#obsmin

@obsmin

jinhwan’s wandering around the central district again today; he keeps finding himself in his old haunts a lot lately. it’s a bit strange now of all times -- with all the unrest you’d think he’d be drawn away from the central most district but it somehow seems quieter around there than near home. maybe it’s an overwhelming need to keep things normal there, or the shadow of dsem looming overhead; it’s a peace nonetheless, even in the crowds and always busy streets.

the monotony of the crowd is broken up today by a splash of bold red. for some reason the color catches his eyes -- it’s someone walking ahead, their hair dyed a near obnoxious shade of it. his lip curls; the color reminds him of someone he hasn’t thought about in a while. from this angle they almost even look like -- --wait, does he recognize them? 

isn’t that... minkwang hyung?!

he’s with a few others; there’s something hardened about the guys around him and none of them are familiar, but he’s more convinced the harder he looks.

jinhwan’s then aware he’s staring in that direction and redirects his gaze, meandering in the square with his eyes lowered and hands pushed into the pockets of his jacket. his heart is racing since… no one jinhwan knows has heard from minkwang or eunhyuk in a very long time. not since eunhyuk disappeared and minkwang followed soon after.

and when a hunter goes missing… well, you don’t really expect them to reappear. not that line of work. (witches, in his experience, for that matter too… but not always for the same reasons. it’s not something jinhwan in particular likes to think about.) 

part of jinhwan wonders if that’s not really minkwang; maybe this is some kind of doppelganger in the crowd -- or someone that happens to look like him? but if not his bright hair and his stature, the bold scarring across his skin is unmistakable even at a glance. there’s a hundred questions in his mind, some of which are already bubbling at his tongue, as he knows it’s likely the only person who can answer them is minkwang -- if that is indeed him. others itch at him he hardly dares even mentally voice.

now, stealth is not jinhwan’s strong suit; he’s a tall guy, after all, and wearing a hoodie when it’s hot like now tends to draw eyes to you instead of away, and he’s got no sort of training or natural ability in that regard anyway. he’s no idea if he’s actually been noticed as well but he keeps his distance to be safe and watches the red head of hair out of the corner of his eye. his vague wandering carries him in that direction for a few minutes while he pulls out his phone and taps at the screen idly, waiting for an opportunity that he’s on his own.

he doesn’t wait long before the others head off -- in the direction of the nearby dsem building, no less, jinhwan notes curiously -- and jinhwan picks up the pace.

“minkwang hyung --!” he says when he’s close enough to be heard without drawing attention to them both.

when the red haired man turns around he steps closer with much less caution, but keeps himself from getting right in the other’s space.

“it really is you, isn’t it? you… you’re alive..?”

@obsmin

There was so much talk flying around that day. News of the corpses spread like a wildfire, and it wasn’t long before the city was consumed in chaos and panic. Rumors of magic-hating extremists prowling the streets seemed more than probable to some, and while it may have driven some to fear, and others to celebrate, one thing was constant. Everyone was worked up, for one reason or another.

Well, mostly everyone.

A few days had passed since the chaos began, and the commotion only seemed to grow. To him, it was only noise on the streets. People were being people, running around and shrieking like a flock of birds. That was the only thing that seemed to get to him. The reason didn’t seem to faze him too much, and whether his apathy towards the situation was contributed by his bravery or incompetence was anyone’s guess. If anything, this was a blessing in disguise for him; the rumors and fear left the streets considerably more spacious, especially in the later hours before nightfall.

Jiho had a couple of errands that he had kept putting off, and the appeal of traversing the streets without the risk of having to awkwardly move through a crowd was more than enough of an incentive to restock his fridge. He had been out for a few hours now, and was heading home with two large grocery bags, one in each hand. It looked quite impressive actually; the large bags didn’t seem to encumber him in the slightest. He began to glance around. The ambience was pleasant that evening, and while there were still some people wandering the streets, it wasn’t enough to keep Jiho from enjoying the clean air. He could smell death nearby, and he had been picking up similar scents ever since the first two corpses appeared. He didn’t care to investigate; he was on his way back from the store with a container of ice cream. He had no time to waste, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. There was enough panic going on in this city, and he didn’t feel like adding to it.

@obsmin

So there’s a lot of stupid misunderstandings that have lead to Lu’s current position and decision at this moment in time. The first is that he thought that a certain Minkwang was very dead, as he had not seen him in quite some time and that can lead to confusion when you’re a drunken wendigo idiot who is used to seeing the people he knows every week or so. The second is that Min would even bother to contact Lu if he was anything but dead- especially when something is going on in his life. Honestly, Lu would probably have his feelings hurt that Minkwang wasn’t dead if he weren’t just a bit tipsy and already excited about seeing an old friend again. The third misunderstanding was probably that Minkwang would even want to see him, but that hasn’t happened yet and therefore no one can prove anything.

So here he is, standing in front of Min’s door with his bike parked a few feet away (hopefully not in a bush). He’s got three bottles of liquor, two of which are in his bag and the other he’s holding the other. He’s not really sure when he stopped to buy all of these, but he knows they’re all good quality (he knows his liquor quite well). The bottle he’s holding is vodka- though half empty vodka due to the ride over here. It’s not that it was far just that he really hates being anything other that just a little tipsy. When things start to feel more like they might go to his normal, far more antsy and broken attitude he tends to drink and that happened on his ride over. 

Drinking and driving is illegal- as he would like to remind himself, but really it barely matters for him. As it turns out when he drinks he never gets really drunk (thanks stupid blood) and on top of that his motor skills appear to still function perfectly well. While his mind gets a little fuzzier, most of what the alcohol seems to do to him is settle his nerves. Shockingly, this is why he chooses to drink so much in the first place. Self medicating with alcohol is probably one of the dumbest ideas in the world, but Lu tends to have those quite often anyway.

None of this is important to him though. What’s important is alcohol, Minkwang’s door, and seeing a friend who he wants to see for fuck’s sake. So he knocks loudly and waits for the door to barely creak open. He’s too forward, but that’s okay. He knows Min will forgive him...

Probably.

He pushes the door open- and Min a bit out of the way and walks on inside. He’s smiling and holds out the bottle. It’s good to have friends to drink with. He likes to feel less lonely all the time. Drinking is better socially, right? Why does he always do it alone. Oh now he feels sad... Not a good time to feel sad. He shakes his head and tries to just focus on the fact that he’s already here and has a friend to see. He can be less worried, right? No need for all the shaking and shivering and worrying. This is fine. He can try to just be loose.

* &. for @obsmin

the forest is too quiet.

he notices this approximately eight minutes forty two seconds into the walk, weaving in and out of trees and feeling the crunch of dry leaves under his boots as he takes tentative steps. granted, the times he’d taken walks it had always been a comforting area of placid vibes and taciturn behaviour. but his always there senses, tingling with an odd feeling that strikes a sort of unpleasant curve in him tells him that it’s not all it’s cracked up to. and then eight minutes forty three seconds into the walk, he begins to pay more attention to his surroundings.

worst case scenario, he knows, he’s just walked right into a trap. 

but his senses aren’t tingling so much that he knows he’s alert and in danger, so he loosens considerably at the knowledge that he won’t be exposed to prey so easily. ten knows better than to relax completely and peers through the trees, past paths, to where he had walked before, not knowing whether he should just go back or not. it certainly is the safer option. 

he takes the first step towards the direction he came in when a faint footstep (barely audible to his ears, when the almost silent sound is carried away by the wind to got knows where but he catches it just in time) causes him to freeze. it’s not out of fear that he stops so suddenly, more out of surprise and he knows his senses weren’t wrong when they had warned him about someone else being in the forest.

who else?

ten’s heard of people that go in, humans, faes, witches, beasts, anything, so he should be prepared to see someone else and pass them normally. he doesn’t know where the sound of the footstep came from and he can’t see the owner of it either, perhaps to his better luck. something tells him, though, that it won’t be the last he hears.

his eyes travel around him, trying to look past shadows, locate the person that he can’t seem to find. to ask into the air ‘who’s there’ appears to be a not so idea and he holds it against himself to not call out. not .. not until he can confirm the identity of the stranger, anyways. 

@obsmin

It was hard to believe what she saw.

She swore she must have overworked herself the night before, after all, depriving herself of sleep for the sake of enhancing her skill have been a typical routine for Sooah, but that was the least of her problems at the moment. She thought she was hallucinating, and that doesn’t happen anymore. Small hands reached into her bag to pull out a small bouquet of herbs she stashed earlier before she left her home. To everyone else it looked like a typical rosemary herb, but in her hands were some of the hybrids she had grew with enhanced properties to help her focus when her work got a little too out of hand.

A quick whiff of it and the world felt a lot more clear and – to her surprise – her eyes did not tricked her. A flood of emotions washed over the woman, drowned her in a familiarity she never knew she missed. It was a strange sensation, and she wasn’t sure whether it was welcomed either. Sooah’s dark eyes followed the bright red among the crowd of people in the station, her feet went on autopilot as if there was some sort of thread wrapped around her waist, tugging incessantly at her, forcing her to not let go. Her feet followed and before she knew it she was behind the red haired man.

Her hand reached for him, but thought it better  to speak instead.

“Min?” It was quiet, tentative, and full of disbelief. She was a little scared, like saying the name would destroy whatever it was she was seeing in front of her. It was, after all, the very man she tried to save, the man she thought had failed to save, that stood there. Some part of Sooah warned her that it might not be him, that it was impossible for it to be him -- but another part of her wanted to believe, so she pressed on.

A citizen of Sunseong, SONG MINKWANG, is currently seeking a connection in the form of a YOUNGER SIBLING. Please read on for more information, and contact them at @obsmin if you’d like to plot to fill this connection!