#abseance

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗     જ⁀➴        𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐃𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐘  𝐓𝐎𝐘𝐁𝐎𝐗  𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒         𝒇𝒕.        @abseance

𝐀 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓?     𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐒𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐀𝐗 𝐌𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐓, 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐓     —     the same inherent obstinacy the driving force of most of my actions. 

Could I keep one? Most certainly not.      Yet the thrill of the unknown, the prospect of another’s barest truths shared with me in a moment of unexpected camaraderie, pulled a brief nod from me nonetheless. What this wondrous mystery could be, my mind was already swift to imagine in broad strokes painted by fantasy’s brush: something dark and twisted, like most of my own unshared stories, or perhaps something simply unexpected coming from the woman before me? 

❝   Go ahead,   ❞  I tried to prompt the other into offering such an intimately private glimpse into her life, her very being; the corners of my mouth already twitching with the sardonic amusement I was so prone to finding in situations like this.  ❝   I won’t tell a soul. I promise.   ❞  

A lie,     sweet-lilted and as fake as most of my outward appearances     —     for the simple price of some minor benefit, I’d sell out anyone’s secrets without batting an eye. 

But that wasn’t Akikō’s concern just yet. 

Spread across the bed is her weapon collection, rusty jagged things that must've been piecemealed across someone else's lifetime. A few highlights here and there, but nothing sparks confidence, and certainly nothing worth envy. It's child's play. Beach ball efficiency, Jesus.

She'd push her luck against a boy scout.

He lets her whinge on in the background, anyhow, white noise to the phases he's running through. Slight as she is, there's still physicality potential, and some things he could teach her to work around that. Her face helps her case. Pretty bait works best in close range.

"Good." He interrupts, disinterested in the rest of the sales pitch. It's uncomfortable to reckon with his part in this story, so he doesn't. Keep that opportunity closed. "That's how you should be." He inspects the handle on a drop point, considers a correction: "That's how you need to be."

No point, otherwise. The drop knife's garbage. He tosses it further up the bed to start a reject pile. Most of this can go. They'll figure out funds for new shit later. Mid-temple scratch, he turns back to her to lay it out there.

Nobody,　not even the cruel,　every truly expect that they will die.　Perhaps they come to some misguided belief that they,　uniquely,　are special:　the golden chariot’s hymn of divine intervention will sweep them away from blood-dirtied thorns.　Or it creeps up on the innocent too fast,　a gaze cast over the shoulder at the wrong time,　a tragedy,　a something.　Nobody plans for it,　least of all the stubborn at all,　anyone deluded in their thinking that they are special enough to warrant reality’s warped fabric.

It’s not like Dae-ho thought he was special.　He just didn’t think it would be like this.

Without prestige to his quandary,　he burns through four long weeks at the hospital.　Isolation accompanied only by his mind is a breeding ground for deep-set rumination.　Who he is,　the shadow he inhabits,　what he could do with himself,　who he still had time to help　⸻　what begins as limbs gnarled in the bear strap of self-loathing blossoms,　beneath the guardian helm of hospital moonlight,　into a higher understanding.　Learning first to be at peace with the world before he may love it fully.　It takes time.　All he has is time.

So he turns home,　eventually,　apologizes profusely to the shelter for how long he’d been out.　When they mercifully overlook it　(the Tokyo Meteorite Disaster was huge news,　an unprecedented horror,　and they knew,　bitterly,　that he had suffered from it;　I know,　Dae-ho,　and I’m glad to hear you’ve recovered),　the next step,　or leap,　or bound to make takes the shape of communication.　He looks over his Father’s cell contact and always decides against it.　It is always too soon.　He is never prepared to be the right kind of son.　He is wrong.　He is wrong.

The next contact his eyes linger for too long upon is Aki’s.　Not that he could ever find a response from her before;　envision him,　alone,　2am in his bedroom,　holding back sorrow and tears in equal measure,　listening to the screech of the dial tone degrade into a flat line.　Dae-ho does not expect things to be different.　Hope has never treated him kindly.

It lingers,　still.

He finds a response and cherishes it,　barking out more than his phone’s reception could handle　/　please,　see me　/　I’m sorry if I did something　/　I feel like it’s my fault　/　I have so much to tell you　/　I almost died.　The line falls silent,　and he offers out his favorite lunch spot to meet.　Food is love,　he knows,　he knows.

Dae-ho does not entirely expect for her to show.　Good things never seem to last long.　Picking through his jjimdak and subsequently stuffing his face,　man’s man is unceremoniously relegated to his childhood self as he rapidly comes to recognize her features,　closing in toward his outdoor table,　baking in the August sun.　Quaint semblance of a smile quirks his stuffed lips upward while his eyes threaten to bulge past his skull.　Chokehold of savory soy sauce thick on his tongue is all that keeps him from crying.

a costume shop crowded with masks.　⌖　@abseance

Hazy lights do little to obscure the heart of your mission,　dead scent of moth balls provoked by the costume off-season;　the heaviness to it comes not of reality,　but what reality insinuates.　You have a job to do,　nestled between stacks and stacks of packaged raiment,　traces of cheap feathers and tacky sparkles swept up in heaps across the linoleum.　Disguise upheld by the peaks of your cheeks is not you　⸻　you are never you,　near and afar,　but especially not now as you bear jewel-encrusted embellishments with a placid pout　⸻　yet it retains its aesthetic appeal.　You move,　beauteously wry,　with midnight blue filigree surrounding your black-eyed stare in elaborate motifs,　twisting up and around your countenance,　curling into floral insignias.　Crystalline gemstones embed above your brows,　between them,　dotted with precision as another layer of complexity atop its design.　You are drawn to it for reasons you cannot say,　cannot meaningfully pry about in your labyrinthine decision making.　It is blue.　You go blue,　if given the choice.　Blue is stable and secure,　impersonal and cold.　You are blue,　Leopard.

The snow leopard stalks its prey along steep mountain slopes,　camouflaged among the rocks,　creeping within striking distance in immaculate clarity.　You have perfected the art of your gait,　not so much as a single sound’s emittance from your feet against the floor,　traversing every item of inventory the shop allures with,　begs for patronage outside of October’s tendrils.　You will not cause a ruckus,　of which elderly cashier nestled away toward the front of the store will be forced to endure,　because you are not that kind of girl.　That is not how you conduct business and certainly not how you were trained.　⸻But where is she?　So-called mark of yours,　target of your crosshairs made to bridge the distance between you and here,　never once burdened with insight as to the why.　Why you are to do this damage,　why you are to wield your rifle with hands that do not shake and sit in waiting until the time comes to embrace the trigger’s pull.　Simple,　then.　A logical conclusion to come to:　you do not need to know,　you are the apparatus,　the helm through which order and duty are contained.　Sharp object of yourself follows directions and nothing more,　never thinking,　never stirring,　going through the motions and making every ministration satisfied with your own automation.

From around another corner,　you creep,　light filtering in through cracked glass windowpane,　dust particles pirouetting in their illuminated partitions.　No one has been here.　If anyone will be here,　it will be her.　You are prepared for this,　flat of your knife concealed beneath pleats of fabric adorning you.　Tumultuous excitement unfurls in the pit of you,　some nightmarish delight in pursuing a target closer to your own age,　respite from the countless greying suits you’ve taken out with well-aimed and intentioned shots.　If only to delay the inevitable,　you are enraptured in fantasy,　caught up in the notion of gun barrel pressed into the side of her throat.　Would she have it in her to retaliate?　Would she ever see you coming?　What would you do,　then,　tucked away in the back of a costume shop.　You are not innately violent,　Leopard.　You were not brought up with any inclination of enjoyment to be found.　You simply do,　the same way anyone does any job:　cut from a different cloth,　you do what the average person cannot.　You do it without fretting,　without faltering,　with that same passive look etched into the ice sculpture of your mien.

When there is flash of brunette,　you move,　finally,　half-penumbra on your face where the dreamlike lighting casts depraved shadows beneath your mask.　A certainty of who you are dealing with,　even before you may gauge what she is clad in;　shoot before you see the target,　just as Professor used to say.　Cast all doubt you have permitted to build up　⸻　coalescing as an ugly within you,　not you,　never you,　you do not and cannot doubt yourself,　and still there is a moment of hesitation before you’re halfway sheathed behind a velvet curtain.　Embroidered with honor,　you,　the saint,　the martyr,　emerge.　It must be her,　this Akikō a case file has been built upon.　(You blink once,　twice,　some back-and-forth metric of incredulity in what possibly fetters your blade-sharp cognizance.)　One fluid motion into another,　and your knife caresses the plane of her throat,　featherlight.　❛❛  Shhh,  ❜❜　you coo,　patronizingly bringing an extended finger just shy of your lips.

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗     જ⁀➴        continued  from  here         𝒇𝒕.        @abseance

𝐀 𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑’𝐒 𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒... 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆. My hopes for some admission of a dark and twisted nature were extinguished as swiftly as a flame caught in the rain, leaving nothing but the residue of disappointment in their wake     —     a fact I hardly bothered to conceal, from the furrow of my brows to the subtle downturn of my mouth.  

❝   Well, you know what they say.   ❞  I eventually granted Akikō the honor of a half-hearted response, my tone still thoroughly unimpressed as my self-appointed persecutor attempted to appeal to whatever ounce of empathy she must have imagined me capable of harboring.  ❝   Choose your career wisely.   ❞  

Not that I knew much about careers, nor cared for the human self-flagellation of lifelong labor. I’d only ever observed it from an outsider’s perspective, peering into the bustling lives of blue-collar workers and office employees much like a curious child studying an ant farm     —     with just enough inherent sadism to find entertainment in the endless circling of lesser creatures.  

I did not envy them, nor did I find within myself any inclination toward pity. Would a fox feel sorry for a hare trapped in a prison of its own making? Or would it simply sit and await its inevitable exhaustion, patient and treacherous in equal measure? 

Akikō, however, wasn’t quite like the usual hare steering helplessly toward its own demise. She was skilled and determined, clever enough to own some measure of my reluctant respect. An enigma on two feet: healer and executioner alike, both saving grace and harbinger of justice.  

Yet at the same time, she remained human: a pitiful existence bound by limitations and weaknesses, trapped within a body that betrayed her, despite being honed for the hunt.  

Admittedly, it thrilled me to witness her lose ground against her own instincts: to catch the subtle rise of her pulse whenever my gaze lingered a touch too knowingly upon her, to watch her lower her guard around me despite every reason not to.  

It left me complacent to a degree most would describe as arrogant, possibly even obnoxious. In my current state, however, it would have been exhausting to play my usual cards of charm and wit in hopes of appeal: she, who ought to have known so much better by now, made it almost obligingly easy. 

It brought a grin to my lips, genuine despite the weight of exhaustion draped over my increasingly frail shoulders. Fatigue weighed behind my eyes like lead, softening the edges of my features as delirium beckoned sweetly, like a distant siren’s song.  

❝   I did think about it.   ❞  Truthfully, I had thought of little else since Akikō’s unusual offer; her words had managed to turn my thoughts into an endless procession of opportunities and advantages.  ❝   And it’s safe to say I’m... intrigued. But...   ❞  

Despite the weariness seeping through every fiber of my being, a spark of mischief found its way into my calculating gaze: a hint of devilish intent that drew me closer, nearer, as I shifted forward in my seat until I was looking up at her through narrowed eyes, foxlike and intent.  ❝   If I’m going to say yes, you’ll have to give me something first. A reassurance, so to speak. An exchange.   ❞  

I tilted my head ever so slightly; a loose strand of once-pristine hair brushed against my temple and cheek in the process.  ❝   After all, Akikō... trust is such a difficult thing to come by.   ❞