#haksuwx

ah, decisions, decisions. it’s just the hardest thing in the world, isn’t it? rings a little like why make a choice, when you can have them all? beomseok lets the chuckle roll off as he darts his tongue out to wet his bottom lip.

“i’d marry y— no,” huh, colour him surprised. so the magic plant isn’t that important to him after all. it’d been the rationale behind picking yiseul, because keeping her locked to him by ball and chain would allow him to milk this plant escapade for all its worth. but there’s that name, that dark horse of a name to race out from the shadows like the sentimentality he hides within him. beomseok scoffs at his compassion. how, oh how is he going to survive out there? “i’d marry jihwan,” now, this falls much smoother, “only because fucking and killing her doesn’t quite fit.” what he doesn’t say: he’s done enough damage to her, and he really doesn’t need to be doing more.

“but i’d definitely fuck y— huh.” again, not yiseul. so how much is this plant worth, exactly? there’s nothing wrong with his understanding of its monetary value, which he knows to be priceless. so that just means his priority’s shifted… somehow. could it be? does he really care this much to be a guardian fairy, as his little brother had prophesied? a revelation he’ll shelf for another day. he’s got a decision to make. “apparently,” the word is enunciated, as though filled with annoyance. after all, this truth serum really is a pesky little thing, “i’d fuck haksu.” now he compares the two side-by-side, remembers his run-ins with the other specialist and the way he fumbles, the way he stutters, and— ah, yes. he sees it now.

“just so we’re clear,” beomseok raises his palms up in a defensive motion, puts a pause on his answer as though it has not already been given through the simple process of elimination. well, beomseok’s never claimed to be good at math, “i’d definitely fuck and marry yiseul. gladly. but in a universe where i had to choose…” oh, pausing for suspense— “i’d kill yiseul.” then comes the smug grin, the devilish afterthought— “but we don’t live in that universe, do we?”

the curve of her skull echoes sound like a concert hall, and at the heart of it all is an orchestra. every time she closes her eyes, she sees it—its instruments arranged along the circumference in the most textbook semi-circle, and their militant conductor takes centre stage. and no matter the context, be it as she wrestles past the bustling crowd of the central, or as she remains alone in the ballet studio picking apart the imperfections of her arabesque, she hears its song, played to the tempo of three quavers per bar.

and once, this song used to drive her, used to be the phantom limb to guide the graceful sway of her porcelain arms. once, amidst the predictability of her weekly schedule, she’d catch herself humming its tune. the loudest she’s heard it was when she fell, and it is with this incident that she came to associate her song with shame.

and here it plays now, as she speed walks in the direction of amaranth café. there’s this scowl that pulls at her features, because her hair is a wavy mess from all the rushing and she’d put in so much effort air-blowing it to perfection. but the point is she’s late, she’s late to this date with probably the cutest guy she’d managed to finesse a date with on wink thus far, so close to perfect had it not been for the semi-awkward text conversations they shared for the past few days. and it really was almost perfect, because he was a student at the academy just like she was, and he’s cute. just like how she looks almost perfect with her pretty white coat over her periwinkle slip, had it not been for her damn hair.

she finally turns the corner towards the entrance of the café, and it is here that she catches sight of— what was his name? it’s swift, the way her eyes trace the square of his jaw, the curve of his bicep, and ugh, did she mention he was cute?

“hi!” she plays at composure, puts on the most blinding smile her element of light has afforded her as she grips her handbag just a little tighter for moral support, “i’m so sorry, i hope you didn’t wait long.”

and what comes next? here’s the catch. for all the ogling she does at boys, bitna is hardly an expert at romance. so she feels the awkwardness dampen the corners of her smile, fights the urge to look away from his gaze—notably fails—and… what does she do with her hands?

“uh… let’s uh… so did you make a booking?”

he must hide it well, within the mounting of his squarish shoulders and equally squarish personality, beyond the courtesy of his easy smile. for what stands in his place, beneath skin, is a rabid dog with the wound of an infectious bite. though he denies it well, there are times when it shows. the gleam in his eyes, tucked away as it wrinkles into crescents when he smiles, and what of that smile? mother has always mentioned that he had big teeth.

indeed, there’s this way that he’s greedy, always bites off a little more than he can chew. he blames it on his heroism—aren’t all heroes irrationally optimistic?—but perhaps the truth is a little less gallant than it seems. and there’s this way that he escapes the self-reflection, ends the sentence with a period even if it doesn’t make much grammatical sense.

here is the rest of it: perhaps the truth lies in something more sinister, something more fallen, something to be plucked from the underbelly of personality traits. mother pinches his chin and pulls him closer. my, she wonders, what big teeth you have.

but he leaves it undefined, this thing, only knows it as a spectre that pulls him into situations that he finds the need to justify. situations like these, where he creeps up on his dormmate with palms curled around the base of his warhammer. the sharpened end kisses the back of haksu’s neck and he pauses, just before the dig, holds it threateningly there like a thought, then the better part of him pulls it safely away. junho grins, “we sparring?”

[ 💧 ]

who is hwang junho without the academy? ( he thinks himself a dreamer plagued with sleepless nights. )

ask meme —— accepting!

send 🌊 for the last text the receiver sent the sender.

💌 / young padawan: respectfully 💌 / young padawan: ur arm is as big as ur head

💧 for a text the receiver couldn’t bring themselves to send to the sender.

they say all’s fair in love and war, but somehow bitna doesn’t think they’ve factored in every facet relevant to the statement. like how she’s hovering in the air, just out of his gleaming scythe’s reach, a ball of light channelled in her palms. make no mistake, they’re not in love. but they’re not exactly friends, either. they hover in the in between, not in the way that they’re in the growing pains between friends and lovers, but in a sense that they’ve only ever known each other in a romantic setting, and it hadn’t exactly amounted to anything substantial. romantic or otherwise. still, it just feels… wrong.

“you’re not going to win this, haksu,” she warns surely, doesn’t quite say the i don’t want to fight you she’s thinking of, mostly because… well. she doesn’t not want to fight him, either. the point to bitna is she never quite knows what she wants, so perhaps it’s why, when she finally does, she makes sure to chase it with the sort of animalistic fervour that’s almost absent of reason, and she doesn’t care to stop until its caught in the gaps of her teeth.

and well… bitna doesn’t want to lose. and she’s not the type to back down, either.

so onwards, it is. she pulls her right arm back, knows the charged light to follow her palm as it readies itself for the launch. for what it’s worth, she aims for the fist he curls around his weapon, knows it to be an effective way to disarm him.

her aunt did warn her, ‘don’t bring too much things to the academy, you’ll be busy anyway’, but rorin didn’t heed that advice. what if she gets bored? what if she misses knitting and cooking? what if she misses her collection of finger puppets?

after all, if the dorm is supposed to be her home for the next few... years? (decade?) might as well make herself comfortable!

that’s what she rationalises as she hauls the gigantic box of knick-knacks in her hands. it’s definitely too big for her stature — but for what it’s worth, rorin thinks she’s doing incredibly well!

for this particular box, she can’t use the same technique she used for the previous ones. this box requires more balance, so rorin does not dare to take too big of a step, opting instead for small and steady ones. the small steps also help because she can’t really see her in front of her. the box pretty much blocks her view —

wait!

from her peripheral, she spots @haksuwx‘s shoes. before the box so much as graze him, rorin takes a sharp turn, swerving towards the other way —

“ouch!” rorin yells as she steps on her foot. but, by some miracle, rorin did not tip over. she still stands tall and sturdy. the only casualty in this situation is...

no! she dropped her potted plant!

in the middle of the commotion, she must’ve missed the pot tumbling out of the opened box (she really should’ve closed it) and crashing onto the floor. the clay has shattered into pieces, the soil strewn across the floor, the flower laid limply on top of the chaos.

rorin pouts while setting down the box. if she’s a plant whisperer, she beats she will hear the flower whimpering and breathing heavily, drawing on its last breath.

(is that what nature fairies do?)