SAVE YOURSELF !

   he tilted his head at her. it was her that kept bringing up his murderous exploits  —  if anything, it was behind him for him. it had been a beautiful display, showcasing the beauty of raw humanity to the rhythm of music. that had been the purpose, and it had been fulfilled. there was nothing left to discuss as far as he was concerned.

   jiwoon readjusted his coat as he walked back to the tree and sat back down on the ground. he could humour her. he wanted to know what would come of it, more than anything else. he propped one of his legs up, his wrist off his other arm resting on top of his knee.

   ❛ sit, then. I’ll keep you company. ❜  he took one of his knives out, and briefly considered throwing it into the direction of the campfire. yunjin could probably not see it from here, but he could with the eyesight he’d been gifted. instead, he threw it into a tree opposite them. he didn’t want to get rusty while sitting around.

she didn’t know why he accepted her offer. didn’t know why that fact filled her with relief, but maybe she’d put that up to loneliness, or at least trauma. yunjin had found most feelings distracting and inconvenient even before she was placed in a life-or-death situation -- didn’t want to think about them now. she sat, legs folded under her, putting a bit more distance between them then previous, enough so they weren’t touching.

she watched the knife sink into tree bark, and tried not to think about how it felt sinking into flesh instead -- hers or anyone else’s. it was a childhood instinct to curl up into her jacket and try to make herself as small as possible, one she’d outgrown, but she succumbed to it now anyway.

   jiwoon watched her for a moment. he would be lying if he said hearing her say that did nothing to him. as a matter of fact, he wanted her to say it again. louder. perhaps in a different tone. his mind was buzzing from it for a moment, before he set his weapon back down against the tree.

   ❛ what is it that you want, then? ❜  he asked her point blank.  ❛ you’re sending me very mixed signals here. I’m not going to apologise for what I did, if that’s what you’re waiting for. I don’t feel sorry, it would be disingenuous. ❜  he’d do it again, even.  ❛ I didn’t want to kill you, if that’s what you want to hear, but you were a loose end I couldn’t risk. ❜

“what do i want?” for this all to be some kind of horrible dream. for jiwoon to be the person she’d thought he was, the person she’d found and saved and fought for. for this cold to subsist -- for a fucking cigarette. yunjin tried in vain to summon up the rage that had wreathed her and protected her not so long ago, but it was gone.

“nothing you can give me, i suppose."

a loose end. she should have known, but it still stung. that after she’d staked her entire career, everything she’d built on him time and time again, and all he saw her as was a loose end to his murder spree.

“i’d want company,” and the urge for normalcy, for anything to quiet the eerie, haunting sounds of the realm and the ghosts in her bones, won out over the desire to never see jiwoon again. she folded herself into a sitting position again, abruptly too tired of posturing. “if you can manage not to bring up any murderous exploits for five minutes.”

   he let go of her hair. while he had heard her use that voice before, it was never with him  —  but it wasn’t her that his mind went to. it was his father. his father always had high expectations of him. he was conventionally pretty, he had a good voice, he picked up dance routines like it was nothing, and he still hadn’t been taken into an idol training program. the cold, disappointed tone his father would use on him whenever he got impatient with jiwoon was something he didn’t like to think about, because they usually followed things he didn’t want to think about. he could still feel phantom pain from where his father would often twist his arm, or where he’d usually hit him in the face. he was supposed to become a star, a dream his father had never managed to achieve. failure was not an option for jiwoon. all that mattered was that he became a perfect star, nothing else. anything less, and he would just be worthless.

   jiwoon zoned back in, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring into space. he furrowed his brows and then pushed her away. he readjusted his coat and picked up his weapon, slinging it over his shoulder as he turned his back to her to walk away, but he stopped. he remained standing like that as he spoke to her.  ❛ make up your mind. it doesn’t matter to me either way, because I know I will be who you’re thinking about when you’re falling asleep. while your anger amuses me, I’m not playing this game with you. I do have people here, I don’t need you. ❜  he had turned back around to her as he was talking.

   but that didn’t mean he didn’t want her  —  words left unspoken. the words spoken were meant to bite like hers had bit him, he wasn’t about to make himself look pathetic in front of her.

“wait,” she blurted out, before she could stop herself, staggering to her feet. the cold rushed back, stronger, hitting her in her bones, and she huddled closer into her coat. she’d gotten used to being cold all the time, on the very edges of the campfire, unwilling to come closer and risk interacting with the other survivors, but it hitting her again after she’d adjusted to jiwoon’s warmth made it seem so much worse. if they knew what she’d done, they’d hate her. and being close to anyone, after watching what jiwoon had done to her colleagues and almost-friends, was too raw. too much of a vulnerability. but the loneliness bit at her, more torturous than anything she’d seen in trials.

so, the logical part of  her brain concluded, if she didn’t want to be alone for the rest of a possibly endless existence, she was going to have to make nice. if this had anything to do with their history together, she was firmly in denial of it.

   odd. that was the first thought to come to mind at that sudden confession. she wasn’t talking to anyone. why? jiwoon talked to everyone  —  survivors, his fellow killers, sometimes he even spoke with the entity. it helped pass the time. they had a lot of it, and jiwoon wasn’t known for sitting still for too long.

   he supposed it didn’t matter. their loss, his gain. having her all to himself wasn’t something he would object to. if there was anyone he’d like around during this eternity, it was her. though they weren’t words he’d say out loud like that. she didn’t need to know that. any words that cascaded out of his mouth were always a twisted truth.

   ❛ you would rather talk to me, than your… allies. ❜  he twirled one of her locks around his finger slowly. she hadn’t told him to stop, so he wasn’t going to. he couldn’t suppress the chuckle that came out.  ❛ and I’m supposed to believe that you hate me, yun-jin? ❜

an immediate glare in response, although it was somewhat negated by the domesticity of their position and his fingers in her hair. she should have just kept her damn mouth shut. she shouldn’t have let him near her (but god, she misses human touch. even if it’s him. especially if it’s --.)

“i don’t have allies anymore,” she said, and she no longer had to try to summon the iciness wreathing her tone. “you made sure of that with that little performance of yours, didn’t you?”

   as yun-jin was figuring out how she felt, he tested his neck by craning it from side to side for a moment. it was as if nothing had even happened. no pain, no sensitive spots. fascinating. he wasn’t looking to make getting injured a hobby, but it was still valuable information he filed away in the back of his mind.

   jiwoon’s gaze returned to yun-jin, lips pulling into a brief smirk when she told him to shut up. he had hit a nerve  —  she knew he was right. one of his hands reached for her hair, hovered for a brief moment, before running his fingers through one side of her hair slowly. it felt soft.

   ❛ I don’t think that’s how that works. ❜  he doubted he could ask the entity for anything.  ❛ doesn’t that one old man always have one? ask him. ❜

she didn’t exactly flinch when ji-woon ran his fingers through her hair, but her entire body went tense, one long string of nerves taut like piano wire. she was thinking about how easy it would be for his grip to turn brutal, for his hands to travel down to her neck and snap it, for one of his knives to reappear. she’d never died outside of a trial before. perhaps she’d disappear forever.

she was also thinking of the dumb, naive little crush she’d tried not to pay any attention to after they’d been working together for a while, staying in late to record new albums and get coffee together after. how he was the person who probably knew her best. (how soft his hands had been when he’d propped her up in her audience chair and made sure her eyes stayed open.)

was he scared of his new god? she had to wonder, turn it around in her head like just another problem to solve -- it was reflexive. was there a way for yun-jin to use that?

   what he didn’t expect was for her to go straight for the neck. he tensed up, what would have been a scream got cut off as he reached up to cover it with his hand, it sounding more like a pained groan. the blood dripped from the wound down on his bright yellow coat. it took a moment before that rush of adrenaline kicked in, which in turn began to numb any pain he may have had from the wound. of all the things he could have done next  —  he chuckled.

   he kept his gaze on her as he pulled his hand back, moving his gaze to look at the blood instead. he saw blood all the time, but he so rarely saw his own. were they anywhere but this realm, it may have been a reminder of mortality, that he wasn’t invulnerable to the very things he did to others. but that’s not the way it was anymore, wasn’t it? he could feel the wound closing, slowly, the flesh pulling back together and only leaving his blood behind that was already on the surface. it was the opposite that he experienced; in here, he was a god.

   ❛ knew you had it in you. ❜  his voice was low, contemplating, as yellow eyes moved back to look at her. he broke out in a grin, looking at her with his blood splattered on her. so beautiful.  ❛ you and I are not that different. ❜

whatever she might have felt from driving the knife home (adrenaline, pride, relief) lasts for only as long as it takes for the wound to seal up. “fuck,” yun-jin says dully. opens her hand and lets the glittering, blood-soaked knife fall into the grass by her feet.

her chest is still fluttering up and down as she tries to remember how to take normal breaths; she wraps her bloody jacket tighter around herself.

she’s trying to find the words to defend herself, the arguments she knows she has about why she’s -- if not a good person, at least a person and he’s a monster, but her tongue feels leaden and her mind blank, as the exhaustion that comes from a good cry or a failed endeavor sets back into place. (once, she might have savored the sound of pain he made. once, she might have taken any failure as a personal affront, a reason to work harder, go home later. not anymore. how much has this realm taken from her?)