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( ... ) now, here are his hands, and here is his anger. park jaehyun sits in the backseat of the car beside her, cheek on his knuckle as his finger taps his skull. “it’s not about axel, is it?” the challenge comes after the sigh. if choi haerin wants so badly for there to be something wrong with him, then suppose it’s only right that he gives it to her. he turns his head in her direction, glances at their barely touching fingers between them, and presses, “it’s about this morning.”

jaehyun’s energy is such that no matter what room he dwells in, haerin swears she could feel him. from the godly highs dripping in mirth like honey from the comb, to the earth shattering lows where the atmospheric pressure is stifling, she could sense it all. it’s a shame, however, that she cannot scarper like a woodland animal picking up the scent of an incoming storm. alas, she can only sit there and measure his choler.

in the backseat of their ride, the air is thick. haerin envisions a knife to cut through it as if a great divide, and all it’s serrated edges, could somehow bring her love back to her. when his voice pierces the silence, she notes the ways in which she can hear the roll of thunder in the subtext, right there, at the back of his throat. it’s the solar plexus that feels it first, it always is. here is the tempest, here is the storm.

‘it’s about everything, jae,’ she begins, turning away from the window to face him. and before she knows it the dam bursts. all of her fears, the ephialtes, were manifesting before their very eyes. it’s almost funny, pardon haerin for she may laugh. there were whispers of the presence of a cult but how was anything about tonight any different? pretense was a cult’s greatest commodity; as long as you smile when you’re supposed to, laugh when you’re supposed to, then you’re in. you’re one of them and in a way you’re protected. she gets the appeal, has experienced it first hand. but to see the whites of her love’s teeth, to hear the treble of his laughter, it has dawned on her that she’s…

‘i’m losing you and you don’t even realise it,’ breaking is so easy when it comes to him, there’s irony in the statement and it doesn’t miss haerin in the slightest. time and time she has become undone before him and by him, and in the throes of passion she has always laid it all bare. tonight is no different. ‘a man that should be virtually dead is back and you’re all taking champagne to the head as if it means absolutely nothing. it’s no different from…’

you’ll go too far, she thinks, giving herself pause. she takes the breath. she closes the cavern by taking his hand for as much as she wants him to see her, to hear her, he is still her person. this isn't about winning, love never is.

as quick as it happened, before she can process anything about it, the game stage is back to normal. domi's controls come back, slipping herself out of the floor and on top of it, hovering for a moment against the shadows. she blinks, fast and confused. "uh, yeah," is what she can eke out, nodding her head in lieu of elaboration, because how does she describe what that is? she's never seen anything like it, in all the years she's been playing iron fist. domi knows more than she wants to about the possibility of glitches happening, though she doesn't voice that out loud. "do you think, maybe our game got caught up in some other one?"

it’s hard to shed your past, haerin knows this all too well. 

see when domi appeared before her the very first time, all eager and peachy keen, it took haerin everything in her being not to run. where synapse fires off to synapse and the body electric feels like a thrill, where keeping up appearances becomes a losing game, haerin planted her feet in the ground and held her audience neatly. now she does the same as she witnesses the other emerge from the shadows akin to a wraith and she contemplates all the ways in which invulnerability has been her downfall.

‘another game? really?’ she almost sounds disappointed but the wall she has built between them, brick by brick, was one of her own making. when domi moved one step forwards, it was haerin that was teetering backwards before the footfall was complete. so, how could she really be disappointed? a sigh slips past her lips. she casts a cautionary gaze at their surroundings as if some sort of clue would reveal what had just happened. she gets absolutely nothing.

she should have known that her day of reckoning would come, haerin thinks. when gyuok’s likeness darkened her pixel skies she should have expected the decorated fanfare, the crying angels, the brimstone…

but not this.

haerin looks through the woman who has her fingers clasped around her wrist. she is crying out for a salvation haerin isn’t sure she can give. go back to your god, she wants to scream back at her. go back to him and leave me the fuck alone. instead a sob escapes her lips and her eyes fill. she doesn’t mean to appear weak, no, not in front of the crowds, not in front of cameras. especially not in front of the faithful who has taken the liberty to brush a rogue tear off of the curve of haerin’s cheek.

‘come home to pastures.’

before long, someone is hauling the woman away and haerin is left there trembling. she supposes she feels a little silly now that she has been left there alone and everyone has moved on from the spectacle onto something, or rather someone, new. it’s the way of the world, isn’t it though? atleast this one and though there is a lot to be said for the majority’s lack of interest in the things that were not considered the delights of man, haerin surmises that she is indeed lucky that the attention is now off of her.

pulling herself together, she pulls her posture upwards and continues her voyage across the gold carpet where at the end of it, a party awaits. but before the tip of her heels meet the fabric threshold, she meets eyes with another who has imposed on her path. ‘sorry,’ she says, the smile she dons, strained. ‘excuse me.’

haerin takes in domi across the battleground, behind her the powder white feathers of her wings shiver against a westward zephyr. these days it’s hard for her to tell where archangel ends and where haerin begins or would it make more sense the other way around? the semantics miss her, she supposes it’s not important. not anymore.

anyway.

‘shall we take a break?’ haerin proposes, her fingers finding their way through her hair. in game, she can feel everything to the point of a head rush. she’ll never forget the first time she felt a curled fist’s blow, the blood in the mouth. her wings atrophying… and what did it all mean? what did it mean to break, break and break some more in the name of show business? a reporter once asked her, are you having fun? haerin almost laughed in his face, pardon her.

i suppose it is fun, she thinks wryly, writhing on your bedroom floor wondering if you’ll die this time. hoping, even. invisible wings ripping your back to shreds as they try to push through. the feel of phantom bone, deformed, foreign. by the morning, there’s only the memory of the feeling and by noon comes the doubt that maybe it was all an illusion. maybe. 

‘besides, i think there’s not really much point of overdoing it before the actual showcase–’

then all of a sudden it happens. the sound of static splits the perfect sky in half and a strange figure appears to exact its judgement. its voice seems to be coming at them from every angle, distorted and menacing. haerin forgets herself and her dad’s sermons flood her thoughts. he used to go blue in the lips whenever he spoke of a false prophet, flecks of spittle raining down upon the pulpit. it would lead haerin to wonder often if fear was necessary for the presence of passion.

and then it’s gone. it couldn’t have been more than a minute but the time it takes for haerin to gather herself is tenfold. ‘i-i… huh?’ she looks over at domi, looks for any sort of sign. ‘you saw that, right?’

the night is all too clement and should her consciousness linger into the dawn, wild and unfettered, it would be a waste. she wants to drown in the pale hue of the moon with a friend. a tether. the one that keeps her feet firmly planted on the ground. dare she call him gravity.

axel looks at her, eyes two great orbs of knowing. ‘yes,’ she says, ‘you’re coming with me but first.’ she walks over to her door, opens it a smidge and across the street like an emerald beacon across the dock, two lights glow warmly in the darkness. ‘he’s alone.’

moments later, the clink of two wine bottles balanced deftly in the hand and the pit-pat of axel’s paws against the tarmac accompanied her voyage. haerin throws a glance over her shoulder as she is wont to do whenever she leaves her house, after having checked the locks twice, after having made sure she didn’t leave her keys in the door. in front of wonshik’s house, she shifts on her feet slightly, uncertain. to say she was rattled by the broadcast would be selling it awfully short; she was panicked and perhaps even panicked by her own stupidity, her arrogance that whatever terra was up to wasn’t isolated to those who participated in the iron fist games. 

letting herself in, axel waits by her legs patiently as she closes the door behind them. a tentative cough, a clearing of the throat. ‘hey wonshik, are you down to host a wary sailor?’ a self-deprecating sigh. ‘i have wine.’

a misplaced smile here and there, fleeting as a bird in flight, she just about plays the role. takes the picture. clinks the glass. you should smile, she hears her father’s voice, look grateful to be alive, in the glory of– 

but haerin has never been good at faking it.

‘give me one sec.’ haerin excuses herself quietly, squeezing jaehyun’s hand lightly as she moves away. finding the nearest toilet as refuge feels like defeat but a moment alone is warranted. there her breaths are stilted. she takes a few deep ones that press her feet into the tile beneath her, swigs her champagne and lets the haze settle in. a sigh falls from her lips. she hasn’t a clue what happened to gyuok, hasn’t really slept since the broadcast had graced the panel’s screen. but one thing is for certain. she chews her lips as she fixes her hair in the mirror, tendrils slipping through her manicured fingers.

terrascape is fucking lying.

she leaves the bathroom, is quickly swallowed by the throng of partygoers. the music, temporarily muted by the bathroom walls rushes back towards her like an angry tide. ‘my love,’ she says, pulling him away from a group of people. she musters a smile for him because at the end of it all, he is her happy place. and although sometimes it’s as if she is seeing less of him and more consequence of their virtual endeavour, it is no mistake that the man with the golden smile is hers, as she is his. she can do this much. 

‘i’ll head off first but you should stay, yeah? axel probably misses me and i should probably relieve his sitter.’

choi haerin. iron fist's very own archangel. penned by ares (21+, s/h, gmt)