#phantombs

the unfamiliar city has grown dark but not entirely silent, glowing lights dotted in creeping black and people still bustling about just beyond the buildings to their left. it's not as comforting as it should be; he's used to everything slowing to a crawl when the stars become visible. it should be quiet, and he should be alone, well on his way to the next person on the list he keeps stored in his own head.

he's not. somebody jostles him, and cain's jaw flexes around grit teeth. they duck into an open doorway overshadowed by an arch - and realize far too late that someone is just coming out, keys jingling in their hand. at least they avoid stumbling over him.

@phantombs​​: ∗ 53﹕ sender  buys  receiver  a  drink  at  a  bar . || 100 nonverbal prompts (accepting)

“This is definitely the furthest I’ve been away from home.” In recent memory, that is. Limbo works in mysterious ways that she won’t ever bother to try and understand, and while she has known for a while that it can take her to places far away, this is an extreme she hadn’t considered. It should bother her more that there’s no guarantee she can open the same rift again to return home, but she’s far too gripped by the notion of trying new drinks. So she asks Cường to take her to a bar, whichever one he pleases, and to try not to get her too drunk. She’d like to remember the experience.

             Through slow breaths strained through gritted teeth and laboured steps, she finally finds herself standing at the threshold of an apparently nondescript storefront. Wriggling at the back of her mind, a rather grim and cumbersome aura offers her solace. For someone like her, anything out of the ordinary is a crutch, the only constant that she knows. The energy is far from oppressive but it clings to everything like sap, heavy and viscous. She hates to admit that she is starting to feel like an unfortunate insect ensnared in amber, and the sentiment appears to be shared amongst almost everything else within the vicinity.

              While, standing there weighing her options, she shudders under the weight of the ache, which stretched across from her left shoulder over her spine and tapered off where ribs would begin. A shawl she pilfered from a clothes line on her way, does an adequate job of obscuring the crimson slowly blossoming through issued outerwear. Even with the nagging doubt and second thoughts that pass by like passive aggressive remarks, the dread of not being able to rid herself of the affliction wrought by the ire of a scorned ghost outweighs whatever inhibitions that reared its head beforehand.

             With a solid push without mind for decorum, she enters the shop and her eyes rove past shelves stocked with tinctures, salves, and raw ingredients to find the shopkeeper huddled away, stowed within the comfort of the dark. She ventures deeper into the shop and only stopped when the soft ambient light fixtures surrender their reign over the space, just cutting short before the front desk. Upon close inspection in the dimly lit corner of the room, she detects the gleam of sweat across his brow and down the gentle slope of his nose. The sweetened scent of herbs fade when she is suddenly greeted with the iron-like stench of blood ( not of her own, apparently ) and an earthy musk. Something rumbles. From there, she gleans the man’s curse, it emerges forth like a slant of moonlight peaking through the dark wisps of clouds in the night sky.

               She leans forward, pressing her palm against the edge of the counter and draws the stolen shawl tightly around her shoulders whilst drawing out a sigh. She tries not to wince at the aggravation induced by the fabric rubbing against her roughly hewn flesh. 

               ❝Have I come at a bad time?❞ 

He hadn't carved into her, no, but had cruelly rended. In fact, plundered he had. He'd gnawed in ferocious, fangs drank deep where her sinew throbs, and wherever they gouged, He declared it home – even inside her ribs. Even into her heart, weeping and hemmorhaging want. Yes, that's the verbiage: she surrendered. He won. Still, infatuated with the midnight moon, she struggled, scrabbled, and crawled back onto her feet. Why? She approaches, puttering through the autumn-gold woods. He leans there watching. She whispers soft – tender as though all, all her nipping hurts, is forgiven. Huh. Incredible. "Me," his voice, deep but pinched, rumbles. "Who else would call for you at a time like this? Here? Where nothing but the stars could see us?" Come here. It's been a while. He licks his lips, famished, and inhales hard, weak – subdued, how strange! – and hungry. The tree steadying his legs dully moans. "Look at me." Now! "Who else would I let look at me like this?"

     it’s not like him to be unsure, to question the choices he makes before he makes them. confidence had come naturally to him, a steadfast belief in his actions that refused to be shifted. before now, before NIL, he had not doubted himself. had not doubted the information being fed to him, or the upgrades being sealed to his hardware. but where had those assumptions lead him? to pain. to hurt.

to his eyes being opened finally, forever, for the first time.

     doubting oneself comes naturally to humans, he has come to realize. but there is no hesitance in cường. his hands are sure about his gardener’s shears, hat tipped forward to shield the glaring sun from his eyes. NIL stands just behind and to the right of him, studies the sweet blooms as they bow in the wind. apple blossoms, he identifies, sugar-tipped and translucent white. careful, ever gentle, he draws a finger down a bud that remains closed, trails up the branch it clings to. he is still learning what it means to properly care for something.

     “ it does not make sense to cut a branch to help it grow. would it not be better to keep it in its current state? ”

He feels her for miles. It's difficult not to. She's like a whisper of a breeze as it were, the ones he favors quite particularly, bogged with their honey and the salt off seas. He imagines her footfalls come sauntering out a meadow. He waits by its edges with its marigold bushes – and dares a step, corralled, evidently, by that soft, familiar ringing in his skull.

And it dawns suddenly upon him: birdsong, the one that trills dainty when the sun breaks fragile.

Oh, Cường knows spring mornings. Cường knows Yeongmi. He follows that fate-steeped pull, long surrendering to its call, and turns quick around the chintzy bakery. Where? he wonders. I know you're nearby. I know how you sound. I chase you sometimes. You know that. His eyes scour. The crowded streetside throbs. Is she out here bumbling and searching, too?

Yes. The music grows. A woman meets his gaze, startled, chest drumming with breaths, and the words again butterfly-swarm his head: familiar. I know you. Bright like sunshine and cool like rain. It's–

She bolts. Cường steps, slow and mesmerized, perhaps, as the birdsong in his belly rallies. It's been a while. Several whiles. She leaps, landing where his heart whittles away at its bony cage, and Cường remembers the smell of fire when last they were together. The crowd grants them berth. Her fingers brush his nape. His nose meets her temple, kissed by the sunlight she was wandering beneath.

Wandering, "All this time, to me?" he rasps, devastatingly soft. His arms wrap at her back, and her ankles hook before they settle back onto the earth. Are those tears? He won't question. "You made me wait a while. That's rude of you. Winter after winter, I sat about waiting."

For green. For flowers to bloom again. For sun on my skin and a laugh like swallows. He holds her tenderly. Her heart roars his, and he smells none of ash or fire. No goodbyes. Yeongmi: "Don't make me wait anymore."

Her memories return to her once adulthood hits; since then she had been looking. She’s still young, now, her body much more clumsy then her mind, aged suddenly with the recollection of who she was: alive again. Again. Alone.

Grasslands kiss her bare feet, the texture of different trees, flowers of different flavours. A home to her away from home. Traveling, looking, wandering, for a face she still had yet to remember.

It was the feeling.

Soft hands with roughed fingertips, tough from their connection to the soil.

It was the scent.

Fresh bread on a simple Sunday evening. Citrus tea in her lungs and lavender on her lips. She knew it well. From somewhere.

She knew his name.

He was here, somewhere her feet had danced her through the dew-kissed meadows, into the streets of an unfamiliar town. Everything was so different now. Her memories of the past, of coal, of hand sewn cotton, confused with her current memories of polyester, cellphones, and fast bikes. But she knew him. He was constant. The music grew louder, and the tug pulling her forward almost unbearable. Close. Somewhere. I’ve been searching for you. Where are you?

There. Hair black like the midnight sky, he was cool summer twilight even in the brightness of midday. She knew him. “Cường.” The name and the face connect and she runs. 

And she clashes. And she hugs him. A familiar feeling, a comfort she had been missing. The last time she had felt these arms, her soul had been consumed by the heat of flames, choked by ash. Tears run down her cheeks, relief, sorrow, and joy bursting through her lungs at the voice she knew so well.