#(luca01)

The stares he was getting would have bothered him if he was there to make friends, but fortunately for him, he wasn’t. Friends were the furthest thing in Luca Im’s mind, and he really couldn’t care less about what his peers in his internship group thought about him. But if he had to guess, he was certain it would be the same old thoughts most people usually had about him when they first meet him: a strange snobby Asian kid who didn’t speak English. The last part wasn’t entirely true-- he could hold his ground in an English conversation with most people, but seeing as he was more fluent in French, and his supervising officer didn’t mind talking to him in the language, he decided he could just play to his strengths. He would need to do that, if he was going to be the top intern. Luca wasn’t entirely certain yet if such a thing could exist in the office he chose to render his services at, but he was definitely not about to let that get in the way of him getting a high mark in his class. 

Unfortunately for him, even after discussing with his superior that he could work better by himself, he was given a pair for their first project. And he didn’t know if it was intentional, but he was paired with the only other Asian person in the group, and while others would mind-- see it as an act of prejudice (what, do they think Asian kids can only work with Asian kids?!)--, Luca didn’t. In fact, he was going to be paired up with somebody, he was glad to be with the one other person in the group who didn’t insist on getting-to-know-you’s like the rest of them. Still, he would have preferred to just work on things on his own. “Alors,” he began, not pausing to consider if the girl even knew how to speak French. Luca pulled the chair beside her and sat down, placing his notebook on the table in front of them to show her a page. “Avez-vous des idées pour le projet? Parce que j'en ai beaucoup.”

Where: Santorini Mansion | Hedge Maze

It’d been at an event like this when Vincent Vittori was murdered, blood staining the marble floor. A war ignited, Emilia had become a target the very moment the shot rang out. The stampede clustered around her when two emboldened soldiers decided to take an opportunity. Her wrists were black and blue from their grip, but what she remembered most was their eyes. A pure vitriol hatred inked in green irises. That she could never forget... That she would recognize. It was exactly what led her to the closed and winding corners of the maze. A Vittori man who seemed to be enjoying a lazy evening like this had brushed past her without a care. Perhaps it was reckless anger that prompted her to follow after him, the music from the party suffocated by the hedges until all she heard was the wind blowing through the leaves.

What would she do if she got to him? Armed with little more than a broken wine glass, the shards glimmered under the fairy lights. There was always the brachial artery- if severed- a man would bleed out in minutes... but could she kill? How far was she willing to go down the rabbit hole? Impulsivity was stopped in its track when the man disappeared in the labyrinthine twists. Emilia closed her eyes, leaning up against one of the hedges. The Heiress to the Ivory Syndicate would have to learn how to do unthinkable things. A breath left her lips, cut short by the sound footsteps far to close to comfort. Paranoia settled in her bones almost immediately as her eyes opened, the splintered glass pointed at none other than Luca Vecellio. “What are you doing here?” 

Looting was, of course, necessary for survival in a world like this. People begged and borrowed and stole whatever it took to keep their skin free of bites and blood pumping through their hearts. So, they stopped places that might have had things they actually needed, like gas, or weapons, or food, fresh water, more weapons. 

Masen liked to look for other things, things everyone else wouldn’t have cared about. Those were the things that told him what he needed to know about people. He remembered a picture of a father and daughter on a fishing trip at that bait shop he’d stopped at in Texas. The back of the picture had a name, and that name had matched the name of the shop, and Masen couldn’t help feeling like he owed these people something, even if that something was as small as remembering them when no one else did.

This time, he’d opened the bottom drawer of an old wooden desk and found mostly your typical desk items: loose staples, writing utensils, extra rolls of tape, some manila folders; he was about to shut the drawer when it caught his eye, small and white.

“I think I just found a joint,” he whispered to Luca, laughing. Masen had always been too afraid to try drugs, both because his physical health was the only part of him people depended on, and because if he failed a drug test his life would’ve been over and his mother’s heart would’ve been crushed. But none of that was a factor anymore, so he held it up for the other boy to see.

“Back parking lot?”

He didn’t understand. What did this mean? Tilting his head side to side in confusion, he stared at this mysterious cryptic message he’d been sent: 

[Haru] What do you mean you can’t find it?ヾ(｀◇´)ﾉ彡