#:monkey:

fuck word i posted this on the wrong blog initially oops

    I love her because she loves me.

    Stars are glittering at us from the precipice of the cliff, overhung by the branches of a shaved oak. We have been here, against the tree, too many times for me to be able to count them all. She is next to me, holding me by my shoulder. Her head is beside mine. Tonight is special.

    “Khada Jhin,” I tell her. “I want to be Khada Jhin.”

    I feel her shift. She’s moved up and now she’s looking at me. I turn my head. She has the nicest, loveliest curls in her hair. She decorates them with red dahlia.

    “Why do you want to change your name?”

    I narrow my eyes. She doesn’t understand. I hate it when she doesn’t understand, almost more than I hate the name before Khada Jhin, almost as much as I hate Mother and I hate Father.

    My fingers are tense. I reach for her wrist. She’s stiff but so am I.

    “It’s not changing my name.” I try to catch her eyes. “It’s becoming someone new. Someone better. Someone that can handle what I can’t. Don’t you understand why I want to do that?”

    “You’re fine as you are…” She says the before-name. I wince, holding her tighter.

    “Don’t call me that,” I say very slowly. “Don’t.”

    She loses my eyes. I must be horrible to look at, I find myself thinking. I let go and I stare at the stars. They’re glittering the same as they always are, mocking me.

    “We should run away.”

    “What?”

    I don’t turn to face her. I repeat myself.

    “You’re talking nonsense.” I hear her getting up. “Why would we leave? Where do we have to go?”

    “The dojo is dying…” I say her name. “I’m not going to reduce to running what is already in ruin. You know my Father. He’ll be buried beside it before he lets it go. Let’s run away.”

    “We’re sixteen!” She’s shouting at me. I bite the corner of my lip and stand up with her. “We’re not even…”

    “What does that matter? We could make it together. You have your voice. I have my art. We could—”

    “—As some festival sideshow? You might despise your parents, but I have a duty to my family. I’m not going to just leave that. Your art is wonderful and I love you, but we stay here.”

    I love you.

    I mutter something and I reach for her again. She lets me hold her by her waist.

    “Please,” she says. “Understand me.”

    I press my nose to the back of her hair. “Do you understand me?”

   “I’ll call you Khada Jhin.” She turns herself around. “You don’t have to reinvent yourself for me.”

    “It’s not for you. It’s for me. You can’t tell anyone else to call me that. It’s between us.”

    “Okay.” She puts a hand on my cheek. I wish in that moment that I could see her, see her face, know how beautiful it is; but all I see is a mask made of wax. I want to cut it off, cut it open, get it off her—

    She’s kissing me. I’m disgusted. I hate it. I sputter and I peel back, coughing something horrible.

    “What? Did I do something wrong?” She sounds scared. I shake my head but I’m on my knees.

    It’s almost as if Zed invites that slender, ear-to-ear grin.

    “Back again so soon?”

    Or maybe he’s built up immunity by expectation-- after all, he’s seen it as many times as Jhin has wielded it, such that it ought as well be the default expression when Zed enters the room.

    It’s held with his hand cupping his chin and cheek, eyes following Zed as he goes from open doorframe to standing in front of him and finally down at his side along the sofa.

     Addict. For a very, very particular brand of poison. The word bungles the way up his throat and slides back to the deep; though amused at the quickness of Zed’s turnaround, he’s nevertheless rather keen on the head on his shoulders. The grin is enough implication.

    Instead he muses something soundlessly, a fey glint ensnared in his gaze, before he lets his face go and sits up at full just to lie himself askew with his chest vulnerable. It tempts with a forward premise --well, aren’t you?-- and sure enough, not a moment later and Jhin can feel the lot of Zed’s weight pushing on top of him.

    Were he any more brash, he might have thought Zed as remarkably weak willed.

    His mouth purses and replaces with a placid smile, Jhin’s head now sequestered beside Zed’s. He aligns his lips to the edge of his ear.

    “In my opinion, Zed...” Jhin whispers, an arm crooning around the angle of Zed’s collarbone. “You do plenty of wooing on your own.”

    Even if you are scarce to admit it. Or anything.

    But the lack of verbal confirmation never edited the set, never washed away the scene, never denied the act-- for the Demon and the Master of Shadows both.