — as he picks himself up. hoists himself, feeling the cold of the wind sweeping them. it leaves nothing but the soaked feelings against the side of his body where the blood, his blood, has drenched. there’s no more pain, now. it’s been less than five minutes, and the speed in which he recovers sometimes scares him to a point of no return.

caprices that don’t dwindle always end up with his executions, following the order of the whims growing at the peripheries of his thoughts. and that’s how he finds himself in hong kong, present time, on a weekend just after the exams are finished. justifies this as a part of his break, even when he knows for certain that the clamors of seoul need kai, the vigilante. well, the police can do their jobs for the few days, just like they did in the past year he was gone across the globe to give his father’s former enemies cold leads, away from the crux of kim jongin’s lifestyle. now, he’s doing this not for anyone but himself — at least, expects this to be so. he’s weary, all the weight of the traumas and depression roped around his ankles, tying him to the bottom of this ocean. lungs inundated, he believes that this is a long due reprieve.

shen kuei is a man sought after by many, inevitably, with the line of work that hasn’t ceased to amaze jongin even after listening about it from the underground channels. there isn’t a whole lot of information derived from the hacked news, but from what he understands, the man seems to pledge himself on the every man to himself motto. and the fact that he’s widely known for his martial artistry has piqued jongin’s interests, thus his arrival in this nook of the country instead of splurging some money on the nearest casino’s tables. he finds the man with relative ease after his sensing tells him and guides him — ignores how seemingly baffled the taxi driver is, since he’s speaking in english but giving clear, concise, concrete instructions on where to go as if he’d known the city’s capillaries like the back of his hand.

the days grow weary, perforated with the altitude of a new ennui high. and when the nights come, they grow worse. they grow teeth. he’s been keeping himself occupied, busied with everything that he’s learned to make himself into. focuses more on his university, on his profession. he’s building a company amidst attending a business school, for goodness’ sake, he shouldn’t have had time to spare on these side thoughts. they’re insignificant, and this entire building a new life based on the money inherited from the crime-riddled company should be the differential factors to his father’s shadows. he’s not his father’s mistakes, and thus, all these thoughts shouldn’t create a lattice of design in his head. still, it doesn’t help that he’s still dependent on these thoughts to feel something, anything. depression has brought him to a brand new level, a notch that he’s recognized quite well: he recalls the entirety of this zenith beyond crying over his mother’s death.

and as the nights slip into view, he finds himself as kai more often. it feels somewhat cathartic — perhaps it has something to do with stroking his ego. it’s inevitable; kind acts are often associated with clearing one’s weight in the conscience. he’s of no exception. tonight, the clatter of his heartbeats doesn’t desist as he sneaks out of the rooftop to watch over the city. dangers are rampant in the area, and as the hours tick into diminutive measures, he climbs down via the fire exit, parkour techniques assisting him to land softer on the metal planes. there’s nothing much that comes with the night patrolling like this unless he has done his research prior, having an obvious target he can track with his enhanced sensing. he doesn’t truly know what to track tonight, whom to seek, whom to save. so, he’s letting himself be shadowed by the decrepit building next to an alley — the easiest way to blend in, to pass the night. sets his mind onto concentrating on impending perils in the vicinity, and when it catches on the bait, he finds himself surreptitiously following a man that seems too ordinary.

❛   IT STARTS WITH BLOODSHED, ALWAYS BLOODSHED,   @spellbks.

the partiture of daybreak doesn’t let him off the hook from the weight of ennui, clamoring the confines of his cranium with thoughts that do not shy away. everything becomes clouded, shrouded with the way a bullet goes past through his head with a deadly precision. a sniper. three. sometimes a dozen. he recalls them vividly, all these perilous events that etch nothing but mental scars in him, crisscrossing tissues within the mind that do not quite heal overtime. unlike his body, his psyche doesn’t find solace in the regeneration. there’s nothing to salvage him from the pain, the ire. and so, he grabs his coat to embrace the winter outside the penthouse, the sight of the lavish apartment disappearing behind the rows of skyscrapers that he’s passed by on his way to nowhere.

no longer studying towards working in a publishing company, as much as he loves reading books. instead, with the residue of the money that’s left from selling his father’s pharmaceutical company ( who also happened to manufacture illegal drugs ) will go towards building a new technological and scientific related company which cause will revolve around covering his vigilantism. he’ll learn alongside his employees to upgrade his own devices and weaponries, masking it as another attempt at being a good ceo. he will also attend school as a computer science minor.

we have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.   —   richard siken.

  [ ▲— AS IF there have not been enough illusions in his life. Not enough memories that have been erased by strangers. Missing puzzle pieces that are nowhere to be found no matter how hard he ransacks his brain. Is this another one of those? Is this another memory he has been robbed of? Or is it just another one of fate’s twisted games. Because whoever it is that’s in control are seemingly playing by their own rules and no matter how hard Noah tries to win, he never gets anywhere near the finish line. Whenever it’s within sight it keeps being pushed back.  Or he trips. The road is never straight and easy. It’s always full of sharp turns and traps. Right now, it really feels as if the game is trying to tire him out. One day. It’s all he would like to ask for. One day, without strange events or danger or frustration. The most he has gotten in the past six months is one hour and it’s driving him crazy. 

But even if he’s plagued by weariness, his curiosity is as alert as always and it won’t let anything escape its claws. It is most likely the reason to why he’s rushing into whatever this unfamiliar situation is. He wants to know how any of this is possible. A million questions are dancing upon the tip of his tongue, muted by sealed lips, gaze unwavering as it lingers by the stranger. Step by step. Closer and closer. Will it prove to be nothing more than fiction? Will they come up close only for Noah to realize he imagined it all? Or will he truly be faced with his own mirror’s image?

Even if stopping without crossing the road properly seems to be a really bad idea, Noah’s head is not clear enough for him to care. Besides, it’s late and the amount of cars is limited. If they want to pass, they can damn well drive around him. He’s not going anywhere. “I could ask you the same questions.” Words, drenched in their usual coating of cocky playfulness, woven together by intricate threads of pure sarcasm. It’s a shield which usually works well enough when it comes to keeping people on their toes. Letting his own confusion parade upon his features is out of the question. Weakness is intolerable. 

“So, who are you?” Noah inquires without actually giving an answer. He prefers to be in control, and it’s rather evident. “If this is some kind of sick joke, I’d rather you tell me before I lose my temper and you end up forgotten in a gutter somewhere. That’d be sad. Both for me who’d have to get my hands dirty, for you who’d… not be in very good shape, and whoever sent you that’d have to deal with the mess. I’m not up for any more weird shit, my patience is limited to about ten seconds so if I don’t have at least the beginning of a proper answer by then… well I guess you’ll have a really bad time. It’s up to you, really.” He shrugs lazily. “So what’ll it be? Words or violence?”

it seems that patience is merely a caricature of the virtue when it comes to jongin. he’s never truly made of tons and tons of unbridled positivity, after all, always short on the fuse, easy to light. and he’s aware of that — part of this entire process happens not in a gradual mode because of that, too. his tendencies to follow a moment’s caprice is beyond boundaries, so when he finds himself standing in the middle of the road with sparse to no cars passing by, he is not startled by the bold decision at all. or more like, the audacity that he has, and the other person’s. he’s certain that the stranger is trying to toy with the filaments of his mind, and so, confronting the faux persona would be best to disperse it as soon as possible. he’s not here to be taunted by anyone, that’s for certain. he’s had it with the past years of living on the run, two years filled with nothing but irrational fears. manifested with paranoia, he seemed to try escaping nothing but his own shadows.

and he wants to put a stop on that. after three last shots taken with a suit that’s far from bulletproof, three last deaths taken in a body that he’d thought had been mortal, he’s grown to be unafraid of anything except for the poltergeists in his mind. his biggest enemy would be his mind, cradled in the buoyancy of insanity. he thinks that this might be another product of his mind’s construct, playing tricks on him, but when the man doesn’t cease the movement that closes the distance between them, he doesn’t think that it’s him losing his mind for the umpteenth time anymore. his strides are only desisted when he thinks the gap is enough for them to talk, although it’s slightly too close in the proximity for his liking. this close, if the man happens to be stronger than him, he might have to exert more force than necessary. and for fuck’s sake, he’s tired.

( but it always ends in a fight, doesn’t it? )

the man is seemingly far from discombobulated by this, confirming jongin’s suspicion that this might work in the man’s favor, whatever the end objective is. the mission for jongin, however, is to end the night as early as possible, without unnecessary fuss. but judging from the man’s demeanor, it doesn’t look too probable. there’s a hint of haughtiness, collared around the expression in a tight manner. jongin decides that he dislikes this stranger; and that’s proven true when the man speaks more, draining jongin even further, mentally. oh, well. he looks away for a moment, then, and lets out a soft chuckle that indulges in nothing but indifference. a pint of sarcasm to match that of the stranger’s. “you talk too much,” jongin says after letting the man’s words dissipate into the emptied street, the gestures shown towards him far from being pleasant to match the languid words presented in a speech. “and i asked first.”

as always, he isn’t backing away from a fight. a child of violence, as always, isn’t he?

— Darkness drapes itself over the city, shades of dark indigo dominating the sky with occasional spots of grey, heavy clouds covering the gleam of distant stars. He ventures alone in his tracks, spends moments away from the reality that has him caught tightly within its grip. Bouncing back has taken time. Regaining balance when one keeps falling gets harder with each attempt. More so when continuously walking on glass; stepping over the shards of broken memories. A shattered mirror’s image. Memories, that would be better erased than etched into his memory like they are. Memories, of something warm and soft that had suddenly turned cold and hard. Something that had been so alive and vivid that when it was ripped away from him it left his fingertips bleeding, a void in his chest and ice in his lungs. Months of despair and lack of anything but the will to perish. D r o w n  out the noise in his head by any possible means. Yet he still stands. Writes a new chapter of his life with every passing day.

Time has healed his wounds, assisted by the gentle hands of people that through care and dedication were determined enough to help him get his life back. But the scars still cling to body and mind like red strings, impossible to sever.  Grief has turned into hatred and anger, lingering in the back of his mind like venomous thorns. Ready, to pierce through anything and anyone that dares to venture far enough into his mind to actually find them. Ice remains at his fingertips, heart and <<soul>> protected by a freshly constructed armor of sarcasm and frustration; malice in form of playfulness and a brand new, shining, uncaring attitude. WHy bother with the things in life that are less than entertaining? Why take someone else into account when it’s possible to put oneself first? There is only one exception to that rule, and he would like it to remain that way. Hopefully, not with the same disastrous outcome as previously. But does he ever learn from his mistakes? No. Instead, he continues to let people in, only to have them take a piece of him with them when they leave. 

How much longer until there is nothing else to take? How long until the only thing that remains is severed heartstrings and darkness? 

It’s with a clouded mind that he wanders, slowly inhaling the crisp winter air of the city. Listening to the sounds of a city bustling with life, busy streets filled with conversation and laughter. It is a world he has been part of for longer than most. But also a world he feels incredibly distanced from. Perhaps his existence has been progressing for too long for him to truly appreciate it.  Lips purse briefly, stopping by the next crosswalk to wait for the lights to change color. He keeps his hands tucked into his pockets even though the cold can’t possibly bother him. How lowered body temperature makes sure of that, and winter is one of the more comforting seasons of the year. The weather is accommodating. And spending time away from the scorching rays of summer sun is appreciated. That thought alone brings a slight grin to pale features. However, it fades quite fast when wandering hues of clear blue catch something strange.  

Hues narrow for a moment, and the nightwalker wonders if his vivid sense of imagination is playing tricks on him again. But when it does not fade, he’s intrigued. It is as if he’s staring right back at himself, hues locked with that of the male on the other side of the street. Someone that does not disappear no matter how hard he tries to shut out possible mental influences. Reality is strange. He straightens his posture a bit, clicks his tongue when the light finally turns green and moves across the street faster than he had initially intended. Problems, forgotten. Focus, shifted. Curiosity, burning in his veins. 

Who the hell is he?

even after he blinks, the image doesn’t distort to nothingness. at this point of time, he’d rather pivot on his heels, returning to the less than pleasant party to become another tacit show for the spectators. the poor little boy that lost his mother in an ‘accident’, the poor little boy that lost his father in another. he’d rather face that than having another peculiarity inserted into his life, the bruises in his mind growing larger in a swell of fatigue. he might not need a lot of sleep, but the mental battles, ongoing at all times, make him extremely tired, too. it’s not about resting anymore. it’s about running.

and it’s not like he hasn’t done enough running for the past few years.

every decision made has contorted his life into something that resembles an atrophy, more of a disease, more of a malady. decision after decision beget actions that rivet the altitude of the contrived difficulties. it’s not like he’s a machine, even when he was supposed to be one. appa crafted him to be one, but it’s safe to say that the man failed at that. and death in appa’s very own mechanism it resulted, causing guilt to fill him to the brim again, to the neck again. he’s done facing all these faceted complicacies, wanting nothing but peace for the rest of the night. as he blinks once more, the shadow doesn’t dissipate, still.

thoughts diluted in the capillaries of seoul’s very own conundrums, he watches as the man makes his way across the road. instead of falling backward, he’s moving forward as well. it’s not unlike jongin to go against his instinct to escape, anyway. he’s always aware of the consequences, yet he’s also known to approach the dangers anyway. just like the first time he conjured an alter ego, calling himself kai for the sake of anonymity. but it’s not like the anonymity would last forever — and it resulted in his having to exit the door once more. and just when he thought things had started falling into places, this man emerges in his life, if he’s a man at all. strong gut feelings tell him that this stranger vaguely consists supernatural essence; exactly the kind of creatures that jongin would rather not encounter in the midst of playing pretend as another wealthy civilian.

alas, he’s too stubborn for his own good, as it always is. and so, when there’s only a single road that separates them, he waits for the passersby light to turn green. he smells like expensive cigars and overdone sillage, becoming hyperaware, hypervigilant as he’s under the pressure of trying to digest the entire situation. but the circumstances seem to escape the interstices of his fingers, their grains slipping away. all that’s left to do is approaching the man, expecting that it’s just a figment of his imagination. when the light is green where they are, he takes bold, deep strides towards the man, ensuring himself that it’s just another illusionary tale.

the title story doesn’t quite add up, as many would say, the pertinence of its fragments askew to the point of false recognition. there’s something off about the boy that grows up with his spinal cord tilted sideways for everyone’s perusal: his flesh, skin, would have to adjust until he becomes the semblance of a monster. eventually, he thinks, it’s better for him to follow the shape of the water, dependent on the flask that contains him, since nobody likes looking at the child with a disjointed vertebrae column. it looks like an abstract painting no one can come to comprehend, or it sounds like a cacophonic music no one can bear to listen. and so, he pretends. ( pretends just like how he ran, ran, ran he splintered his ankles into shards. )

tonight, the façade is a silhouette of avant garde creations, formed together to piece a glass of syllables that he will pour over the hours. after two years of his so-called mysterious disappearance, he can feel the curious eyes drilling into his cranium, trying to gauge whether it was the truth, or the lie that he’s spilled into the public. again, he’s in rivulets. nobody can figure it out because nobody knows the whole story, unless they would put the jigsaw in unison, which wouldn’t be characteristic of them at all. not when these galas are comprised out of nothing but those wearing flimsy masks, stabbing each other in their backs — it isn’t like them to complete the whole picture using what they have. so, in the fractured portraits he lives, letting the cascade of their inquisitive looks into his life once again. just like how it was after eomma, appa passed.

but he’s a child of tragedy; out of all the seared interests in his personal life, they always look at him as if he were made of something fragile. again, return to the glass bottle. he plays around that, his hand around the neck of the bottle, gaining full control of how fast it would spin. in this game of roulette, he’s the god of luck, decisive fingers curled around the throats of those believing otherwise. they would show sympathy, one that he’d scoff inside. he only attends this kind of gatherings to honor his late mother, carrying the legacy turned to ashes. and even after over a decade, they still wonder if it was a scheme: if eomma’s death was staged by appa. they sure love their dramatic thoughts — although something the harsh facts don’t fall far from the anchoring beast’s stomach.