#hey so...

“But... Why? What’s happened to th’dogs?”

P.S. Yes he loves them, and please don’t tell him the truth.

Souji didn’t know where to find him.... so he sat at the park.  He had actually made a sweet this time, since they seemed to spend most their time talking about random things such as this, and he fidgeted a little, wondering if maybe this was a stupid mistake.. That maybe he wouldn’t show up at all today....

jason's as usual distracted, his eyes trailing around. he's reading a magazine, left behind, something about music, he hopes to get a hint in where they are exactly. or when they are, there's gotta be a year in this thing. a little motel in the middle of nowhere. and he can tell whenever annie walks into his space, that's because everything gets a little bit brighter.

then you know, he yelps. then giggles, suddenly shy. it seems like they can't get enough of each other. "annie." jason's suprised but he shouldn't be. he doesn't move, just leans into her. her touch on him, head tilts on the side. "yeah? found what you were looking for?" splitting up in the effort of figuring out something. the usual tactic. when it's like, leisure. vacation for them. it's sunny, warm. warmer now. "so like i'm no expert but i think there's a beach nearby." he moves his sunglasses up. they still gotta figure out the details but jason can't think. can't figure things out, annie's got a handful.

the alcohol is bitter , a sharp bite that tears into his throat : carves out all of his secrets.

iseul was always a loose lipped drunk, his thoughts spilling out of him without a single filter, there's an excess of empty bottles , shot glasses left on the counter , waiting to be filled again , iseul and daehyun had treated them like they were bottomless earlier. throwing back shots like nothing, like it didn't set a fire on the way down. he had thought it was a good idea , drowning his sorrows in alcohol, but the sorrows floated along the surface. as always, he calls minjun, leaves a voicemail because he doesn't pick up on the first ring anymore , doesn't pick up at all. not for Iseul. he's witnessed daehyun getting an answer, watched his bestfriend call his brother and watched them talk in ways that Iseul didnt have access to anymore.

he's laying on the floor, limbs sprawled out with daehyun next to him and talking absently , nothing of real substance leaving his lips or daehyun's , it's half gibberish, half unsolicited facts and things they've definitely thought too deeply about.

he can hear the distinct sound of the door clicking shut and distantly he thinks that's weird, because the only person who has a key is minjun and he's still somewhere on tour, still leaving Iseul behind without a map, no directions on how to get to where he's going. stranded . iseul is too drunk to process that, he tips his head back against the floor, uncomfortably but it gives him the perfect view of the person walking through the door.

deep brown eyes melt a little, eyebrows raising in a cusp over his brow bone. gaze drags, takes too much time in soaking in the form in front of him. minjun. minjun who is dressed far too casually to be on tour, jeans and a hoodie, one that Iseul used to steal and wear to sleep in, his biggest comfort. his apartment is in disarray without the alcohol bottles, clothes thrown in a pile that keeps getting higher, takeout boxes stack into the trash , he can't even begin to be embarrassed, too intoxicated to even realize.

" I must be hallucinating " disbelief colors his words , and he laughs, LOUD , rolling into daehyun and holding on him in the way he does when he's been drinking too much, when touching starts to feel like something he needs rather than wants. as if it's the only thing keeping him afloat he's pretty sure daehyun only went along with this so iseul wouldn't be drinking alone, so he wouldn't feel the pain by himself. iseul stares at the form that looks like minjun, has the same shape, one that Iseul could outline from memory, the one that towers above him and when he reaches out, brushes the leg of his jeans and it's something he can actually feel under the touch ; NOT A HALLUCINATION . he springs up so fast the room spins, jumps to his feet and throws himself at minjun . — because he always catches him . arms tighten around his neck and there's a grin spreading, he lets his body fall heavy, lets himself lean into minjun because he was strong and always held Iseul like he was worth so much more than what anybody else saw.

his giggles turn bitter, like roses turning to thorns on the way to their roots. " you did this min " his giggles dying, fading out like the tracks on a cd do when they're going onto the next song. it's as if he just realized it for himself, that he was not the architect of his destruction, that minjun had done this , but his voice is smooth, beginning to fill with water ; a pot left out in the rain ; the rain water filling the vessel in steady , fat drops " you stopped loving me " even with how badly he wants to hate minjun, he can't find it in himself to . He's been lost, a body without a heart ; he's looked . searching the walls of the chest cavity, where his heart should beat .

" why can't you just come back ? hm ? " he murmurs, slurs really, the letters all sticking together like they were tacky, glued at the edges. it was always his worst habit, the need to touch ; TO FEEL HOW TANGIBLE MINJUN WAS , it was a problem before they broke up , his need to reassure himself that minjun was real and not a figment of his imagination. he'd always cling, especially when tour dates were quickly approaching, when minjun would be gone for months and they had to video call at the worst hours, when iseul pushed himself to stay awake, drinking energy drinks and even shocking himself in his attempts to talk to minjun. worsened by the alcohol and the heart in his chest , the heart in front of him. the pads of his fingers press delicately to the side of minjun's face. Slow and soft , like he can't believe he's there with him.

he's always been a huge nerd, but the fact that his sister died while he was on his way to the grove after struggling to send him there is so... why. WHY. first you orphan the siblings, have little anaxa bullied for being curious and nerdy, and then you KILL HIS SISTER. and to make matters worse, this poor man has no privacy since cerces is in his head all the time.

i wonder what that must feel like to him. can he literally feel cerces flipping through the pages of his memories? or can he hear her musings as she does so? i wonder how he locks her out.

...and now i'd like to think about that 15 days with anaxa thing. maybe he's ignoring you for the sake of pursuing his end goal, but with cerces constantly searching his memories, she discovers you. i'm thinking of it as a memory bubble that she might come into contact with – just touching anaxa's memories of you causes cerces to feel many different emotions, none of which belong to her. she's probably in awe at the intensity of said emotions, especially because it's hard to believe that anaxa, of all people, would feel this way toward something that wasn't his research.

so for those 15 days i'd like to think that cerces sifts through anaxa's memories and questions him. canonically i know she can't control his body, but for the sake of this hypothetical fic, maybe she can. she seeks you out and tries to interact with you, but somehow, you see through her act and call her on it. you don't know that it's the titan of reason, but you know for a fact that that's not anaxa you're talking to.