“get inside.” jongin waved eunwoo towards his building, where the latter would hike up to his empty apartment and feel— well, empty. he also shuddered, but eunwoo didn’t know if it was from impatience or nighttime’s frost.

he didn’t move.

here, it was perfect. 

they were alone, illuminated by a sole street lamp. the occasional breeze nudged between them, but that was all. any time, eunwoo could change things. he could make jongin fall in love with him, and he could erase everyone else — but if that was the toll for happiness, he was hesitant. 

“is something wrong?” jongin asked, and eunwoo could read that puzzled expression. that goddamn vat of genuine care. it tormented him so. 

“no—” eunwoo lied.

jongin responded with a doubtful look. 

so, he preserved this moment — the point where the two were merely hero and card. this was where he could look jongin in the eye and not feel remorse. this was where he would go years from now, pondering on the what ifs.

because eunwoo wanted him. it wasn’t in a sexual way. perhaps it wasn’t even a romantic way. he wanted to keep jongin here, with him. it was ludicrous and selfish, but this was the one thing he would bet every penny on. 

he wanted jongin for himself, because no one else would have him like jongin does.

the three words were tied on his tongue, and he stared back at jongin — waiting, worried. 

jongin stepped forward, and eunwoo stepped back. it was defensive. he had let the other in too deep already. 

the one move shattered the balance that had kindled in the silence. only now, eunwoo heard the engines of vehicles whirring in the street over, and he heard the far-off chatter of the television from the third floor. he heard jongin’s breathing, steady and solid. 

eunwoo forced out a dry laugh. the smile felt foreign on his lips. if he didn’t brush it off, he would crumble.

“i love you, stupid.” he pretended his voice didn’t crack, breaking off like a chunk of ice. and he went inside.

“thank you,” she says, and it is not for her false mother’s compliments. it is thank you for finally allowing me this. it’s nice to see them again without the blood, though it’ll be short-lived. and with her acceptance, something bubbles within the veins of her replica parents’ necks, and as she prepares to attack, droplets of blood appear, and drip onto their clothes. they slowly change from their innocent, familiar appearance to the last image she has of them in her mind, and as they do, the flow of blood grows stronger, and their eyes grow more terrified.

“seulgi, help us,” her mother calls, and she can hear her father crying.

“if you have to leave me, do it, but save your mother.”

(so this is what she would’ve seen if she made it in time to help them that night.)

she shakes her head, and with a snap of her wrist, her whip is around her mother’s neck, and then with focus, she extends it to snake around her father’s as well, tying them together as they slowly choke to death. the sound of it is always terrible, but they’re not her parents; it is any other kill.

(sometimes she wishes she had knives for weapons instead. the barbed wire of her whip digs into their skin, and it tightens and tightens, and they bleed more, and their faces turn purple, and this is how it always is. it suits her, though. death reminds her what she is fighting for, and it is this: the fact that she can hear their whispers of we do not deserve this; we did not deserve this in her mind even after her weapon long punctures their voice boxes. she agrees.)

and when they disappear, it’s like a puzzle piece offset in her finally falls into place. she can breathe a little easier, because now the guilt she has felt since their death falls into place with the atrocity she just committed, and it adds up. no one else took them from her this time.

she reassesses the situation, but not much as changed; if anything, her team members are a little closer, and more panic has spread. everything seems like a blur, and she isn’t sure if it’s the exertion of her energy that does it, or if the familiar has more ways than one of messing with their minds, but she can see now...countless humanoid forms emerging from wax, and cards and magical heroes alike facing them.

is it a test? is this one of the games of the hanged man? if so, she wins...right?

she has to step aside to make way for wax that nearly drips on top of her, and from it emerges...kim jongin.

she sighs. 

“there isn’t any incarnation of you that can mind your own business, is there?” 

“i was worried about you.”

“please,” she laughs bitterly. 

“i promised you i wouldn’t leave you. how could i not find you in a place like thi--”

and she cuts his words off by flicking her whip around his neck too. 

“stupidity gets you killed.”

this isn’t the real jongin. (the real jongin is too busy helping people more helpless than she is; this will always be the case.)

she saw him rise from wax, and yet the resemblance is uncanny. she turns away from the sight-- yanks on the end of her whip to tighten its hold around her best friend’s throat, and ignores as he chokes on air that will never reach his lungs. she feigns disinterest-- pretends like the fight is so easy she can kill him blindfolded, but in truth, she is searching.

where is the real kim jongin? it’s then she realizes she has no idea; maybe the creature consumed him already. the battlefield is disorienting, and makes her head swim, but she thinks she catches a glimpse of him in the distance, dangerously close to the familiar, and that is all the confirmation she needs.

she spins on her heel, and knocks the replica kim jongin to the ground, and stands firmly with one foot on his chest and the other on the ground as she tugs. his blood oozes over the sides of the whip, and she tightens it again-- pulls and tightens, and when his head finally snaps off of his neck, and his blood sprays into her face, she doesn’t blink.

(the blood is so real, too. how does the familiar manage to make it out of wax? does it really drip wax, or is it magic incarnate? for her, science and magic are intertwined, and this is something she will intently study when she makes it out of this alive.)

“what the hell was that?” a familiar, yet distant voice asks from beside her. she spins around again, so quickly that it nearly gives her whiplash.

“seulgi, what the fuck? how could you kill him-- after everyone else that died? you kill jongin? why?”

it’s her brother. kang sungmin-- she hasn’t seen him since her parents died. for as much as she knew, he died with them, though she never saw the body. she hasn’t seen him alive either, until now.

“no, that wasn’t him-- what the fuck are you doing here?” and she squints, already suspicious. two challenges are enough, right? she didn’t see where her brother came from to know if he too was born from wax, so it’s possible he became a magical hero too, and became too swept up in the lifestyle to ever come back for his innocent sister. maybe the aura of the convention brought him back.

“i came to fight. i ran away for too long...don’t you think?” and he laughs, but it’s empty-- familiar, because he sounds like her. his gaze hardens then, set on her, and suddenly a menacing sickle on the end of a chain appears in his hands. he swings it in a circle, charging up the attack like a lasso, and she barely has time to leap aside before the attack is hurtling at her. she’s on the ground, and then she must roll aside and leap to her feet to evade another attack from him.

“i can’t allow you to take anyone else from me!” he yells.

“what about me?” she screams back. “i’m the only family you have now!”

whether he actually hesitates or it’s just her imagination, kana doesn’t know, but she uses this time to gain the upper hand. first, she uses her whip to tie around her brother’s weapon, and in his shock, she yanks it out of his hand. she then flings it across the battle field, and sungmin charges after it, but she whips him across the back, over and over until he finally falls to his knees and collapses.

her brother is strong. somehow, this is a reality that makes sense. (but is it a reality? this is the last question she needs answered.)

“i didn’t kill jongin. kim jongin is still alive. in case you haven’t noticed, this familiar we’re fighting? when all of that shit falls from its arms, it summons mirror images of people we’ve loved to try to distract us from what we’re really supposed to be doing, which is fighting it, and surviving. that’s what i killed.”

“then how do i know...you’re the real kana?” he asks, using his dwindling strength to roll over and face her.

“you shouldn’t know that’s my name,” she says, and she laughs, and it’s almost maniacal. it’s then she realizes he looks exactly the same as she remembers him: he’s wearing his favorite t-shirt, and he hasn’t aged a day. suddenly she knows who she’s fighting.

(answer: no one at all. an illusion. a trick.)

“that sounds like...something a clone would say,” sungmin manages, even as she steps on his chest and ties her whip around his neck as well.

“i realized...if you were the real sungmin...i wouldn’t know anything about you. and you wouldn’t know anything about me,” she explains. the world has changed since they last saw each other. “and you look exactly the same. i’m not even the same person i was two years ago.”

the whip tightens around his throat again, like a deadly, toxic plant whose only intention is to kill and grow of its own volition. (and maybe her weapon suits her exactly.)

“you’ve gotten...darker,” sungmin agrees, but she doesn’t know why he keeps talking, and how he looks so peaceful even as blood drips from his neck. maybe they are too alike. would she squirm when faced with death? surely, it is impossible to be any part human and not scream when a hundred tiny knives pierce your neck deeper and deeper.

his blood drips, and some of it lands on her socks, already stained red more than a year ago. she wonders if now, other magical heroes will grow darker too, when confronted with the reality of their lives: with the reality of loss at their own hands.

if that’s the case, and sungmin is one of them now, she doesn’t want him to experience it.

“if you are the real sungmin, i realized...that i want you dead anyway. being alive here...isn’t a gift. it is a burden. all you have if you survive here is the hope of making sure others don’t lose as much as you have. i’m sure you understand. i want you dead.”

and then he is gone, and she breathes deeply, and she still does not know who is dead or alive anymore. 

her parents: dead. kim jinwook: dead. kang sungmin: unaccounted for. everyone else: still here, either fighting, or defeated.

she can tell most of her battle is over, because there is not another soul, living or dead, that she truly cares for left to face. and so she takes steps backward, up the steps of the chobotics building. she turns away from the battle, only to increase her speed, and charge up the steps, and pull at the doors, because maybe glass is enough to protect them from the morbid destruction outside, but it’s locked.

she shields her eyes, and scans the battlefield in search of any of the team members she saw earlier, and there is wendy and yulhee in the thick of everything, a little bit closer to her. this is enough. 

her next priority is an escape route. she’s sure most of the magical heroes in the thick of things won’t leave the humans behind, but someone has to find a way to get everyone out, or no one will get out at all. she makes it her mission. any opening is a fair one to consider, even if it brings them right through danger.

if she stands in front of the chobotics building and faces the familiar as it oozes and destroys, running far enough to both the left and the right will provide an escape. there is no pattern to most of those fleeing the scene, running off in whichever direction they see first with no regard to how they will get away from the streets that are growing more and more flooded with the familiar’s wax. (the booth the familiar appeared closest to is now entirely covered, and the air grows thicker with a smell she can only imagine is burning flesh.)

she doesn’t know if the familiar tracks them by sight or by heat or scent, but she figures the best bet for survival is to split off in as many directions as possible. if everyone in the area leaves in one giant pack, it’ll make the creature’s goal of falling upon them even easier. this simplifies her decision. to the left, there is less ground to cover before they can escape into the rest of the city. (is this really what they want? what if they don’t succeed in cornering the familiar here, and just draw it out to cause more destruction?)

there is more ground to cover if she follows the escape route to the right. this, she suspects, is why those trying to escape that consider their options a little more seem to dart to the left. however, the escape route to the right has more opportunities to get to higher ground. there is a parking garage not too far away that she knows the location of: this is probably their best bet.