hmm. closed....for now

[Taeil: Yeah i know and im sorry]

[Taeil: Please come before i change my mind]

[You: Well at least now i have an excuse to use the super cool lights on my bike wheels]

Your tone is harsher than the meaning behind it, and you’re sure Taeil knows that. He’s your oldest friend, after all.

You’ve been through so much with him. You met him the first day of school, and you clicked immediately. He had been with you through so many things, all your years of school, the time you broke your arm in seventh grade, your first major breakup. And on top of all that, he was the first person you ever truly loved. Not that he knew that of course.

He would do anything for you, and you would do anything for him. Which is probably why you found yourself leaving the house as the sun sinks below the treeline with what could barely even be classified as an excuse left for your mom.

The sky is still light, giving the trees that certain look of darkness that they only can achieve at a very certain time. It’s your favorite time of day, and as you turn your bike onto the path through the woods that connects to the other side of your neighborhood you find that you don’t actually mind that Taeil dragged you out here. The sky is beautiful, sporting the colorful oranges and purples of sunset, and though it’s surprisingly cool for the end of July the weather is perfect.

The wind caresses your face and whistles slightly through your wheels as you pedal quickly to the elementary school. Biking has never been your favorite means of transportation, but it was easy and cheap and if you went farther than over to Taeil’s house you could always get someone to drive you. Usually there would be a lot more complaining involved, but tonight you feel a strange peace amongst the trees despite your heaving breaths.

You catch sight of the pole which may or may not have once had a sign on it that indicates the exit from the path. From there it’s just a short ride down the street and around the corner before the school—and more importantly the playground—rises up before you. The gate has been left open, presumably by Taeil taking the same path, and as you ride through you spot his bike abandoned by the tree he always leaves it by. Taeil sits on the swingset, moving back and forth only slightly. He stares off in the other direction, and he seems nervous. You’ve known him too long and too well to not recognize the way that he obviously wants to fidget but shoves it down in order to remain mostly still.

“Hey!” you call out as you hop off your bike and set it down next to Taeil’s. He whips his head around in surprise and returns his own greeting.

“So what was so urgent that you called me out here to talk now?” you ask as you meander over to the swingset and take a seat on the swing next to Taeil, immediatelykicking at the ground to give yourself a bit of momentum. The nervousness that you detected in his body language a moment before surges up, swelling into his face as he gulps and twists his fingers together.

"Oh, nothing much. How're you?" His words are almost too calm, and he still refuses to meet your eye.

"'Nothing much'?" Your disbelief is obvious as you quirk an eyebrow upward.

"Just answer the question," Taeil mumbles.

You roll your eyes, slowly kicking your legs back and forth. The air has begun to chill slightly, and goosebumps begin to slowly form on your exposed skin. "Oh you know. Still going through constant internal turmoil over college. Go to college with my best friend and not have to separate myself from you or go to the best college for my major. Same old same old. You?"

"I'm in love with you," Taeil blurts out.

Your eyes pop open like a cartoon character's and you just barely manage to stop yourself from falling off your swing in surprise. "Holy fuck."

Silence falls between you as you try to gather your wits enough to form a sentence and Taeil sits statue still. The chorus of cicadas and the wind in the trees hums in the background as your surprise slowly fades enough for you to regain brain function.

"This is nothing much—"

"I understand if you—"

You speak at the same time but quickly cut off, each chuckling slightly. He was still Taeil, and you were still his best friend.

"You go first," you say with a slight smile that Taeil returns, if with slightly less enthusiasm.

"I get it if this makes you uncomfortable," he begins, taking a big breath. "Trust me, it weird me out just as much." You roll your eyes good naturedly and open your mouth to respond but Taeil barrels on like a runaway train. "I'm sorry this is so sudden but I needed to tell you and you've probably going to a different college than me and that's terrifying on it's own but the thought of you never knowing—"

"Taeil," you say, setting a hand on his shoulder, "do yourself a favor and actually breathe." He nods vigorously and wheezes in a breath, looking very much like he was about to continue his crazed monologue. Unfortunately, you couldnt hold yourself together anymore and burst out laughing. "You dumbass!" You finally cackle  "I love you too!"

Now its Taeil's turn to almost fall over in surprise. "What?" You've never heard so much shock in his voice and for half a second you wonder if perhaps you just caused his brain to disintegrate. "Since when?"

You count backwards in your head, finally coming to the right year. "Eighth grade."

"Eighth grade?" He demands. "You mean we could have been dating this whole time?"

You snort out a laugh, "I don't know about that, anyone in their right mind would've dumped tenth grade you."

Taeil grimaces. "Good point."

"But hey," you say, a grin taking over you face, "others may arise but this solves one problem."

"Which is?" Taeil asks, fingers brushing across yours where they grip the chain suspending you from the swing set. You take his hand and swing your conjoined fingers back and forth between you. He offers you a small smile, happiness glowing on his face.

"I know which college I'm going to.”

Emotions boil in the air along with the large pot at one end of the single room that makes up the entire house. It simmers over a low fire, keeping the shimmering purple contents boiling slowly. The tang of the ingredients hangs in the air, burning your nostrils slightly with each breath.

You barely notice though, too focused on your work to pay attention to something as arbitrary as discomfort. The contents of the pot are the product of weeks of work, messing up and trying again, adding too much or too little, spilling it across the floors just as you’re about to reach a breakthrough. You’ve worked long hours before, and in fact you’ve dedicated so much time to this project that you’ve barely slept enough in the past week to tell one plant from another. 

Slightly fogged pair of goggles protect your eyes as you carefully maneuver the spindley homemade clamps to slowly pour the acidic contents of the glass vial into the pot. Bright smoke pours into the air as the potion reacts, neutralizing the acid to the human touch and reacting with the steeping ingredients. The acrid scent lingers in the air with the previous odors, mixing into something almost intoxicating in its bittersweetness.You choke as you impatiently dump the rest of the vial into the pot and it sends a particularly volatile puff of smoke at you. 

The vial is set gently on the overcrowded table next to your cauldron, and you carelessly toss the clamps underneath it to be angrily retrieved later. But you couldn’t care right now. You’re so close to finally figuring it out.

You drop the spell protecting your hands and the wavering encasing of magic fades away. Time ticks onward as the wax of your candles dribbles ever downward, the moon following in your path. The pot is no longer belching green smoke, and you carefully remove the journal stuffed full of notes and barely legible records of your past attempts from underneath a few other glass bottles stacked haphazardly on top of it, consulting the notes and recipes you’re following this time around. 

Recognizing the compound you needed for your next step, you toss down the book and launch yourself off the stool, leaving a small piece of paper that had fallen out drifting to the ground. The shelves are crowded and messy but you’ve alway kept things well labeled. It came in handy as many of the odd nectars and ground roots and other miscellaneous ingredients for the tinctures you constantly produced looked quite similar in the dark. 

You quickly find what you’re looking for after hopping up onto the clear spot workbench also full of all sorts of strange magical components to rummage around on the very top shelf. The small box presents itself right away, and you tuck it in one of the many large pockets of your apron, snatching a small bottle of a thick gold liquid before turning and swinging back down to the ground. 

You pop the cork of the small bottle and tilt the contents into your mouth, feeling the rush of warmth and energy surge through your veins as you walk back to your fire, a fresh urgency in your steps. The bottle, now drained of all its contents, disappears into a different pocket and is soon forgotten as you throw yourself back into your work. 

You retrieve the little box with one hand as you draw the other through the air above the pot, the bubbling mixture inside following the movement. Popping the latch open, you sprinkle a pinch into the palm of your hand before setting the ornately carved box to the side. 

Taking a small dagger from the table, you place the knife between your teeth and press the index finger of the opposite hand to the tip of the blade, drawing blood. Squeezing your finger slightly, small drops of blood land atop the small pile of powder in your palm. The fire crackles warmly as you soak the powder, using another finger to mix them together. 

Another drop or two of blood to smooth it out, and you plunge your hands into the pot to add the paste to the swirling contents. The purple potion is cool, and the material is perhaps the strangest thing you’ve ever felt. It’s certainly not a liquid, feeling more like a heavy gas if it could even be categorized, perhaps like what sticking one’s hands into a grey cloud full to the bursting would feel like. 

Once the paste has been washed away you draw your hands out of the pot, finally setting the knife to the side. You turn and cast a loving look at the massive slab of crystal on the table to your left. Encased inside is Seunghee’s body, looking exactly the same as she had the day you found her in the woods, a fatal arrow wound in her chest. Perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea, but you were in too deep from the moment you panicked and rushed to carry her home, spotting the large piece of quartz you had bought off one of the more sketchy of the sellers you knew, and the ideas starting formulating immediately. Over the course of seven tireless hours you had grown the originally dinner plate sized gem to be large enough to crack down the middle and seal Seunghee’s body inside. 

“Soon, my love,” you whisper, trailing a hand over the side of the crystal. A smeared handprint of translucent purple liquid is left in the wake of your touch, shimmering in an unsettling way on the stone. It begins to sizzle and eat away at the crystal, and you quickly wipe it away with your apron before the damage can reach anywhere near the depth of Seunghee’s skin. You wave your hand over the rough patch and mutter a spell, and it slowly begins to repair itself. 

You wipe your hands on the apron as well, and a strange hazy smoke drifts from the fabric. But you pay it no mind, perching yourself back on the stool with another glance at Seunghee, emotion sizzling in your gaze. You still had work to do.

Bar brawls and paperwork weren’t what any young Gifted person would want to deal with, not after being hand fed hero propaganda their entire childhoods. He was promised glory and recognition, a place where he finally fit in and could use his talents for good, protection from the corruption and evil ways of the multitudes of villains that lurked around the city. 

And yet instead, here he was after four and a half years, only just given enough promotion to finally join in on stakeouts as a bodyguard for whoever was actually assigned to this job. 

It was almost as boring as the office job he had been stuck in back when he first joined. Boredom was an easy predator when you sat in a warehouse for hours on end, with instructions to “create minimal noise and the least visual disturbances possible.” Which was really just the Association’s way of saying that if he fucked this up for Doyoung he would no longer have a job in professional terms. Working for the Heroes one quickly learns that this was often the way they work. Threats veiled only by tight smiles and an often broken contract.

That wasn’t to say that all of them were bad. Jaehyun had a couple of friends within the Association, although most of them were low level like him. The only actual Heroes he could tolerate were Doyoung and Ten. Doyoung didn’t talk much, which was probably why Jaehyun liked him a bit better than the others. Most Heroes were only complete assholes 50% of the time—Doyoung included—but being quieter meant that Jaehyun didn't have to deal with it as much. Ten, well, ten was an old friend and for that reason only did Jaehyun tolerate him. After they had joined the Association together Ten had flown through the ranks, and adopted the usual snooty demeanor of Heroes.

But that didn’t matter now. Jaehyun was a part of the Association, and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was stay quiet and keep a watch out the broken window of the warehouse Doyoung was assigned to and try and catch any glimpse of his target for the night. 

Not that you were really a target. At the moment you were under observation by the Association. 

Jaehyun knew that Y/n Y/ln was a prominent figure in the shadier businesses in town. He had been briefed on your case, and had most of it memorized. Had been involved with numerous villains, known to be present at gang meetings, thought to have some type of lair east of the river, suspected to be working on some type of plan to take down the Heroes; if there was any foul play or criminal activity you had your claws in it. Truthfully you were a bit of a legend, because never once had you been caught and there was absolutely no evidence other than eyewitness accounts to help pin you down. Frustration was beginning to wrap its hands around the throat of law enforcement, as many sightings of you or any tips given by civilians and villains alike were obviously just the effect of the large bounty on your head. 

Truthfully, Jaehyun admired you a little. He knew it was wrong, but there was something about being able to completely avoid the Association that spoke to him more than the endless committees and disdain of the Heroes. 

Tonight’s stakeout would be the first time he had ever seen you. There are very few pictures of you, and nothing attached to the file that had been sent to Jaehyun. He had been instructed to keep watch from the warehouse between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., and only observe the streets below. The Association had for the most part mapped out your schedules, having people track you and record your repeated activities. 

It was documented in your file that most Wednesdays you seemed to have some regular activity that was either near or on 36th Street. The reports of you on those evenings matched up with the sightings almost every week of a figure dressed in sleek evening wear emerging from the alley door of a little fabric store crammed amongst all the other haphazard businesses in that district of the city. It had been long since suspected that there was some type of large money laundering business in that district, but Jaehyun thought that there was no way the villains and whatever organizations were formed between them would ever be that open.

In fact that was a lot of what he was thinking about at the moment. Leaving him alone with a semi-automatic weapon and thoughts of perhaps a secret tunnel or other way that the store could be both a store and hideout, Doyoung had disappeared hours ago up to the next floor to chain smoke a pack of cigarettes or something, Jaehyun didn’t know and couldn’t care less. He was left with the instruction to send a signal if you showed up, but it was obvious Doyoung didn’t care much either. And so he stared out the window letting his thoughts wander as he waited for someone who’s face he couldn’t identify to walk down the street. 

Many of these thoughts pertained to you. They had long since fallen away from the “how could someone become a villain” and more to the “why would someone become a villain”. It had taken so long, but his mind was finally breaking free of the Heroes' constant preaching of self satisfaction in the helping of those beneath you. Perhaps not the exact words used, but in the end that was the message. What was so worth becoming everything that everyone but the villains themselves hated?

Was it money? The thrill of the lifestyle, some kind of bond like the mafias of the past? Simply the fact of being entirely unassociated and against the Association? It was this wonder that kept Jaehyun up at night, regretting every choice he had made in the past five or so years of his life. Wondering if he should have just stayed in school, or even gone for the other side instead. What would be different? 

An unfortunate soup of distaste, regret, and shameful admiration sloshes about in his brain as Jaehyun watches the movements of a lone pigeon pecking around in a discarded fast food container. The bird is the most interesting thing he’s seen this whole mission, and he’s starting to lose confidence in your passing by. Not that confidence is really the right word. It’s truly a deep seeded hope, the want to be affirmed in his doubting of the Association. That perhaps if he sees proof that the life of a villain isn’t as bad as what he’s been taught that the mutinous thoughts clogging his brain might be justified. 

Boredom absolutely eating away at his mind, Jaehyun maneuvers his gun up into his hands and points the scope down at the pigeon, trying to figure out what it's eating. The safety is on, he has absolutely no intention of hurting the cooing scavenger, and just as he starts to focus in on the half visible logo on the torn and wet paper bag, movement catches his eye outside of the range of the bird. Jaehyun quickly drops the weapon to his lap, eyes darting to the left where he saw something. 

There you are. It’s obviously you. Shoulders held high, wearing expensive but subtle clothing, you walk with an air of confidence Jaehyun has never seen before. It’s different from the self absorbed stuck up Hero attitude, you’re suave and there’s something about you that many would perceive as coldness, but Jaehyun immediately perceives it as something more.

And you’re being followed. Either you’re unaware, or you're acting like you’re unaware, Jaehyun has no idea. The man behind you creeps along in the shadows, gaining on you quickly. You pay him no mind, maintaining an even pace as you make your way down the street. As you approach the building where Jaehyun lurks your entire demeanor remains calm. Even with his semi-trained eye it should be obvious if you were in distress but you’re unwavering, calm in the face of the oncoming storm. 

It’s ironic how the scene seems almost to play itself out just for Jaehyun. The man finally catches up with you just as you cross the threshold of Jaehyun’s window, putting the two figures in perfect view. He reaches out a hand to grab your shoulder and Jaehyun goes rigid. He’s unable to do anything but watch in horror and curiosity as a man who is now obviously your enemy prepares to catch you unwitting. His orders ring through his head, “this mission is only to confirm that this is the route taken by the target. Do not harm Y/n L/n,” and he is frozen to the spot. There’s no way he could help you, his aim isn’t good enough to be sure he wouldn’t hit you instead and the gunshot would draw unwanted attention.

The man’s hand lands heavily on your shoulder but in the same second you counter him, whirling around and planting your foot solidly in his midriff. The force knocks him back a few feet, giving you the time you needed to draw two fingers through the air in front of you like you’re pulling down the zipper of a tent. Confusion washes over Jaehyun until the air around the line you drew shimmers and folds open to reveal what can only be described as a portal. The inside is inky black and swirls with a menace that says if the user couldn’t control it the results would be disastrous. The air around the edges still wavers like you had physically split the physical world and the rift wasn’t holding. 

You reach inside the portal, hand disappearing into its depths, and as you pull back it changes shape, elongating to allow a thin metal staff to exit before the edges wobble and collapse, the portal blinking out of existence. Jaehyun merely stares in awe; you were definitely Gifted, though he had no idea what the hell your power was. 

The man lunges at you again, reaching to grab at your legs and knock you over but Jaehyun thinks he should have tucked his tail between his legs and ran as soon as you pulled out your staff, there was a gleam in your eyes that said this poor sucker wouldn’t have the use of his kneecaps again after tonight and even two stories above you he could tell you meant business. 

Your attacker never even manages to make contact with you, your staff flies like lighting to deflect his outstretched hands with a swift smack to each before you land another kick to his stomach, sending his reeling backwards. 

He makes another feeble attempt to pull you down but just as Jaehyun predicted his knees are your next target, sweeping him off his feet, landing another couple quick hits as he goes down. 

You level your staff at his throat, and for the first time that night you speak. “If you come anywhere near me or my associates again, I will know and I will track you down, and I will chop your pathetic dick off.” 

There was the terror of a man who had been flattened in thirty seconds in his eyes as you leveled your staff again and smacked it against the side of his head with a crack that echoed down the street. It was precisely hard enough to knock him out and leave a sick bruise, but not enough to kill or damage his brain. 

You turn away from the sprawled body of your would be attacker, tossing the pole upwards. The portal opens again, this time above you and swallows your weapon, closing as the butt of the staff disappears from view. You lock eyes with Jaehyun, smirking and walking away from the scene with a smug confidence that screamed this was just another night for you. 

Jaehyun, on the other hand, was changed forever. That was perhaps the most powerful thing he had ever witnessed, and on top of that, there was no question about it that your Gift rivaled that of the most powerful heroes. He was mind blown, awestruck, and utterly fucked.

It’s always grey. The ashen clouds hang low in the sky and the sea churns beneath you, unforgiving and devoid of any color but a deeper shade of grey to match the sky, the cliffs, the ground, the walls. The small amounts of color that manage to fight their way through the heavy fog of grey feel out of place here, alien and glaring in the monochromatic landscape. Barely anything grows on the rocky island, and anything that does is scrappy, windwhipped and hanging on to life by the tips of its patchy, brown branches.

But the gray can be comforting. For these few months, it is all you have known. To go back to living in color would be jarring, too bright for eyes that are no longer suited for the places you once lived. Sometimes the startling crimson of your living quarters is a comfort, in those fleeting but heartstopping moments when you truly wonder if all color has fled from the world, but sometimes the effect is the opposite and it stands out like the stain of broken berries on a the white linen of a freshly washed dress, bright and bloody against the unforgiving grey backdrop.

The life you lead is not an easy one. Lighthouse dwellers deal with isolation, harsh conditions, meager and flavorless meals, and work that is sometimes entirely impossible. But you find a sort of solace in this strange life that is often unbefitting of a person at all. Life is not busy out here. No people to constantly require your presence, no societal standards to meet, no pretenses to keep up. The ocean is your only observer and anything you have to hide she already knows. 

  The structure you find yourself in stands tall and proud, though it creaks ominously more often than is comfortable and wobbles as though it is young with unsteady feet when the wind is strong enough. The walls are whitewashed regularly, as the constant wind and the seas loving yet destructive caresses of mist cause the paint to peel as if the walls underneath are roiling and trying to break free. But the flat color of the place just absorbs the grey that seeps into everything more than anything else, and the world often seems to be grainy and monochrome, just like the photographs you had sent back to your family.

The bedroom is tiny, your chest and dresser consuming all the space left untouched by the bed and walkway just wide enough for you to squeeze out of the little room. You don’t mind though.

The tiny room is situated at the highest point of the tower below the light itself. It is familiar and unfamiliar all at once, like you had once seen this place in a dream and now here you were, fuzzy recognition filling your senses. You lay in the bed, though it is really more of a cot than anything else, uncomfortable and slightly scratchy. Laying rigid on your back, you stare blankly at the ceiling. It seems to be colored a pale grey, though you know it’s just a trick of the meager light that manages to break through the heavy cloud cover and ooze through your window. 

Footsteps echoing up the spiraling stairs break you from your spell of having your eyes locked on the ceiling, and your head rolls to the side to see who has climbed all this way. Two figures emerge from the hole in the floor that leads downwards. The taller of the two is broad and solid, while the smaller has the sharp yet rounded features of a sneaky cat. Though they act as two, they are obviously one entity. They walk in exactly the same rhythm, their movements are synced up perfectly, the same strange mix of malice and hospitality shines in their eyes, and they wear the same creepy half smile that leaves the rest of their faces an empty void. 

They approach your figure on the bed, moving like a mechanical beast cranked from the depths of their chests by a puppeteer. They come to a jerky halt above you, and their grins stretch wider, seeming as if some invisible person had hooked fingers in the sides of their mouths and were pulling them into a horrific impression of a smile.

“Welcome,” they say, and their voices seem a perfect blend of two, the angry waves of the sea banging her head against a cliff crashing in their words, “to the lighthouse.”

You awake with a gasp, flinging yourself off the table in a panic. Your eyes are wide as you look around, the familiar room where your lit class is held filling in through the cracks in your confusion. Yuta looks down at you with some concern, and offers you the half drank cup of coffee he always brings to class. You take it with shaky hands, still trying to figure out what was going on despite being a bit more grounded in reality. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, raising an eyebrow and squinting from behind his glasses. 

Johnny, the guy who sits next to you and always asks for your notes to copy, looks at you with furrowed eyebrows as well. “Yeah, you never sleep in class.”

As you look between the two of them once again, the realization hits you, dragging a wave of horror along with it. 

They were who you had seen at the lighthouse. 

He could feel it. On the wind as it tousled his hair, in the salt of the ocean, in the twinkle of the stars. Everything good must come to an end, and there was tension in the air tonight. 

His chest rattles with every heaving breath he takes, he’s been running since the moment he realised what was going on. 

Renjun tosses himself off the end of the dock with abandon, landing on the sand bar with no care whatsoever for the dampness soaking the bottom of his shorts. The water was particularly low this year, leaving the dock’s spindly wooden legs exposed and revealing the sand bar leading out to the shelf embedded low in the cliff face halfway down the shoreline. 

That shelf was where he met you. Always up for an adventure, Renjun had used the discovery of the sandbar to his advantage, finally making his way out to the strange formation that really looked more like the deck attached to a house than a natural formation caused by the water. And when he finally got there he truly wasn’t expecting to find another person. 

From the moment he first set eyes on you, Renjun knew you were different. The mismatched clothes, the strange mannerisms, your curiosity over even the smallest things. More than anything else, you had all the tremendous beauty and power of the ocean swirling in your eyes. It was captivating, and Renjun was dragged down into their depths instantly. 

At the beginning, he didn’t question it. He didn’t care, enamoured by your charms. But as each day he fell harder for you, he began to truly wonder. Who were you?

But when he finally figured it out, everything else came crashing down too. The realisation that you would know, and you couldn’t stay hit him, and so he ran. Ran faster than he ever had before. 

And he was still running, sloshing through the thigh height water without any care for the dropping temperature and his wet clothes. Nothing mattered except finding you before you could leave him forever. 

He stops for a moment, wheezing and leaning over in hopes of catching his breath. Anxiety rises in him like a wave, building higher and stronger, threatening to crash and dous out all his effort. All he can smell, all he can taste is salt. The water feels like it's consuming him, and he’s tempted to let it. To be eaten by the hungry sea, to maybe satiate it long enough so the next poor soul who falls in love with it’s depths might not share his fate. 

But he can’t give up. No matter how small the chance, if he can’t even feed his hope long enough to make it out to the shelf then Renjun has failed. And that cannot happen. So he does his best to gather hit wits and whatever physical strength he has left, and Renjun soldiers on. The small waves break against his thighs, an urgent reminder that seconds tick past for every breath he takes, each step he allows to be slowed by the water. He trudges onward, and the ocean seems to stretch on forever, as if he makes no progress no matter how fast he runs. 

He stops once again, hands falling to his knees and his messy hair sweeping in front of his face. The tips of his bangs are damp, just more proof that the ocean is invading his very being. When he finally heaves his head upwards, he recognizes the tree clinging to the top of the cliff. It should be a straight shot above the shelf, and he knows he’s arrived at his destination, but the familiar jutting plateau is nowhere to be seen. How does a geological formation just disappear?

But to Renjun, that is not the most pressing question. Where are you?

He knows. He knows you’re gone, long gone, but to Renjun that fact is simply unacceptable. He calls your name in vain, wandering around the base of the cliff. His face is wet, though from tears or the spray of the waves bashing against the cliff, he’s unsure. Ocean water and tears feel the same anyway. 

Suddenly, on the verge of giving up hope, Renjun catches a glance of movement behind him. He whirls around, desperately wishing for any glimpse of you. And there you are. Head and torso above the water, you are suspended in a way that shouldn’t be possible at the depth you reside. 

The waxing gibbous moon shines bright above, and there is just enough light for Renjun to meet your eyes, piercing as always. An excited shout of your name crosses his lips, but as soon as it does your body dissolves into the salt water you always smelled like and splashes into the ocean where you belong. 

“No!” Renjun screams, hurling his body forwards, trying to reach the spot you had been just seconds before. But the sandbar drops off, and he doesn’t dare traverse open waters like this. It’s dangerous enough to be so far from shore at night anyway, but to leave the place your feet touch the ground was practically a death wish. 

“This isn’t goodbye!” The words tear themselves from his throat, and tears begin to slip down his face once again. “It cant be. I’ll find you!” Renjun’s shouted promises are lost forever, eaten by the waves and heard only by the rocky cliffs. Sobs rack his body as he slowly begins to make his way home. He shivers slightly; the night is warm but all warmth has left his body. 

He would never love another like he did you. Nothing would ever be the same again.

You sigh out a little laugh, shoving a bite of food into your mouth. "Really though, I'm tired of everyone's slightly pitying glances because poor me still can't find anyone to tolerate me long enough to date me. It's been—" you pause to mentally count back— "six months since I've even been on a date." You sigh to yourself, eating in silence for a moment.

"What if I take you out?"

You raise your eyebrows at this. "And what's your intention with that?" Secretly, you wished it would be something slightly nefarious. Part of your dating issue stemmed from the fact that you were infatuated with your roommate, though you could do absolutely nothing about it. He wasn’t interested in you, and it’s not like you could force him to reciprocate your feelings.  

“I’m just trying to be a good friend,” Ten says, and secretly your heart sinks a little. Perhaps allowing yourself even the slightest bit of hope could cause more pain than living with the fact that he’ll never love you back. “You’re sad that you haven’t been on a date in forever, so I’ll take you on a date!”

--

Several days had passed, and the date with Ten had consumed your mind. It was all you thought of. Was he really just trying to be a good friend? Was there another intention masked beneath his proposition that lay closer to your own?

Ten hadn’t mentioned anything about it since he first brought the idea up, and you were starting to lose hope that he was being serious in the first place. He’s always been quite the jokester, but at the same time in all the years you had known him he had never once broken a promise or gone back on his word.

For the most part you had been doing your best to keep the churning mess of thoughts and emotions that came with this sudden proposition under control, but constantly doing something to keep yourself distracted could get exhausting and you had given up. Thursday early afternoons were your lazy time anyway, as it was the only day when you had several hours between classes, so you ended up back in your apartment and couldn't do anything productive anyway. 

So what better to do than sit around thinking about how you’re absolutely in love with your roommate who has given you no reason to believe he felt the same. Except for the invitation for a date he extended and then promptly never brought up again. Sure, it had only been three days and Ten had a tendency to forget to tell people when things were going to be happening, but overthinking seemed to be a talent of yours and unfortunately this was a topic that couldn’t be easily shoved under the rug. 

Just as you were ready to get up and actually start pacing, your phone dings. Grateful for any distraction, you lunge across the couch to grab it. 

[Ten: are you busy tonight?]

[You: what a stupid question]

[You: you know i do almost nothing]

[Ten: awesome! i’ll be home around five thirty to pick you up]

[Ten: don’t bother asking where we’re going, its a surprise]

[Ten: oh, and dress warm but cute ;)]

You roll your eyes at this, holding in giddy laughter and sending back an equally flirty reply. Perhaps your worries were unnecessary after all.

--

The sound of a key in the door alerts you of Ten’s arrival, and you hurriedly finish shoving all of your necessities into the pockets of the coat you had just been eagerly modeling for yourself in the mirror. Perhaps you had put a little more effort into your outfit than you usually would for a date. You wore quite a few layers, but your favorite coat and boots disguised the slight bulk, and the cherry on top of the whole outfit was the scarf Ten had gifted you a few years ago. 

“Hi!” you say, ducking out of your room to greet Ten. 

“Hi,” he responds, “ready to go?”

“Yep!” you say, following him out into the hallway and failing to keep the bounce out of your gait. “Care to tell me where we’re going?”

“Well that would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it,” Ten finally gets the door locked and pulls it shut behind him.

“I suppose it would,” you huff out a melodramatic sigh, but can’t keep the smile spreading across you face down. “Well, come on then.” You take his hand, and though he refuses to look in your direction, you think you see a hint of pink tinting his cheeks. 

---

“How did you know I’d want to go ice skating?” you ask incredulously, staring up at the sky and the snow slowly drifting down through the air. After open skate had ended you had wandered around the city hand in hand with Ten until the sun set and you finally decided on a restaurant. "That's literally my ideal date."

"You've mentioned it a few times," Ten says, unable to hide the smile fighting its way across his face. He always tries his best to stay cool and collected, but the truth is Ten is a romantic at heart. 

“That was like once,” you say, letting your gaze slip away from the streetlights illuminating the snow and to your best friend’s face. 

“You do realise I actually listen when you talk right? Maybe more than I should.”

You brows scrunch together, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ten’s fingers start to fidget a bit, and you squeeze his hand in encouragement. 

He takes a deep breath, refusing to meet your eyes as you stare up at him, curiosity shining in your eyes. 

“This is something that I probably should have brought up a long time ago, but things get away from you sometimes, you know. Especially when it comes to—”

You squeeze his hand again. “You’re rambling.” Ten had a tendency to just talk when he was avoiding something—about the topic of avoidance, something to steer the conversation elsewhere—but it was always the same, and you knew it annoyed him just as much as it did everyone around him. 

“Sorry,” Ten says, obviously steeling himself for the big reveal. You listen intently, ready for whatever he’s about to hit you with. “I….like you. A lot. Like in a romantic way.”

You were not, in fact, ready for this. “Oh. I, uh—”

“I know you probably don’t feel the same, and that's okay—”

“No! No, no, not at all.” Concern flashes through his eyes and you panic for a second, wondering if you’ve made it seem like you're attempting to communicate the opposite of your feelings. “Ten, I’ve liked you for more than a year.” 

A different type of surprise seizes his features now, and you choke down a laugh at the way his eyes seem ready to pop out of his head. 

“Seriously?” You nod, and Ten just about skips with joy. “You mean this whole time we could’ve—God, I could just kiss you.”

“So do it,” you smirk.

Ten’s eyes widen in surprise, but he tugs you closer to him anyway. “You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to do this forever.”

You smooth your hands down his chest, straightening his tie and instinctually tugging the lapels of his jacket. “I don’t know if I can do this Y/n,” he whispers, and you can feel the threads holding him together tremble with the strain of keeping his composure under your fingertips.

“Oh, Sicheng,” all of the doubts that you’ve been shoving deeper and deeper for the sake of your team waver in your voice, “we’re going to be fine.” Your words are confident but your cadence is not, and the both of you know that you’re trying to convince yourself as much as him, though neither want to acknowledge it.

He wishes he could hug you, bury himself in the comfort of your shoulder, your hand in his hair, but he knows you would just gently chastise him for messing up your appearances.

Dressed up for the gala, impersonating the elite, the two of you look stunning—but it's all wrong. Sicheng adorns a sharp black suit, and though others might stand taller because of the confidence imbued by well fitting and more fancy clothes, Sicheng’s back is rigidly straight, you've never seen him this stiff. The red silk of your outfit makes your skin seem to glow, the simple yet elegant black threaded details giving the whole ensemble a sophistication many could only grasp at, yet you feel like a child playing in their parent's wardrobe. The sharp toed and shiny shoes are such a step away from your usual scuffed yet comfortable combat boots that you almost feel as if when you look down they will be the familiar and clunky shoes about to slip off on a child’s feet.

You wish you could say that you feel confident dressed to the nines, that you exude the aura of suave coolness that those who have truly been invited can wear like an accessory. But you know you don’t. You look out of place, Sicheng’s awkwardness making him stand out even more so, and the knowledge that if you can’t curb this bitter dread rising up in the back of your throat you will almost definitely be found out threatens to tear you apart.

You move your hands upwards, cradling his face between your palms as you do your best to soothe his nerves and fill him in on the information he missed while he was off finishing something up from his last mission. “I think everything will go smoothly, after all this is the easy part. Our only job is to make it inside and find somewhere we can hide for a couple of hours, as soon as we’re in Jaehyun, Yeeun and Ten take our place.  All the preparations went through without any suspicion, the explosives were set a couple of days ago and no one has noticed anything out of place about our attendance.

“This isn’t the hardest mission we’ve ever pulled off.” You stroke your thumb across his cheek bone in a soothing manner, though you know it brings little comfort. “We’ll be in contact with Taeyong back here, and there’ll be a team scattered through the gala the whole time in case if anything goes south to get us out. All we have to do is stay out of the way for a few hours, then once the gala is over we make sure that the entire place is empty, get any stragglers out of the building and activate the explosives before getting out ourselves. Simple as that.”

There's absolutely nothing simple about it, and you’re well aware of that. The plan concocted by your little team of rebels was perhaps not as physically dangerous as those you had executed in the past, but if you were by any chance discovered your entire organization would be taken out, no doubt about it. So much effort and so many people were being put into this that if anything went wrong there would be nothing left to build back up. Though it had been decided when the plan was finalized and set into motion that the risk was worth it, who were you against taking out a rather important government building, but now you weren’t so sure. Losing Sicheng wasn’t something you could handle. 

“We’ll be alright, love…”

A knock on the door closes the scissors on the tightly pulled string of emotion between your eyes and Sichengs, and you turn to face the door as Jaehyun pops his head into the dingy little storage room that you’ve been getting ready in. 

“Are you two ready to go? We’ll be heading out in about ten minutes.”

“Yeah,” you say quietly, “give us just a minute.” You don’t even wait until Jaehyun has left to turn back to Sicheng and press a gentle kiss to his lips. “I love you,” you whisper, and you feel a shaky breath rattle through his chest.

“I love you too,” he mumbles back, almost inaudible as he offers you a small smile and does his best to shake off his fear. 

You take his hand and set your jaw, ready to set into motion the the beginnings of a chain reaction that will hopefully bring you one step closer to bringing down the corruption that you’ve been fighting for so long.

congratulations on three years Milly! this collab was a ton of fun, and im super gald to be able to have participated! .....sorry i was a bit late, i tend to let things get away from me these days

Trying to find friends in a new city could always be a bit of a struggle, but you seemed to be finding out the hard way that it was even more difficult when you weren’t quite the average person. 

You loved being a witch. Magic was so useful, and there was so much to explore in a world that you had barely dipped your toes into. And, just like any community, each person brought so much to the table. No one's abilities were the same, and though many might think that would create divides and factions, it in fact served to make the bond between witches stronger, comparing and building off one another. Being surrounded by so many amazing people with skills often beyond the imagination was, well, magical. 

Fortunately you had come across a flyer pinned to the communal bulletin board in the little shop you had begun to frequent in your month and a half trying to seek out other witches to try and make friends with advertising a monthly event open to all members of the magic using community hosted by a small witch-run cafe you had so far overlooked in your search. The shop was a cute little place, selling all sorts of crystals and spell books and overpriced jars of every type of water one might need that really wouldn't be all that hard to collect for one's self. Truly though you hadn’t been going there for supplies, you always made sure to pick out something small, but you had actually been hanging around hoping to find someone to perhaps make friends with, as you hadn’t quite worked up the courage to start exploring more. Unfortunately you had been unsuccessful in this endeavor, as other than the rather sleepy boy who often tended the front counter and his aunt who owned the shop, though she was really only a few years older than he was. 

It seemed as though the clouds had cleared and the rainbow of opportunity had presented itself though, and as much you were internally panicking over not knowing practically anyone you had pulled yourself together, dumped a small jar of storm water in your bag (you liked to spike your drinks with it, it gave you a strange type of energy one couldn’t find in caffeine), strung your favorite charm around your neck, and set off to try and find your way to this cafe relying entirely on a scrap of paper you had ripped off the flyer and your limited knowledge of where things were in this unfamiliar place. 

You arrived only a little bit late, and were immediately overwhelmed. It wasn’t that there were so many people there, more that you hadn’t been surrounded by this many witches in quite a while. The magic exuded by the group was enough to just about knock you over when you first walked in, but you quickly took it in stride and soon their power flowed almost just as easily around you as your own. Seulgi, the owner of the shop where you had found the flyer, greeted you loudly with a kiss on the cheek as soon as she spotted you, hurriedly dragging you around the room introducing you to most of the witches gathered around. 

Time passed in a whirlwind, and though you felt a little bad it was hard to hold onto names for more than a few seconds. What you did remember though, is what they had on display of their magic. The girl with wild blue hair suspended around her head as if gravity had no effect on her curls, the sweet albeit strange person with a few moths flitting about them as if they radiated some light not visible to the naked eye, Seulgi’s nephew who seemed quite a bit more awake now and zapped you with the small amounts of static he gathered from the air when you tried to shake his hand. They all amazed you more than they probably should, it's not as if you had never seen magic before, but you embraced the childlike fascination nonetheless. 

One person you hadn’t yet been introduced to, was the girl with the purple eyes. You hadn’t noticed her at first, but once she caught your eye there was no turning back. She had a subtle kind of beauty about her, one that came more from the confidence she had herself with than her physical appearance. Not that she was lacking in that category though, with wavy blonde hair and a shy smile that charmed your heart she was truly gorgeous.

You kept sneaking glances at her the whole time Seulgi dragged you around to introduce you to the others, silently hoping that she might be next. Standing in a group of several other girls, you thought you caught her eye once but embarrassed, you had immediately looked away so you weren't quite sure. 

Despite hoping to be introduced to her, it came as a surprise when you were suddenly in front of her and Seulgi was rattling off the names of the entire group. Her eyes were even prettier up close, and somewhat mesmerized by her, you entirely missed Seulgi’s little speech about who each one was. Thankfully, she took your hand with a smile that could melt hearts, and yours was a puddle.