#feyxnoel

…protect your muse. You count how many times you’ve had a best friend on one hand. You keep wavering on if you need to a put a finger down or not because technically you haven’t lost the last one but it still feels like you did and it feels like your fault so you bend one finger at the second knuckle because that seems accurate, half down, half up, half heartbroken over the concept of considering someone as anything other than their full selves anymore, half just heartbroken in general. It starts to all feel the same so you don’t think about that even though you understand you can’t, that even when you’re not actively thinking about them you are.  But then you look at your hand and think about raising another finger because Noel pulled you from the wreckage of everything going on with his kind eyes and soft voice and he doesn’t judge you for how you flinch when something good finally comes into your life. Noel is warm and polite and it terrifies you because the impermanence of your existence makes it hard to ignore the idea that he could disappear one day and you would be left there waiting for him to put his hand on your spine like he always does in the wake of all of the difficulty and that reassurance would never come. It terrifies you because you think about all of the things he’s done so far to nurture all of your disjointedness and wonder how you could ever return the favor, but then again it’s Noel and you know he would never expect any form repayment from you. It terrifies you because you look at your fingers, all scarred and calloused and that one you raised in question somehow holds so much hope and so much risk. “What are you doing?” You vaguely collect from the mumble into your shoulder, one eye open to you staring stupidly at your hands in your lap. The breath stops short of your lips, going back to hiding them in your sweater pocket. “Nothing. I’m sorry if I woke you.” 

the bell on the front door jingles, announcing his arrival as he takes in the tiny waiting room empty save for a guy in the corner with a fluffy pomeranian curled up at his feet. the desk is empty as kiha stands there, debating whether he should leave or stay when the sound of a door opening makes his decision for him.

@feyxnoel Simple enough, the taming of an unruly pack of werewolves and somehow he shoulders the task with the weight of something far more dire. He knew going into it that no matter how easy a duty may seem there’s always the possibility it could go terribly wrong. In this line of work, there is no entirely safe situation and he’s come to terms with that unfortunately, maybe a little too young, a little too soon. Zhixin remains under the assumption that every young hunter is bound to go through a phase where they feel invincible, but he can’t ever recall having those thoughts. Rather, he’s haphazardly stumbling through memories of white sheets and white lilies, rainy days where it felt like the sky tried to hide the sorrow laden crowds at funerals for names he can only remember and never speak of in present tense again.  Just as his feet drag past the treeline, he thinks of sitting next to the hospital bed in room 218 and how it’s so much better than visiting a cemetery and it almost is frustrating enough of a comparison to make him want to laugh. Except he doesn’t. He can’t when the flanks of retreating hunters begin to dissipate into the night, their jobs seemingly finished but never quite resolved. Perhaps, he muses, they’re just as tired as he is of never knowing when responsibility will wring their necks again, occasionally only hours between upheaval of their tranquility, their false senses of normalcy  ⁠— a normalcy he made a home of once.  Then it’s only two sets of footsteps in a sparse field where the city line meets nature. It’s not much of a walk back into the concrete jungle of Seoul, practically minutes away until the buildings threaten to swallow up the intimacy of earth and open air. He can squint and see the flicker of the lights against a dusk painted sky, the moon mocking in its big, distant seat. It watched them struggle for what felt like hours against the monsters it ruled over, unblinking regardless of mercy or mercilessness or indifference. He breathes and the exhaust from his lungs cloud before his lips, dry, bitten raw from attempts to remain focused. “I hate this,” he finally coughs, brittle. “ I’ve seen you look at me enough to know you can see it too, how tired I am of this, of all of this.” The weapon he held so tightly to before, thuds into the grass and rolls just enough away from him to give space to sit. In Zhixin’s case, it is far more of a collapse onto the ground, devoid of grace. He’s already unraveling. “I never asked to be a part of this life and I’ve tried so...so fucking hard to escape it but here I am again.”