*MAXIMUM_SPEED.

and this is why he hates himself. he denounces feelings as soon as they arrived, wrecking havocs in ways inconceivable. this is why he detests emotions: they’re nothing but hassles. his incapabilities to cease the exhibit of apparent melancholy are almost too risible to even be retained in his body. this is a flask, poured into the goblet of chastity, stripping himself to the point empty. of course, juwon would be able to see that all the time. it’s like being bare all over again, his body a subject to perusal, except juwon would fixate on his chest as his heartbeats thud irrevocably. he cannot deny the bloom, he cannot deny that he also wants it to rot.

juwon has always been this sultry looks that demand an escape.

and so, juwon ran. leaving a gaping exit wound for uriel, for he couldn’t contain a man that was too scared to admit anything. so, again, retains a semblance of composure this time; his bitterness should not ruin this mission. he’s never let himself fail, or else juwon would see him for his err. the inability to fight the product of their aftermath. he’s not letting his own subconscious breach past the floodgate. hence, he calms himself, ignoring the fact that juwon’s subconscious might have been piqued into hostility over the issue.

the question, again. uriel is tempted to roll his eyes, but that feels too juvenile. he parts his lips, but juwon interrupts. later. yes, there’s always later, as if juwon would give him any hopes. that’s why he’s also hanging onto a filament at this point. juwon seems to know all the good place to spread the filament thinner and thinner, like this one question — as if he knew that uriel has been battling the decision for months and months, ever since the time the creed recruited juwon based on his testimonies.

juwon, by far, is one of the best forgers he’s seen around. dreamwalking does not just come naturally, but juwon makes it so effortless, sometimes. the transformation happens in a blink of an eye, and he suppresses a sigh when juwon asks for his opinion. he despises appraisals directed towards juwon; it makes him feel like admitting defeats. the simple question carries more weight than what’s perhaps intended.

what he gives juwon is not even a glance, but gazes that lock. juwon knows, he’s certain. doesn’t mean it alleviates the weight roped around his sternum. “great,” is all that he can manage to muster, eventually. “go ahead, then.” he crosses his arms across his chest, feeling defensive as he realizes his own gestures. he acts like he’s absorbed in the displays before them, then, not really caring of what they are. in the corner of his peripheral view, he notices juwon, now acting as the target’s father. he ambles closer casually, before passing them by to eavesdrop on them. seated, then, he surreptitiously observes the exchange, with the mark falling into the snare so easily.

The conversation is meaningless. There’s words but no real content, and he isn’t able to retrieve anything useful. It doesn’t help that he feels all pairs of eyes on the two of them, both in the crowd and outside of it. His mind runs and runs till he realizes the silence between them. He can’t remember if he’s supposed to reply, or waiting on the mark to speak. 

“Dad.” The quiet breaks, and something else does too. “Dad, you can be honest with me. You know I’m your favorite daughter of the two.” 

Juwon chuckles, completely in character. “What do you mean? I’m still not understanding you, Jin.” 

“I’ve seen enough to know.” 

His words come fast, now disgruntled. “You’re still speaking like you’re sixteen, in some sort of morse code. Speak in a language I can understand.” 

Youngjin looks at him — looks straight through him. “I know you’re keeping it from yourself for me, and for Youngmin too, but... it’s in your eyes, dad.” She places a hand on his cheek, in some sort of gentle violence. “You’re wearing a mask you aren’t sure you want to wear anymore. You can wear a face all want but your eyes will always tell enough. Enough for me to know.” 

He doesn’t have to ask what.

“You’re still in love.” He holds a breath. “You just don’t want to admit it.” He forgets to let it go, until his chest kicks out. 

Her hand drops from him, and instead to her lap. “Youngmin and I don’t care if you get back together with mom. We’re grown up and adults now, not your sixteen year old twins anymore, you know.” She brings their eyes together again, and he feels too bare, and much too read, by this complete stranger. He doesn’t know how to close the door, when all his eyes seem to be is awfully honest. It makes him wonder how much worse then his hands will be, as he gathers them into fists. 

“I’ll see you at the family dinner, hm?” Youngjin gets up from the bench first. Her heels clack a few steps before they turn around. “... maybe with mom, this time?” 

Juwon waits till the mark disappears into the crowds again, before he too, stands up. When he does, heads turn towards him, eyes burning into him. It’s not till he exhales that the museum scene continues to unfold, and he slips himself back into the scenery. His facade fades as he passes each art piece, until he comes to an installation of just a plain mirror. He faces his reflection again, this time, completely of himself and no one else. 

He stares at his own eyes, and tries to fool himself. 

the forest hums its familiar tune, warming up for the gentle rustling that eases him to sleep in the hufflepuff dormitory. kyungsoo could name all of her pieces, down to the opus and number. each movement is as recognisable as the rhythmic in-and-out of his breathing. he’s always more at home here, bathed in sunlight with the earth in his hands. it’s why he scrambled to secure a spot in care of magical creatures this term, even before his core classes, and petitioned both the head boy and head girl of his house to put in a good word to their professor. in his first year, he’d been teased for these owlish eyes, but they’re as much a tool to use to his advantage as his wand. 

besides, they’ve been taught to use all resources available to them. it’s only in the spirit of the school’s mission. 

“i am punctual,” he argues with a half-pout, wrangling the tied-up plimpy into a muggle contraption of plastic that he’d brought from home. his mother had bought it for him several years ago, and though it was originally meant for butterflies and beetles, it works rather well to contain plimpies and bowtruckles. “doesn’t matter if you make it jus’ in time, as long as you aren’t late.”

a little yip escapes him when juwon tugs at his ears, a gesture so terribly childish that kyungsoo wouldn’t hate to see it again. he can count on all of one hand how many times he’s seen juwon smile, and it’s not awful. he should smile more often.

after shoving his socks and shoes back on, kyungsoo throws his robe over a shoulder and ducks away from juwon’s wand. his threats are almost always just that, seldom more than a friendly warning, so kyungsoo grins and knocks shoulders with his friend, emerald meeting marigold for a brief moment.

“we can get ten pumpkin pasties and toffee eclairs,” he murmurs lowly this time, gaze cheeky and conspiratorial as they make their trek out of the forest. twirling his wand between his fingers, kyungsoo hops respectfully over a fairy ring and holds the container with his plimpy close to his chest. “i’m mates with the house elves, y’know? they don’t mind me watchin’ ‘em work. it’s loads more fun than potions class, that’s for sure. i’ll introduce you to ‘em! i bet they’d like you.”

Sometimes he wishes for Kyungsoo to take him more seriously and read into his words. He thinks it’d be easier that way, for whatever happens in the future -- for him to have at least known the warnings.

“Was that a joke, or are you seriously oblivious to the culture around here?” His walk is quick and steady, but always a step behind in waiting for the other. “The house elves hate anything green, even themselves sometimes. And, especially Slytherins.” As if on cue, the edge of his robe gets caught on a branch, as he tugs it off with a grunt before rejoining Kyungsoo. 

They escape the forest, emerging back to the grounds of the school. Juwon leads them through the path and then into through the main back door, up five sets of moving stairs till they arrive to the main dining hall. If the looks their companionship had bothered him in the beginning, they were less painstaking now, and more so expected. 

The hall is more or less empty, with just a few stragglers like them. As expected, most of the food on the tables are gone, but they take a seat somewhere and he passes Kyungsoo a plate, until he sees someone and immediately hides behind his own plate. 

“Shit.” 

ichigo ichie: encounters that only happens once in a lifetime, reminding to treasure every moment, for it will never recur

- in the bgm of you were beautiful (예뻤어) - day6 

1. 

“너 아직 이혜리 좋아하냐?” 

It’s not a question he expects. He doesn’t mean to, but he sits there for a while, dumbfounded by the question. He’s even less sure how to answer it, and purposefully avoids his eyes. He’s not sure what is so scary about what he feels, but he has no intention of confronting it. 

“그럴 리가 있어?” 

There’s a exasperated laugh to cover up whatever he was feeling, as he finishes the cup in front of him. Even now, his eyes haven’t left her, watching her from behind. She’s moving a lot, from here to there – always changing yet never anyone else. It’s all wrong, and he can’t bring himself to understand himself and what he feels. 

He’s not sure he wants to understand. 

He pours himself another glass when Hyeri yells towards him, waving a hand to get his attention. She’s pointing to the screen in front of her, showcasing her latest high score. There’s so much going on around them, and then there’s always her.

“뭐…”

Somehow, always her. 

“그럴 수가 있더라.”

2. 

She brings him to the top of the hill, as high and as far as they can reach on their feet from the city. 

She smiles, and something hurts.

The sounds of the universe are far from discreet, and they converse and love in colors in a black and white world.

3. 

“잠깜… 지금 몇 시지?” 

Hyeri asks over the phone, and there’s enough background noise for him to understand that she’s somewhere outside. There’s some more static and he tries to place her in their world, listening to the cars and people that seem to be around her. 

“몇 시긴. 나 볼 시간.” 

“원오빠… 계속 징그럽게 굴래?”  He hears her smiling through the phone. He’s got a grin of his own, and he wonders if she hears it over the line. 

“뭐 뻔히 좋아하는 얼굴 하고 있을텐데. 빨리 오고는 있는거야?” 

“씁. 또 징징데네, 이 사람.” 

“이 사람은 뭐야, 좋아하는 사람한테. 정없게.” There’s a moment where they both withhold a breath, and he realizes he’s spoken too quickly and used the wrong words. But he doesn’t dare regret it, because he’s stopped doing that a long time ago. “이름불러줘.” 

Hyeri doesn’t hesitate. “강주원.” 

He does.

He places his face into his hands, with a breath that escape from him, and into the phone. Even if she already knows his cluttered thoughts, he’s always tried harder to keep at least one or two away from her. But he keeps one or two away only to have three or four slip, enough for her to read him bare and without questions. 

“알았어, 지금 2호선 타러 왔으니까 좀만 이따 봐. 그럼 끊는다—”  

“혜리야.” He knows better than to hold on but he does. It’s so weak and human of him and again, he knows better but better doesn’t seem enough and he doesn’t want to listen to the logic. 

“응, 왜.” 

Instead of a reply, he listens to the world around her again. The traffic, the passing conversations. No matter how many times he re-thinks and re-contemplates it, he arrives at the same conclusion: existence.  

“뭐야 오빠, 대답해주면 얘기를 하던 뭘 해야 할거 아니야.” 

“나도 한 번 그냥 불러 보고 싶었어.” He wants to exist in her world, exasperatingly and overbearingly, because she fills his own just the same, to the edges of its brim. 

“…오늘 진짜 이상하네. 또 술 쳐먹었어?” 

“아니.” 

There’s silence between them again, and they simply exchange it. He just hope she doesn’t misinterpret it. 

“오늘은 해 뜰때 까지 같이 있어주면 안될까?” 

This time, she’s the one that falters. He’s being cruel asking it, and she lets him do it every time. He asks it because he knows the answer; the same response she gives him every time — no matter the changes around them, no matter the differences in between them. 

His voice quickens. “아니다. 빨리 오기나 와.” He smiles into his words again, although without the candor. “왠지 모르게  보고싶으니까.” 

he’s still a hollow vessel. imagine, staring back into the mirror unable to identify the face looking back at you— he’s a chrysalis stomaching nothing if not this vast empty. but what is new, what is changed? nothing. the induced tremors upon realizing that he’s still a stranger for himself after all this time… his sternum is bound to the tremble. shackled, tethered. teeth of the night sink in, and he waits. wonders if they will ever fill the craters of his ruins with liquid dopamine.

maybe this is wishful thinking.

well, it definitely is. the void isn’t going to fill itself, it seems, so he relents. fiddling with possibilities. the axing thought is schemed around a plan that has been a constant incisor. the creed has classified it under file delta: an operation pushed down under, almost to the backburner considering the fact that the project is subordinative. this is almost obsolete. he’s brushed over the shadows a few times, it feels. the target has always been elusive, the mutation telltale. this time, he’s determined to not loose the knot, knowing that within the second he’s in the presence of the target, he will have to lock the standpoint.

one year, three months, two days. he believes the man has ever been in his perimeters at least twice. always managed to slip, at least both times. it is almost shameful. he is not used to having failures clattering behind his gritted teeth. this is the trophy for himself, sculpted via psyche so stubborn he doesn’t know how to bend.

this is almost purposeless. it is not like the creed still cares; the case has been dropped weeks ago, the loose mutant serving none in their chalice. enhanced speed — of course, there is no need for such deviance within their rank. the abundance of the mutation has been infesting the creed just fine. but this, this feels personal. and he knows that this mark is around, in seoul. the clandestine reports on sightings of the mutation have been caught on his radar.

tonight, he’s putting an end to this restlessness. first, narrows down his options, which proves to be another latticework entirely. the target is, of course, faster than he can ever be… but it proves as such considering the absence of face. he believes that the information is retained, detained. there’s something that the creed is hiding from him, but isn’t that another routine? some of the leads given sometimes are counterfeits, too. he’s always been placed in a test. again, again.

again.

he puts on his jacket, snatching the essentials. vacating the edifice, he heads straight to his first point suspected. calculated the cardinal points of the man’s probable locations; he believes the latent motives of someone escaping another organization, they shouldn’t fall far from somewhere indistinct. and to hide, being nondescript… the target is good, but idris would like to believe he’s better. he’s faced mutants like the target prior. many, many of them. he senses their shadows before they sense his presence, so by that measure, he’s about thirteen steps ahead of them.

except when the place is crowded, the shadows merge. it grants both of them anonymity, sure, and he’s certain that if the target is already made aware of the creed coveting his head, the target wouldn’t be that… reckless. or so idris believes. he might have miscalculated the man’s intelligence.

one. that’s the name. almost ironic, considering the singularity of the target’s presence. he’s tempted to scoff, mind approximating the latitude, longitude, now. in the core of this black market set underground, the buzzing place is a location intricate to track. he is somehow guided by instincts. there is no radar, just this visceral lead that carries him to this point. and that’s when he spots the target’s back.

it fits the description of the target once briefed. the creed refused any further investigation, but upon pedantic observation of what has been given, idris is able to discern other features. not exactly standing out, the man is bargaining something with a woman behind a stall. a communication device, perhaps.

there are eyes on him, then on one. he feels somehow distinguished. furrowing his eyebrows, the peculiar feelings rise. the hair on the nape of his neck stands, reminding him that this close, the target resembles his own from the back… almost. he’s seen his own reflection through the mirrors in the training chamber too many times, to the vortex of confusion. it feels surreal. he can feel the influx of unease, but he lets the shadow underneath the target tangle itself surreptitiously around the man’s ankle. tendrils of black that secure, fastening the man so that he is cut off any escape possibilities.

the woman behind the stall notices him prior to the target. she looks startled, and when the target turns his head to determine the source of tacit shock, that’s when idris realizes as to why

they’re a dichotomy. one’s face is his own.

he has never felt so stripped all of a sudden. nowadays, nothing can really catch him off guard, but this one certainly does. his mouth agape, but he doesn’t loosen the furtive attempts to keep the man anchored to his own shadow. he schools his expression to that of feigned normality, and smiles. “oh, here you are,” he says with tints of unhinged familiarity. his rapid heartbeat betrays him, sure, but he’s always been an exquisite actor. “i’ve been looking for you everywhere. thought i lost you in this market—“ he hums, head tilted as he casts a look at one, then the woman. “are you done?”

He’d be lying if anything had felt right in place the past half year. 

He finds himself searching for something he doesn’t know, and that’s what is so mad about the entire notion of it. How did one begin to look, more or less, start to find something if it could possibly be anything? 

He feels lost even in this weekend market he’s explored a hundred times and twice again. Even the merchants that should be familiar to him all feel unusual, the only bits he’s able to keep as habit being the actual art pieces surrounding him. And so that’s what he does, every weekend, trying to find bits of the puzzle he’s fitting together forcefully, no longer caring how the edges would come to ruin.

It’s not a painting he’d normally gravitate towards, but it catches him off guard from the corner of his eye. By the time he’s walked to it and asked the seller of its whereabouts and maker, he knows it’s the one to bring home with him. The colors painted on are all off and the picture strangely isn’t of anything particular. The streaks are too rough along the edges and the frame it’s held in needs refinishing. And yet, it felt like the painting that had led him here.

“Oh, here you are.” 

Juwon ignores the other’s voice the first time — because he’s sure it isn’t directed towards him. It’s at the second call that he responds, head turning first before the rest of his body followed. He stares directly at himself, confronting his own mirror image.

"I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” 

He resists the urge to immediately react; his body moving without thought. It feels something like being caught in between a bad dream and a lucid one, but it’s the exact words he’s wanted to hear for some time now — just not from his own splitting image. 

“I wasn’t, but clearly I’m done now.” He manages to hold onto some bit of reality, holding onto his voice too but just barely. His eyes are quick to scan their environment and surroundings — there’s too many people, and whether that’ll be an advantage or not, he’s not sure of yet. “And where are we going, exactly?” He has a hard time meeting the stranger’s eyes, because they aren’t estranged at all. 

Everything is familiar and not at the same time, and it makes him regret not taking a better look at himself this morning in the mirror before leaving the apartment. 

He remembers the situation and bows his head towards the woman, offering a calculated smile. “Thank you for all your time, it seems as though I’ll have to come back to buy this painting a different time.” He isn’t able to see the woman’s response as he turns, barely lifting a foot to step away from the scene. It’s the first time he has to take a look at his own feet, unable to move them to his wishes. 

It’s the first time in a while that he’s had to remind himself how to run, even walk — with his own shadows being the force keeping him from moving forward. 

Juwon moves himself further away from the main crowds of the street market with the stranger, each step taken only when the other allowed it. Everything is heavy with the air even being dense in between them. He feels smothered by something he can’t quite describe or begin to understand — just able to lift his chin to take another look at the other.

“So.” He swallows down whatever’s caught at his throat, stopping when deeming that they had gotten far enough, to a space where only the two of them existed. “When are you going to tell me what you are?” His words are chosen carefully, as he locks their gaze. Everything is all right and all wrong, and the space between them is just the same. 

He doesn’t want to say who, afraid of naming the other in case it would mean having to ask his story. 

and this is how everything unfolds: remaining calm proves to be a harder task, inundated with the weight of his own subconscious threatening to break out of the chrysalis, this dream naught if not everything that he’s come to despise. years, and years. he cannot forgo the memories, still, specifically as he enters the exhibition to stand in front of the painting. he knows it by heart, each color representation of delicate, meticulous works. hours spent on perfecting just the pedantic perfection that only he knows how to replicate. he’s stared at it long enough, if not too long.

this is how he dissected his own dreams, each hue of brown and yellow embodies the way he loves… loved juwon. the bathed breath a skewed angle in the way he observes, tilting his head slightly as if admiring this replica made solely by the mind. the specks, constellated. the expression, mimicked. this susurrus of dreams a metaphor for everything that he’s ever stood for, and for that, out of trivial bitterness, he asked juwon to meet in front of this painting. he’s moved past klimt since the day he swore off the inebriation, but then, in retrospect, he cannot forget. what a risible intent.

juwon has yet to arrive, and for that, he cannot stand across this painting longer. he scoffs, wallowing in self-pity as the feelings resurface would do him no good. the process of drowning in an ankle-deep ocean is impossibly simple when he’s a product of emotional flood. he cannot stand there anymore unless if he wants his own subconscious to rupture past the layers constructed at such a notch. he’s not about to fracture his own professionalism with these… useless thoughts. for that, he begins to walk away, exiting the hall to follow a flock of tourists.

being furtive is of no peculiarity, and he can feel it, the eyes that threaten to stare at him in case juwon loses focus on the dreams. he merges into the sea of foreign faces, following them aimlessly, from paintings to paintings. vukoje comes next, he’s just following the abstract structure that he’s implanted into their minds based on memories. the lanes that only grow elongated. he knows it would irk juwon, but he’s not here to make juwon’s work easier. when he’s being pulled by the shoulder, the reflection of a man that’s frantic enough to pull him away from the crowd is almost… amusing.

five minutes. would juwon entertain the projection of uriel that long if he harbors nothing at all towards uriel? well, who fucking knows, and uriel is not about to fall into the trap of indulging in what-ifs. he quirks an eyebrow, looking petulant himself. “you’re late.” his statement is absolute. “have you located the target while conversing with your own subconscious?” his question is pointed, serrated. perforating, to say the least. wonders, for a short moment, as to why juwon would do that to start with. of course, juwon would remember that it was their favorite painting, their first meeting a reminiscent buried in an open-casket funeral.

uriel locks his gaze on juwon, now. “let’s get this done and over with. remember, this is a test,” he speaks sternly, letting no emotions betray his tone. “i’m not here to make your job easier.” and he’s there to get a confirmation, to say the least, so he saunters towards vukoje’s painting this time. the faded shade of sepia background for their next conversation. “extract, distort, implant,” he reminds juwon, as if he hadn’t for the umpteenth time did so. “the most resilient parasite is an idea implanted well. if it’s lost under the weight of other happenings in this setting, we’re as good as dead. find him before his subconscious realizes this is a dream. i gave you the base. it’s up to you how you want the scheme carried out. treat me like an outsider.”

and he feels it, the pull of his own subconscious, another shape of peril that might sear this plan. he walks towards another hall, then. “beuys is his favorite. he might still be somewhere in the chambers.” when his eyes meet again with juwon’s, he expresses nonchalance. “you know how to navigate the landscape. i’ll follow you.” this time, he sounds weaker, not by much but he can feel it that he berates himself inwardly.

“I know.” I know, I know. 

The words slip in between his teeth, settling at the tip of his tongue. He catches himself before he can make any more unnecessary conversation, because it was the unsaids that defined their relationship, and he wasn’t ready to change that in this moment. They never talked things over, because there wasn’t anything to talk about; this was the lie that he held somewhere within him — the fallacy that was threatening the entire dream’s collapse. He was one step away from making enough mistakes than he could afford right now. 

"I want you to answer this one thing truthfully for me. Do you want me to fail this job? No — what I’m trying to say is...” He locks eyes with the other, searching for answers more than anything. “Tell me if you don’t want me on this team, and I’ll fuck off, Uriel.” The words come more bitter than he intends to be. For a moment, the space between them feels greater. He lets another minute pass before breaking their gaze, only noticing that he had been holding his breath during that entire time.

“Answer me later.” 

He grabs Uriel’s wrist, not asking for permission as he pulls them away from their current location. He moves them two floors up to the modern art exhibits, where they find the Beuys’ installation. Juwon doesn’t bother to hide his disgust at the art displayed around them. He wasn’t sure what irked him so much about modern art, but it was something along the lines of simple 

He looks down the hall, the crowd becoming a blur of moving nobodies. It takes him a while to locate their mark, but when Juwon does, he immediately changes in posture. He turns to a portrait hung near them, using it’s reflection to observe his own mirror image. The next time he blinks, his own face has been altered, to someone a bit older with much more power and status. It’s his own take on the mark’s father, who he’d be using to approach. 

He allows himself this one thing, and it’s leaning closer to Uriel for a brief moment. “Well? Do I look alright?” Even his voice has changed, and for some reason, it makes this easier — he feels more himself in someone else’s clothes at least in front of Uriel. 

“You can at least grant me one glance, right?” 

He hasn’t failed to notice the way Uriel sneaks glances at him. It’s always been this way from the beginning, and even now when they were dreaming together. It’s the same feeling every time he locks eyes with Uriel. Uriel stares at him, and he simply stares back because he doesn’t know what else to do — doesn’t know how to put a name to this. Uriel’s got him caught in between: he wants to run, then run, and run further all while he thinks maybe all he wants to do is run straight back towards him. 

a dream in a dream. to be exponentially honest, baring himself piece by piece, he has to concede to his own lament over taking juwon in for the feelings still harbored. by far, the feelings have been the most overwhelming, threatening to spill out of his mouth. it’s feral, barbaric, all the intents that speak in syllables he cannot decipher. call it love, call it lust. whichever— he doesn’t care about the difference. not anymore. and feels naked every single fucking time after juwon is tethered to uriel’s subconscious, watching as the feelings had prior to all this, prior to juwon’s leaving, unfold before juwon’s eyes. it’s like witnessing some carcinogenic metastasis after being told, a long time ago, that it would be nothing if not benign. he’s dying with each reminder that he has to restrain in every mission: juwon, exiting the scene to never come back. juwon, vacating the stage to never look back.

and tonight, the creed lets him dive into juwon’s mind. the vessel is reversed, and uriel is nervous. not because of his architecture, no. he’s doing just fine with his job. it’s more about the fact that he’ll be able to confirm that juwon has never been in love with him anymore since that damned day. tonight, all his thoughts, they will all be a reality, transformed. he can no longer indulge in the what-ifs when the facts are checked. how can he retain the lies told every time he looks at the reflection in the mirror, telling himself that this, too, shall pass? an old saying retained from a religion long-forgotten, he still bleeds each time, the verse nothing more than a facade of void. nullified, this is nothing if not the aperture of self-preservation acts. he’s just lying, lying to himself until he grows too weak to come up with new excuses. the what-ifs wither at the base of his skull as long as he enters the chamber, now, with the man that has fallen for their tricks.

the mind is a trap.

as much as he wants to concern himself with juwon’s ability to perform it, he’s more caught up in the story rimming its edges. typically, they would be unreachable for the subject, in this case the victim. however, uriel has dreamwalked for long, long enough to tilt the balance, seeking weaknesses in others’ heads without being noticed, and he’s certain that juwon is aware of this. this is a test. juwon’s first extraction by himself, with uriel to watch his back. he is a plan b, tonight, so he can afford walking on a tightrope that would bring him across, towards the subconscious that buries the memories of them. they did not speak during the trip, the tinges of bitterness still outlining uriel’s choice of words whenever he’s around juwon, sometimes inscribed in sarcasm uncalled for.

they’re seated in a vip room borrowed for the sole purpose of conducting this business. how to get wealthier, the man asked— and of course, the creed lied. and now, uriel lies, for to erase the fear of risks would be too much. no one can be so impenetrable, not even the creed, not even himself. he lets juwon do the rest of the work: injecting anesthesia into the man’s veins. diluted, the man is fast asleep on the chair, and as juwon closes his eyes, uriel does, too. naturally falling asleep, they enter the crooks of juwon’s first layer of the subconscious. this is uriel’s design: the arching bridges, the towering edifices. they’re about to enter the realm of the man’s subconscious to extract ideas, concepts. fears. stored memories. he lets juwon deal with the man as he constructs the snare, creating streets after streets to ensure that the man cannot escape.

He wakes standing in the middle of a crossroad. 

His steps bring him forward, with the only thing on his mind the thought to find Uriel. It’s the cityscape they had studied for hours, learning the city’s in and outs and then relearning them only to study them again another time. The space around him should have been more familiar than the lines on the palms of his hands, and yet — it was unfamiliar. He felt estranged in the streets of his own dreamscape, out of place and completely alienated. 

He passes by the buildings he remembers Uriel constructing, his feet faster now to follow his quickened breathing. He begins to run, because it’s what he knows best, and doesn’t dare to stop until he reaches the museum they had agreed to be the meeting point. When he enters, he immediately climbs the stairs to the third floor, turning at each cornered hall till arriving in front of Klimt’s painting. He sits down at the bench placed right in front of the work in an attempt to catch his breath. His eyes scan the room full of his subconscious, darting around to look for the other. 

“The Kiss.” Uriel says, having taken a seat beside him. “Your favorite painting.”

“Our favorite painting.” Juwon corrects, with his eyes on the artwork. 

Even for just a copy, Uriel had mimicked the painting stroke by stroke. He had watched him labor over the right tones of yellow and wrong hues of brown, all to come to this piece hung in front of them. And yet it was only a shade of the real work; an incomplete art piece missing something, even if no one could point it out.

“I thought this was where you wanted me to meet you... and I’m glad I was right.” Juwon’s voice is quieter now, just enough to fade into the rest of the white noise around them. Uriel doesn’t respond immediately. Juwon is forced to watch him instead, while the other’s eyes remained put on the painting. “I haven’t been able to find our mark yet. But I know he’s here, somewhere—"

Uriel’s voice cuts through the air. "This is... where we first met.”

Juwon’s body leans away, observing Uriel in the space. He notices the way the light hits him here, and how Juwon always continues to catch his breath to watch him anywhere. How Uriel seemed to belong here and there too, fitting just about anywhere he could dream up and imagine.  

In these dreams, it was always him; again, and again — his dreams chose Uriel. 

“Shit.” He hisses, only now realizing that this Uriel was just the projection of him. This was the problem with dreams: things always looked like something, and it was too easy to convince yourself that it was nothing short of real. 

He slips into an incoming tour crowd, only continuing to damn himself for making such a mistake. His breaths become shallow again, and as he passes through another hall, he quickly places two fingers on his neck, checking for a pulse that was too apparent, too haste. He pushes forward, now in a completely different exhibition hall. It takes him another four minutes to find him in the sea of heads, with time running faster than his feet can take him.

i don’t know. three words kyungsoo despises with every fiber of his being. uncertainty was a risk he refused but often had to take during the past several years. too many lives hung on the thread of that trio of words. too much collateral, too much traded. always, too much. whether societies survived another day, another hour shouldn’t have been left to chance, but there was hardly time to debate the logistics when war introduced randomisation at every second. no one wins a war. some people just get by better than others, and kyungsoo made his choices. 

i don’t know. i don’t know. i don’t know. 

he doesn’t take the bait when juwon comments on his handiwork. silence sits like an anvil on his tongue and welds the rows of his teeth shut. instead, he turns to a storage unit on his left and rotates through the shelves. the gears clink and thunk with the movement, filling the gaps between the low hum of the u-wing’s engine and juwon’s chatter. into the first empty shelf he tucks away his bulky bag, then scrolls through two more shelves to retrieve a vibrant yellow fruit. he hesitates for a second, and not a moment longer, before picking up a second one and tossing it in juwon’s general direction. as he walks away, eyes on the fruit in his hands, the storage unit slides shut with a smooth sound, and kyungsoo has to deal with the silence once more. 

sighing softly, kyungsoo leans against the u-wing’s hull and briefly glances towards the book still sat on the floor. (near, but never at it.) he spares juwon a look, too, before returning to the fruit and taking a bite out of it. the skin gives easily, and his teeth meet an even softer inside, sharp on his tongue but sweet on the way down. it washes away the taste of dirt and sand, of the scorching desert outside this ship, and eases the unrest in his stomach like a salve on a burn. 

“and you just.. what, followed it here? you didn’t know what it wanted, but you listened anyway?” the words escape him perhaps sharper, a bit more bitter than he means, so he chases after the sweetness of the fruit again. the war is supposed to be over; he’s supposed to have stopped fighting. lodged in the creases of his palms, the cosmos stirs restlessly. it calls to him, its song echoed in the book now abandoned in the middle of his ship. everywhere he looks it’s there, always in the peripheral of his vision and cruelly reflected in the fringes of his memory. when his thoughts turn sour, he bites into the fruit and chews methodically, the tip of his tongue darting out against his lower lip.

“it’s not a book,” kyungsoo whispers, barely, the words little more than a breath. “it’s a map.”

“Don’t look at me like that.” Juwon scowls. “Because...”

“I know you know.”

He means to sound firm, but it comes out more frank. He’s pleading, because it’s gotten difficult to bare alone. The war had ended a long time ago, but their war seemed only to be brinking at the surface. It had happened and now was past, but had never taught him the aftermath of how now to survive, heal, and rebuild from the remains. 

It was all he had known, and without a war to define him, he was just trying to find a place to belong. 

“I didn’t know what else to do but heed to it.” He speaks the truth, even if he hates himself for holding onto a feeling like it. It’s always uncertain, and he’s lost clarity on his place in the universe. “You know you’re the last person I’d come out to seek if I had any other option.”

He simply reacts when he catches the fruit thrown at him, processing what he now held in his hand only afterwards. It serves as a reminder for how he had forgotten to do the basics the past week — eating, sleeping, or simply existing for the sake of being. The book had possessed him with reawakened, old thoughts, being the only notions taking a hold of him. The foolish idea that even the galaxy wasn’t vast enough for him, being nowhere near enough to contain.

When Kyungsoo speaks, the book breathes, as if coming back to life. Juwon places the fruit in his pocket, before walking back over to the book. There’s an obvious hesitation in him, shown from even the way he was now approaching the book. He has to hold a breath when he makes the decision to open it back up, to a rather blank page with only a few intersecting lines scribed onto the edges of it. 

Jungah was perfectly fine with them both letting them slip that it wasn’t Friday, but Saturday, but then Juwon had to ruin it for her by saying the f-word.

Friends.

And now it was out there in the open, as awkward as high schooler proclaiming their feelings to their first crush in the back of a schoolyard. She was about to simply ignore it, hope that is passed because she had no idea how to deal with that kind of thing. Friends. Not that it was odd (she had friends, she totally had friends don’t take that the wrong way), but that she had never really just been… friends with a boy before.

Which made her the awkward girl who had gone to women only institutions for nearly a decade that didn’t know how to deal with boys. Except, in this case, she didn’t know how to make friends with them instead of… well, a night or two, or in Juwon’s case a longer. But now he said it out loud and it couldn’t be taken back.

She kept silent for a moment and wished she take a drink of her smoothie so she could ignore him. Something to keep her busy.

He changed the subject. Thank God.

“I’m working on it,” she stood up, walking him toward the workroom even though he was already headed that way, it seemed. “It’s weird material… You can’t expect me to know how it works with what I know. I have to make them have so it’ll be a little more resistant to… whatever it is you do.” So the seams didn’t tear or get caught on anything. She walked into the room, flipping the light on and strolling toward the only male dress form she had that the progress of his soon-to-be freak pants. “Besides, I have had had school things. That is more important.” She turned to him with a small smile, slipping her arms around the dress form. “I’m a good girl who puts school above all.”

He hadn’t thought twice about the word, just like he had thought much about coming to her place twice in one week. 

He catches a glance of her from where he is, watching her face fold in on itself. It had been her face that had caught his attention from the beginning after all, and right now -- seeing her scowl so transparently was enough to highlight the week. 

“Good girl... sure.” He snorts, lingering on the first word a little too long with skepticism. “And what exactly has kept miss good girl so busy at school then? I am just desperately dying to hear of your educational adventures.” 

Some people spoke with too much care, and others with too little. Some people talked too much and others not at all. If there was anything that he knew about humans, it was that they rarely said what they were thinking, and Jungah was just the same. Rather, it was all the things that was missing in her speech that were louder. Like how he had noticed she rarely said his name in conversation (or in bed, in that matter). Whether that was just habit of nature or to keep him out of mind and sight, he wasn’t sure.  

He makes himself at home on her couch, as if his own.

“Do you want to know what I do?” 

the galaxy bristles with every word, every breath. like grains of sand in an hourglass of the past milennia, gravity tumbles right along with them and stirs the air in his lungs. and just as the sand converges to a point, their gazes meet across the console of a nondescript K6. a serendipitous alignment of wandering satellites. like all cosmic phenomena, however, it only lasts the span of a single exhale. the grains of sand continue their descent, and kyungsoo turns back to the chaos contained in a bit of canvas in his lap. 

“you’re the one talking up a storm,” he mutters into the seemingly endless vortex that is his bag, voice no louder than the engine behind them. his stomach should lurch when the craft lifts into the air. every bit of his body should recoil from the unnatural force, but—nothing. it’s as if they hadn’t moved at all, and what really is the difference when he has torn through galaxies like one steps over puddles? unperturbed, kyungsoo rifles through his bag for a few more moments before emerging victorious, a clearly handmade device sat in his grip. barely held together with a strip of commercial adhesive, it sports an antenna no longer than his smallest finger and no less than six sensors scattered about the body. there are bits of sticky residue here and there, proof of frequent repair and modification. obsessive, but not sentimental. 

“just so you know,” kyungsoo speaks up, this time to be heard, “this bag of junk is about to save your life.”

sparing his newfound partner any explanation, he flips a switch to open the roof just enough for his hand to fit through. a furious wind dives into the K6, dragging with it the distinct aroma of a city beyond improvement and yet never stagnant. kyungsoo’s hair, already unkempt and free from any pretense of maintenance, whips around wildly in a copper hurricane. with a low thunk, he attaches the device to the roof of the car and brings his hand back inside, but not without a polite wave to the GPD officers speeding ever nearer. 

“well.” he leans back in his seat, a sharp exhale sending his fringe into further disarray, and the exterior of their K6 flickers once, twice, before donning the faded emerald skin of a GS-17. “i think you should start driving.”

“What the fuck --” 

His mouth remains gaping open, for a while at least until he realizes it. “Did you make that yourself? What kind of --” He gets cut short from the blasts soon following them, a few making contact with the back bumper of the vehicle. “Alright, alright! I’m driving!” 

Juwon’s foot steps against the gas and the car only propels forward from then. He gets them out from the city’s center quick enough, leading quite the merry chase of three police cars short behind them. He loses one car on the highway, just from speed, and another while getting off an exit back into deeper suburbs of a part of the city the neither of them were familiar with. 

His palms are beginning to slip, from the sweat matting between his skin and the wheel he’s barely got a grasp on. He shoves his hands onto his shirt one at a time, haphazard in his motions to wipe them down. He takes a turn at one wrong corner, in the fleeting mistake of misjudgment. 

Shit.

The engines screech into a halt. In front of them is walls on all three sides, residential complexes closing them in. His eyes close for a moment, as if to try and avoid the situation in entirety. They come up to a dead end. It was the universe putting him into place, getting a little too over-fucking-confident about knowing all the whereabouts on the complexity of the city. He was playing like this was home grounds, when he was clearly just a visitor passing through, waiting for a chance to collect $200 at go.