[Fic]Butterfly Venom - 02
~February 2009
It’s a war out there! Fresh blood flows like water, appeasing their hunger and making them happy, but they’ll never be satisfied enough to stop what they’re planning. They want power and they won’t rest until they’ll get it.
He feels them coming after him, he sees them fighting their way in, hears them shouting his name and it’ll be only a second too late before he’ll be able to escape. The walls seem higher when hunger tears his veins apart. Time’s ticking too fast, they’re coming closer, he falls behind.
They catch him before he can even reach the shore.
Between the noise of the night and their screeching laugh, there’s a familiar voice that whispers close to his ear.
“Jung Yunho, it ends tonight for you!”
And everything goes black.
~*~
It’s been a long year
Since we last spoke
How’s your halo?
Just between you and I
You and me and the satellites
Do you ever get homesick?
~May 1841
I’m sorry!
If he could ever turn back time, he would.
It’s only now, when her scent no longer adorns the air of their old little town that Jaejoong realizes how much regret resides in his heart, how much he wishes for things to be different. But, the truth is, they aren’t and he couldn’t have changed anything anyway so he’ll have to accept this reality because the little gray stone he faces now hides beneath the most precious being of his life - his sister. The fact that she’s dead for over twelve years doesn’t help his conscience too much either.
His tearless eyes burn him on the inside. She was his only reason out there to consider himself somehow still human, but now, when nothing connects him with the living world anymore, he feels like a soulless corps wandering the night.
It’s hard, at first - apologizes on the tip of his tongue but no ears to hear them, cold rocks instead of warm hands, muddy writings where it should have been a melodious voice - slowly though, feelings settle into resignation and travel the air in deaf echoes. Being immortal, he realizes, should mean forgetting to get attached forgetting to feel human. But it somehow doesn’t work quite so, because he still suffers, he still misses her dearly and Pierre is not here either to smack the back of his head and tell him he’s an idiot, a weak and idiot prick. His mourning soon becomes a ritual, spending every other night at the cemetery, back pressed on the mausoleum’s hard wall, a faded picture in his hand and he doesn’t know for how long he’s been doing this when he feels it for the first time. He feels the sweet scent of remembrance, an odd appearance in the shadows. And he prepares himself for the worst, he waits for moves, for strategies to unfold, yet gets nothing in return. Just shy steps in the midnight, approaching only enough to leave traces, but never too close to actually mean something. But they do. Jaejoong knows it within the deepest of his heart and it easily becomes a habit to wait for the stranger to appear, to linger there for some moments (praying maybe?), then go back to where they came from. Tonight though, Jaejoong wants to know the beholder of the familiar scent, tonight he wants to put an end to the enigma.
For a second there, he forgets to breathe not that he actually needs to do that anymore, but yeah, he’s a drama queen when the unknown figure steps into their nightly routine, feet unceremoniously dragged behind a heavy body and clogged air surrounding the aura. It’s never been like this before. All their previous encounters happened on more peaceful terms and it concerns Jaejoong - should he go on with his plans or leave them for another day? But if life ever taught him anything is that he should never wait too long to accomplish the things he has in mind, so he steps out in the moonlight and prepares himself for a reaction. He’s surprised when he gets none, but the shock comes to a whole new level when his eyes meet the empty, big brown ones that stare at him without fear, or life for that matter. Déjà-vu could pretty well describe the situation, if not for a few facts that come to contradict the term, like well, his sister’s dead for one, two: this kind of scenario really never happened before and three: he doesn’t remember her wearing a silverish blonde hair and a gold band on her ring finger (but that last thing could have changed over the years when he was away). As the aftershock installs, he looks more closely at the ‘clone’ that stands in front of him, because he soon gets to the conclusion that this is not his sister he sees, and observers the little details that make the woman in front of him similar but still so different from his dear relative. The sharp cheekbones, the thigh line of her lips, her long neck, the different light in her eyes, these are the little parts that classify her as another person altogether. But she’s something beautiful and Jaejoong can’t help but stare in amazement - she’s his niece, there’s no doubt about that.
“Who are you?” she asks, voice as dead as the bodies in the ground. “What are you doing at my mama’s tomb?”
“This is your mother’s? I’m sorry, I must have mista~”
“You’ve come here every other night for the past few months. I think you would have caught on your mistake by now, if it was indeed a mistake. So who are you?”
Well, she’s smart, Jaejoong has to give her the credit for that, but would all the years he’s lived ahead of her (alive and undead) pay him their respects, he should be smarter than her.
“I was a friend of hers.” the fact that he really isn’t that much brighter could be considered a slight miscalculation. And if her snicker is something to go by, she thinks the same.
“Sure, and I’m Napoleon’s mother. Look young man, she was twice your age or maybe even older - are trying to tell me you knew her in your diapers and now you come here to mourn her death? Because I don’t buy it.”
“You’re not completely wrong my lady,” he cuts in, finding his opportunity “but let me correct your assumptions, for I’m not as young as I might seem. I knew your mother in my time of youth, yes. She was a friend of the woman who dared raise me as her own flesh and blood in eras of poverty and egoism. You may not know of this, being too young to remember, but she often brought you along when visiting. I may not recall your face from those times, for your features have changed and the beauty of aging has put a mark on you milady, but you sure are the mirror image of your late mother.”
The words seem easy, the lies flow like truths but Jaejoong is not sure if she’s convinced. Her face shows nothing of her feelings and he’s more than a little worried. Yet when tears start falling, her little body collapsing on the ground, he forgets everything, consequences thrown out on the window and he takes her in his arms, soothing her trembling limbs.
She doesn’t speak until much later, whispered sentences that make no sense, but Jaejoong is still with her, his lips pouring reassurance into her ears, skin touching - hot and cold - and she presses a bit closer, eventually falling asleep.
In the morning, she wakes up embracing thin air and wearing a foreign coat. She goes home, follows the events of a normal day and she doesn’t speak to anybody about the night in the graveyard. No one suspects anything amiss.
Two days later, she returns to the cemetery.
~*~
~March 2009
Wounds heal faster for immortals. They don’t even leave scars behind anymore. Two days are just about enough for the flesh to get back to its normal paleness, but it’s the holes treason of a once trusted (loyal) friend manages to pierce through that last longer, heal harder and hurt more.
He sits still in his chair, loneliness attached at his sleeves and unseeing eyes rummaging through the room. His hand plays with a silver blade, blood long clotted on its sharp surface. He never was a person of revenge, yet now his mind seems to create only images of pain and unaccepted apologies. They’ll pay, he tells himself, they’ll regret ever messing with him and when they’ll crawl at his feet, begging for mercy, he’ll spat on their faces and laugh at their agony. Jung Yunho hasn’t been born to be anyone’s fool.
~*~
~August 1945
They never really speak of ‘how’s or ‘why’s; it’s a tacit agreement, she doesn’t question, he doesn’t tell. The silence is comfortable enough for both as years come and go and mutual understanding settles between them.
The feelings came easily back then, because she needed a shoulder to cry upon while mourning the heroic death of a husband that served his duty to his country, leaving behind four dear souls, and he simply got carried away by the moment. Now they deal with the consequences. He hardly remembers who initiated this mess - he really can’t find a better word to describe the whole situation - but he realizes it doesn’t make that much of a difference now. The reality won’t change even if he’d wish for it to and maybe he doesn’t either.
He’s come to enjoy too much the time he spends with her, the euphoria she manages to inflict inside his very being every time she touches him, every time her skinny cheeks heat up at the mere feeling of his fingers tracing subtle patterns on them. This fiasco of emotions makes him go on with it all (even when it should seem so wrong).
When, oftentimes she suddenly becomes shy, she hides her face in the crook of his neck, her fingers searching shelter underneath his shirt, touching frozen skin with heated one and clothes - oh, such an irritating obstacle - morph quickly into a scattered pile in the middle of the room. They share the sheets with the soft light of the moon and make love lost in between the songs of rustling leafs. When she reaches her climax, all shaking and undone, Jaejoong thinks that it’s probably the most beautiful view he’s ever been gifted to see in his awakened years. He kisses her gently, lips barely pressing over lips while urging all rational thoughts away.
Before daybreak Jaejoong disappears like he hasn’t even been there in the first place. She wills her eyes open, unshed tears covering her lashes, and she gets up starting to dress for another normal day ahead of her.
Don’t ask what you don’t really want to know silly - she berates herself, a bitter smile showing on her face. But four years is a long time and she suspects she already knows the truth; she just chooses not to see it.
~
Eight years later, Black Death breaks free of China’s frontiers and spreads along the globe, not forgiving any country in its chase. Korea isn’t spared either and two out of her three children soon lose their lives to the mad epidemic wave - her sole boy and her youngest daughter. Alongside their marred bodies, she buries her last piece of sanity, because what mother would withstand outliving her children and still preserve her clear mind. Jaejoong stays by her side, taking care of her and the remaining daughter and fruitlessly tries to bring back the light in her eyes. Nowadays she looks so much like that day back at the cemetery when they first met, broken and hollow, and he hurts seeing her soul die little by little.
He quietly watches her, recollecting their first encounter; “He served in army for three years.” she had told Jaejoong back then after pulling herself together from her earlier break down. “We were to wait for him another two months when we received the news. I felt the sky crumble over me and the earth slipping under my feet. For a while, all I could think of was how could I speed my way towards him, but having three beautiful children kept me sane enough to get over my madness.”
She kept looking at the tomb, void and hallow and… absent. A part of her had already died that day together with her husband, but Jaejoong's appearance helped her to move on, helped her to feel alive again. Resurrecting her once was plain luck, resurrecting her twice would be an impossible miracle (and miracles were never his thing).
Jaejoong knows what’s bound to happen, yet stays with her at night, holding her limp body in his arms, thinks of her at day and prays for sunlight to die faster.
Unsurprisingly, she gets sick too, the pain and worry weighting her down, marring her health, so she sends away the only daughter left alive, in order to protect her. Jaejoong watches her from his shadows as she suffers alone and wishes there was a way to change things for better, but every dusk finds him attached to her bedside, changing the wet clothing on her forehead and forcing some food down her throat.
Nothing gets better, only worse.
He feels it even before getting there (the end), so he speeds his pace, ignoring the burning of sun’s last rays on his skin. When he arrives beside her, her sheets are soaked in sweat, her face has no more color and her body cools at an alarming speed. She smiles when she lays her eyes on him, her first genuine smile in weeks. He takes her in his arms and tears start falling.
“I’m sorry” she whispers, voice raspy and chocked.
“What for? You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“For everything, for making you go through all this, for…”
“Hush, hush my love. None of this is your fault. It was the life given for you to live.”
“Jaejoong-ah…” the sound dies in her throat, she struggles to breathe her last words and he would’ve cried if he would have had the ability to do it anymore. His cold arms cannot protect her from her destiny, but he wants to be selfish for just a moment longer and pretend it isn’t ending like this, he isn’t loosing yet another dear person to his heart.
He fights the urge to give her immortality, knowing her hatred would last an eternity and closes his eyes to erase this last image of her from his mind. He will remember her as a beautiful woman, joyful and alive, because that’s what she deserves.
“Please, take care of my daughter…” she forces out her lips and “I love you…”
November 26th, 1956 is the day she closes her eyes for the last time, lithe body numbing in Jaejoong’s arms and breath refusing to come back. He lays her to rest besides her mother in the grave, giving her an intimate funeral with all his love wrapped up in bittersweet memories. Ten feet away, on the tomb of her late husband plants grow unhindered - there’s no one to care about it anymore.
Jaejoong once more forsakes Korea, forgets about it and world forgets about him. He restlessly sleeps.
---
A/N I'm not quite satisfied with this... it will undergo major revision... but I just wanted to post something because it's been sooo long since I last posted. As of yet I still don't have a beta, so it's only my eye that went through this before posting, so pardon me if I were to make mistakes. Enjoy and please comment