#neo.phase2

velvet skims her hips and the crimson lipstick slashed over her lips is a warrior’s paint, wielded with a smirk. she’s on the job and eager for it, having caught wind of a particularly atrocious up and coming young businessman, who seems to think his barely there nouveau riche status gives him a carte blanche when it comes to extra curricular activities. even in the midst of the blackout, she figures that afterlife will be a good place to check, as worthy a hunting ground as any other. 

but she’s underestimated, perhaps, the resilience of the community. with afterlife still lit up and flickering, the party seems still to continue, and it’s hard not to get drawn into that allure. after all, how much trouble is a little bit of darkness, anyway? surely they’ll get it all fixed in no time and until then, it makes for an interesting excuse to congregate in the last bright spot in a dark world. there’s so many people she thinks she might go mad with claustrophobia, a crush of bodies that extends even away from the dance floor. 

so she pushes towards the table instead, fumbling a grin towards the bartender and a smile on her lips as she requests a drink, adds it to the ever growing tab, and turns to survey the crowd, which seems intent on pressing in closer around her by the second. after a few sips of the liquid she’s got a friendlier disposition to her, perhaps disregarding her hunt for the time being, and she turns to a nearby figure, brow arcing as she lifts a drink in salute. “what a fucking night, right?” her head shakes, dark tresses shifting with the movement. “who knew a blackout would get the party going like this, huh?” 

@neotaeoh / the afterlife, system failure, phase 2.

the club usually isn’t bright. that’s the entire point of it. a swamp of light green neon that permeates the room, flashes of spontaneous light, a neon show behind the bar like accent marks to the dim. but even those are gone now. and so is the music. without it, the club feels wrong. it’s purpose robbed from it. there’s a buzz of noise, and a wave of paranoia that circles the room. like a sway of an ocean, but more uneasy now. a calm before the storm rather than the frantic, collective crashing she usually expects from the place.

rin has half a mind to leave. she’s not so sure now why she came in. because it acts like a hub to elysium? because she expected some dregs of normalcy from it? but it all just feels eerie. maybe even worse than outside, on the streets. she finds herself hovering near the outskirts, back stuck to the wall. occasionally jostled by a miss-aimed shoulder of frenzied bodies as they shuffle past her. her jaw’s clenched. it feels like there’s white noise underneath her skin. the radio lines are too scattered now. she can’t make any more sense of what’s going on from the thin waves of police scanners she can pick up on. art of her wants to scatter, too. but she doesn’t. in times of stress, rin tends to root into place. lock-jawed, a strange look of being collected that never seems to match on the inside. she hates when people mistake it for strength. but in situations of panic, maybe it’s for the best. 

power supply or not, the afterlife is alight with voices, the buzzing murmur of an intoxicated and fearful population. she’s fairly drunk herself, if she’s being fully honest, and has mostly gotten over the fact that she was interrupted from the night’s hunt by all this madness. it’s at least a small favor, now, to find herself nimbly weaving through the crush of patrons. she adjusts the thin strap of her dress, a black velvet number that skims her body in such a way that she’s able to hide the blade strapped to the inside of her thigh while simultaneously distracting most of those who would be suspicious just enough to keep them in check. it’s not that difficult to do, if she’s being perfectly frank. 

she’s content enough, too, for company. the tension between them, even in the midst of all this chaos, is still palpable. it’s a physical thing that pulls between them, like the force of a magnet or the pull of the sun, hyper-massive and inescapable. she scratches idly at a spot of dried blood on the hem of her dress, an unfortunate reminder of lost targets. she knows he’s there before she sees him. she could chalk it up to her improved senses, augmented reflexes, but is that the reason? the hair on the back of her neck stands up as if on a whim, her heart stuttering in her chest as always. there’s a single split hair between jaein and a blind rage, a single wrong move from feral. 

she calls it a survival tactic. she looks at him from over the edge of her glass, amber liquid swirling within. “taking advantage of the chaos sungki?” she drawls, in an idle question meant to do little beyond break the silence, fingers tip toeing up his arm, wondering at the steel beneath, an intrusive thought bubbling to the surface of her brain. what would happen if she unfurled one of the razors beneath her nails and dug down to the metal she knows must be housed there?