#sugilite

Everyone knows the shady dealings the IPC engages in and influences others to do; an open secret everyone accepts without a fuss because everyone knew better—so did you, of course. IPC advertises itself as a fortune company that brings nothing but wealth wherever it touches, flourishing economies and rising empires through mere contact—gold spilling, even through cracked crevices, over dark blemishes, leaving civilizations throughout the cosmos flooded in the deluge of the conglomeration. In fairytales, this is undying generosity from nothing but bottomless hearts full of good. In this reality, you knew better than to think nothing truly comes without a few drops of blood and false promises; IPC has taken more than it has promised to give. 

But when a man called Sugilite, dressed in the finest riches only a man of his astuteness could and would ever afford comes striking in with such a curious gleam in his eyes, slowly, and scorchingly becomes your ever unassuming companion every other week, to every weekend, to now, an everyday patron, it’s hard to pass it off as some lonely man seeking attention at a bar stool, eyeing up the pretty bartender serving him white wine every thirty minute interval. When Sugilite looks at you, eyeing any open skin peeking out of your uniform, mainly that slant of your neck dripping down to your collarbones, sometimes even your clavicle if the weather was hot that day—it’s not just eyes gliding through skin driven by the haze of alcohol. It’s Sugilite, with the shadow of an entirety so beyond yourself and your mere minimum wages, looming behind the depths of his purple irises, as if stamping you as his, and you can do nothing but let him look at you like this. 

So, when he calls you over, just now, a simple flick of his wrist and a smirk placed on his face, you follow ahead, head bowed to your unwilling subservience to a power as a servile nobody. You have the bottle already open, hand tilted to pour it into his cup.

“Busy day, hm?” Sugilite stares you down, and you count the seconds on the trickle of his wine glass as you pour a steady stream. You don’t bother looking him in the face, but the feeling of his eyes racking over you was enough—“You’re not avoiding me, are you?” 

“I try not to,” you say with a forced chuckle. Then you pull the open bottle for Sugilite’s glass, your left foot already preparing to step back and turn your back on him, where you can pretend he’s not really there for the next moment, but you don’t get to get away fully. 

“No, come, talk to me for a bit. Humor me?” He doesn’t fully grab your wrist all the way, but he does extend his hand so that you feel the tips of his fingers ghost over the edge of your cuff links. 

You swallow something that comes into a thick knot inside your throat. Something grumbles in the pits of your gut, something unsettles, and you feel the corners of your lips pull into a tight, shaky smile, eyes looking past Sugilite. 

“Is there anything I can do for you?” You surrendered.

“Yes, keep me company.” He takes a bite, relishing in that tired look in your eyes. 

But you’re taken aback by his sudden candor, where he often tends to tread the fine line of subtlety that opens an excuse where you can keep distance—open-ended flirting hanging in the air awkwardly, the random connecting looks, comments thrown your way offhandedly, all of which should all be easily shrugged off. Even this, you’re sure, but his hand reached towards you, as if a child hasty to get a new toy behind the glass back—something like desperation stirs in him, you see it. The line has now been crossed; he’s grown more implicated in his piqued interest in you. 

“I think,” you bob your head about, looking around the bar and even on to the far corners of the dining place, even though it wasn’t your designated spot to attend to, “I think someone is waving me down.”

“Someone else will see to it,” Sugilite persists. His hand is now down on top of the surface in front of him, but his fingers still rake over the edge of the table, fingers pointed at you, ready to grab you if you move a little too far, “you’re attending to me right now, aren’t you?”

“Well, I don’t want to keep them waiting,” you push back, testing this new line. 

“No, you won’t be. You’re busy, with me, alright?” And he pushes right back. This shared line is now sealed, both previously established and demolished, and now, relinquished to his rights within a few words, where your only option is to agree with him. All while Sugilite also smiles along, but his eyes look darker now. You can’t tell if it’s because of the yellow dim of the bar lights that casts him in a shadow, making his face shrouded in a certain coat of unpredictability, but there’s less sparkle the more you move away from him. Your gut continues to twist and turn. 

“Alright. What do you want to talk about?” You’ve placed the bottle down next to his cup, both hands now behind your back as you try to level your gaze with him. Nothing too pointed, nothing too vulnerable. 

Sugilite tips his chin, the loose strands of his bangs shift forward, obscuring a clearer view of his eyes, but he doesn’t pull his gaze away from you, and you can map his line of sight, see how it makes its way from your lips, down to your jaw, trailing down your neck. He notices the slight sheen of sweat pooling around there, your own hair, now looser as the night goes on, sticking to you. 

“Tell me about your day, will you?” He asks, and your name slips past his mouth so smoothly, and in an accent only your mother's voice could ever enunciate. You question whether you should be flattered that he manages to pronounce it correctly, or wonder how he even knows how to, past the monotone scripture placed on your name card.

“Just work. all day, nothing that would really interest you. I’m sure you have a more exciting life than I, sir,” you somehow manage to putter about, clumsily, but it’s comprehensive enough. You clear your throat by the time you finish, feeling your mouth go dry like cotton balls had started to grow out of your tongue. 

“No plans?” He keeps up with the questions, but he roams the expanse of your bare skin, showing up from the edges of your uniform. You feel naked. 

“No plans.”

“After work?”

“Go home.”

“You’ll go home,” he repeats with you, his eyes widening for a fraction of a minute, before dimming down. 

“Yes, I will, sir.” You nod, finding yourself somehow agreeing with him, even though you did say it yourself. Was this a learned effect he learned during his time with IPC negotiations?

“So, will I.” Sugilite frankly states. 

“Of course.”

“But,” he pauses briefly, his eyes now pulled to yours. Your breath hitches, “only after my loneliness has been satiated, that is.” You see your own face reflected in his purple eyes, your face brighter than any gleaming star against a vast void. 

“The night is still young. I’m sure the company will find you soon enough,” you break eye contact, looking at the speck of sauce on the tip of your shoe. Anywhere else but here, you think to yourself.

“I’m sure,” Sugulite raises his cup to his lips, takes a sip, “I just happen to have trouble sleeping if it’s just me, all alone. The other side of the bed is too cold.” 

You don’t respond to that. How does one respond to that? How do you respond to a member of the Stonehearts vying for your attention? Is this normal? Does he do this with anyone else? Have you been marked for death? 

You begin to bite the inside of your cheek, deep in thought to decide a correct reply—whatever that may be.

The silence drags on for a few more moments. Sugilite takes two more sips, spins his cup until the contents swirl, and gently sets it down. A dull clink emits, “Have I made you uncomfortable?”

You shake your head, “Oh no. It’s me, sir. I’m just not a good conversationalist.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” his face morphs into a look you can’t quite discern, as if you could even begin to comprehend him in the first place. But his directness tonight has your heart hammering a thousand miles faster than any other time he’s pestered you about. You swallow another knot forming inside your throat, gears shifting in your head, red alarms ringing in the canals of your ears. You feel hot. 

You could lie, say no, but you’d have figured he'd sniff it out of you, which might make him more offended as you keep denying him. It’s a risky gamble on your life. 

You can be truthful: say yes. Sugilite does make you want to peel the splintering threads of cracked skin from the jagged corners of your nails, peel until it reaches your knuckles, and blood spews beneath your skin. You can say yes, you do make me uncomfortable, and Sugilite could do whatever IPC agents do best. Perhaps then, you’d find the true meaning of what it means to beg for mercy truly. 

The uncertainty of it all rattles you to your core. You’re squeezing your hands behind you, palm open, palm close, over and over again until you feel your own nails dig into your open skin.

“I liked to think we’ve gotten closer,” he speaks up again, deciding to end the silence. Sugilite finds it stifling as you do, he wills himself to admit. Whereas you want to crawl into a hole, preferably far away from him, Sugilite finds himself a bit edgy, pushed to keep digging his fingers into you. Look at you, wide eyes, mouth slightly ajar, face strewn in such discontent, how adorable, Sugilite thinks, deer in headlights. 

“By that, I meant, as close as a bartender gets with their committed patron,” he goes back to swiveling his cup into circles, giving you the brief momentary escape of his prying eyes, “wouldn’t you say so?”

You nod, “Good impressions, I hope, sir.”

He breaks out into a wide, wide smile, his nose even scrunching up, finding his ears twitching at the shaky exhale of your voice, “very good impressions! But,” he leans forward, chest pressed tightly against the counter. His face pulled towards you; you swear you can feel the slight ghost of his breath. It felt cold and smelled too much like Viognier. “I don’t make you uncomfortable, right?” 

Sugilite repeats himself. You take a long, hard blink. Air collapses between you, the balance of your world falls to one side, slanted and off kilter, gravity is all opposite, and all common sense is backward. You’re breathing backward, and something dull rings about your head, something imminent, fast approaching, the slight crawling sensation of something pricking against you. You can’t tell where, but you feel it circle your skin, feel it in you. It’s reaching patterns you can’t decipher. You can’t tell what it is, but it just is—it just exists, and you exist—he exists, this man, Sugilite, exists in front of you, eyes so purple and full of you, a smile so wicked, teeth peeking through, ready to sink into you—ready to claw at you—you see it flash, the moment he’s practically claimed you as his, and the very denials you’ve keep pushing, pushing, and pushing, only to realize it is all ignorance—

You blink again, and you snap back to your world. The buzzing never goes away, the sinking claws never stop, and your breath continues to falter. But it’s all there, gentle as a breeze, but never truly gone, just enough pressure to remind you it all continues to exist regardless. And Sugilite never pulls back, still looking, still watching, still waiting for your response as you stew away. All you see is his eyes, how dizzying it all is to gaze into them.

“No,” you finally shudder out past the tightening bars of your clenched jaw, tongue pushing against the cocoon of your teeth, close to being bitten, “you—you don’t make me uncomfortable.”

He finally pulls back and sits right back on the barstool. He looks happy, placated, with his eyes closed and a loose smile. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Of course, sir,” you bow your head slightly.

“Well, I’d like to get closer,” he says, takes another swig, smacking his lips loudly, smile never faltering, “first name basis—I mean, I already know yours, but you don’t know mine.”

“I don’t—don’t know yours?”There's a sudden reoccurrence that hits you, making you realize that there is a man behind “Sugilite”, a real living man, whoever could he be? 

“Yes. I mean, you do know who I am, right?”

You nod, something burning flashes you, scalding hot, painful. Something linear, something weary, something shriveling. Of course, I know you. I hear the whispers. I hear what others say. I hear what they fear to say out loud. 

Sugilite directs his eye into yours and blinks. And then it flashes you again, makes you all dizzy, but it doesn’t matter. What others say means absolutely nothing. Only your word matters. 

“Sugilite is just a code name, simply put. But I’d like you to know my real name. Would you mind?” he speaks so easily, so nicely, so rightly.

You shake your head, “No, I don’t.”

You should say no, really say no this time. And yet you do it anyway, your head finding it easier to go along with whatever whims than to push against a current. You feel as if you’d suffocate if you continue to deny. 

“Then I shall tell you, for us to get closer, if that’s what you want—“

You nod.

“Only if you promise to accompany me tonight?”

You nod. Your hand had stopped flexing at this point and was now sagging at your side, less guarded. Your tongue no longer knows the taste of metal pooling from the open bites of your cheeks. You find yourself looking at “Sugilite’s” lips, as he does yours—you feel your own tongue swipe at your bottom lip—you imagine what it would be like—so unlike yourself, yet you do imagine—

“That’s good. I would like us to get closer. real closer, hm? I do like you a lot.” “Sugilite” smiles. This time, something peeks behind his lips, something sharp on both sides of his mouth. And his eyes are so pulling, you find yourself drawn to them. Has purple ever been this deep? You could drown inside it.